March 3, 2023 — It may seem like a nervy move to title his upcoming Organic Records debut album The Life And Adventures of Kevin Daniel, but for anyone who follows the singer-songwriter’s prolific social media, it’s close to being a no-brainer — one moment he’s by the side of the road in a broken-down van, the next he’s serving up song excerpts from a Costa Rican beach, with candid snippets of backstage video followed by snaps of dogs he’s met along the way and a never-ending stream of sometimes sardonic, sometimes bemused, occasionally sentimental observations. That makes the forthcoming project something of a musical diary, and while each entry has its own flavor, none is more gripping than the first single, “Happy For A While,” a horn-driven excursion that finds him wrestling with the sacrifices and uncertainties of devoting a life to music.
Yet while the song’s unmistakably personal lyric might justifiably be called confessional, “Happy For A While,” co-written with Skylar Gregg, is no mopey plea for sympathy, much less pity. Instead, Daniel and the mostly North Carolina crew he and co-producer Jon Weisberger assembled serve up a leisurely paced but muscular reading, surrounding his rangy voice with rhythm & blues trappings that include a solid rhythm section (including co-producer Jeremy Darrow of The Steel Wheels on bass), wailing harmonies, a deliciously retro-flavored horn arrangement and a steady build from a solo vocal opening to a full-throated final verse and brassy coda.
As Daniel observes, “I think loneliness is an inherent part of being on the road and being an artist in general. You’re in your head a lot. I moved to Nashville but haven’t spent much time here because I’m always playing shows. You meet people at shows but knowing you’re in the van again the next morning on your way to the next town makes those relationships fleeting.”
Testifying to Daniel’s songwriting and performance chops, the song gains power by contrasting the long, meditative lines of the verses, offered in the singer’s lower register, to the pithy, anguished, upper register plea of the chorus:
I need a nice fine woman
I need a good ol’ woman
For this old man
The two elements come together in the final verse, delivered in the higher pitch of the chorus over strong harmonies and full-force backing before the horns take over from the singer to deliver the final chorus without him. The result is a performance that weds recollections of the classic Stax-Volt sound to a thoroughly modern narrative by a compelling voice.
“This song is sad as hell, and I get a few laughs when people hear it because it’s so straightforward about what I’m feeling,” says Daniel. “I really am scared the way I live my life in pursuit of music is getting in the way of me making a different kind of life I always wanted — a family, a partner, and stability. I know you can have both, and I’ve seen it work with others, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about constantly going against the grain. That being said, at this point in my life, nothing is more important to me than making music, and I make all kinds of sacrifices for it.”
“Happy For A While” is available in Dolby Atmos spatial audio on Apple Music, Amazon Music and TIDAL. Allowing listeners to feel as if they’re inside the song itself, Dolby Atmos is familiar to many from its “surround sound” application in thousands of movie theaters. It is described by the respected sound technology innovator as “revealing depth, clarity and details like never before….a sound experience you can feel all around you.” Audio produced in Dolby Atmos adapts automatically to your Atmos-compatible device and system to give you an unexpected, all-enveloping sound experience.
Listen to “Happy For A While” HERE.
About Kevin Daniel
For Kevin Daniel, signing with western North Carolina-based Organic Records in 2022 represented a kind of virtual homecoming. Born and raised in the state, Daniel moved to New York in pursuit of a business career before his life was changed by the death of his mother and stepfather in a 2013 small plane crash. The tragedy spurred him to take more seriously the music he’d been playing on the side, and within a year he’d made his first recording, a 6-song EP titled Fly. The project was followed quickly by a second EP, Myself Through You and his first full-length set, Things I Don’t See, which Americana Highways magazine praised as a showcase for “Daniel’s fluid ability as a songwriter to seamlessly incorporate bits of rock, soul, country, blues, roots, and Appalachia into his thoughtful examination of pain and awakenings, visceral and spiritual.” In 2021, after returning to North Carolina, he released Been Here Before, which won acclaim from publications like Relix, No Depression, Music Mecca and more. MusicMecca.org’s review enthused that “Kevin Daniel is the modern Southern-soul-rocker you’ll wish you’d found sooner; with authenticity at the root of each song, it’s hard not to feel something when listening to his music,” while Relix noted that “Hints of Ray Charles, Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams rub up against Daniel’s gritty vocals and insightful lyrics.” Now a resident of Nashville, Tennessee, Daniel tours relentlessly when not writing, sometimes accompanied by a band, but always with a dog in tow.