A well travelled road comes full circle with "A Month Of Somedays"
Tom Hampton’s musical roots run deep into the fertile soil of West Coast country rock and Laurel Canyon singer/songwriter territory - he was the last member to join pioneering country-rock band Poco, and has released critically acclaimed music of his own since the late nineties. A few songs into his latest album "A Month Of Somedays", it’s easy to get the sense that these songs have been simmering on low heat over the course of several soul-searching years. Certainly, the drought between releases of original material has been a long one.
He released his critically acclaimed debut "Our Mutual Angels" in 1997 while simultaneously heeding the call as a session player based on his demonstrated adeptness on multiple instruments during those recording sessions. After finding himself disillusioned by the demands of driving a solo career, the transition to sideman/session player became an easy way to hide in plain sight - “For me, it meant that I could still play music in front of people, I could still make records, but I was relieved of the pressures of blowing my own horn,” he remembers.
Over the course of subsequent years playing sessions in Philadelphia and touring with John Lilley of the Hooters, Philadelphia legend Robert Hazard, the band Idlewheel (which featured Craig Bickhardt and Poco bassist Jack Sundrud) and a stint on the road with southern rockers the Marshall Tucker Band, he made several homemade albums on a recreational basis, but his focus on songwriting had taken a backseat to his instrumental craft. After relocating to Nashville and receiving an invitation to join the pioneering country rock band Poco, he felt ready to settle into his new role in a band he’d loved since his teenage years - until the pandemic sidelined the notion of touring. With founder Rusty Young’s subsequent passing and the eventual formation of the band that grew out of the final Poco lineup, Hampton rediscovered his yellow legal pad.
“I knew I’d be expected to contribute songs to the record we'd make, and that I’d have to sharpen that skill set again and shake off the rust, but it was as if I opened up a vein,” he recalled. “I must have written a dozen songs when we started collecting material for the record, and I haven’t really slowed down since.”
The resulting “A Month of Somedays” album owes as much to Jason Isbell and John Moreland as it does to formative influences Jackson Browne and Stephen Stills. The songs are character studies - honest looks at life, regret, and the passage of time that could only come from an abundance of mileage and experience. The music wears its West Coast country-rock origins on its sleeve, but rides an undercurrent of red-dirt Americana instrumentation and confessional singer/songwriter lyricism to form a unique, yet instantly familiar sonic landscape - often as character studies of other lives he’s intersected with on his path.
"Disappear" is a peek into the story of original Poco drummer George Grantham, who lived with Hampton and his family for a year while transitioning into assisted living for treatment for dementia. "Gasoline" is the meditation of a truck stop cashier whose days are spent watching everyone else en route to somewhere else while they stand frozen behind the counter, and "The Ghost Of The Girl With The Smiling Eyes" recounts an imagined conversation between an encountered stranger and Hampton’s longtime friend, legendary Philadelphia disc jockey Michael Tearson. "That Song You Used To Know" is told through the eyes of a touring musician in a band whose setlist is chiseled in stone by its long-past chart successes.
The songs touch on fleeting intimate unspoken moments during late night drives, searching for renewal and reconnection in relationships, and the struggles of balancing ones’ dreams with the need to survive.
("A Month of Somedays" surfaces in both physical and digital form on all platforms on August 13th (the birthday of one of his early songwriting heroes, Dan Fogelberg). Two singles from the record have already been released to streaming with a combined total of almost 10k streams to date with only word of mouth/socials promotion. Tour dates and extended promotional campaigns will carry through the end of CY 2024.)
tom hampton - 250 word bio
Tom Hampton’s years as a journeyman multi-instrumentalist and sideman are bookended by his origins as a singer and songwriter - he released his critically acclaimed debut “Our Mutual Angels” in 1997 before heeding the call as a session player based on his demonstrated adeptness on multiple instruments during those recordings. His path in the years that followed found him touring with Poco, Craig Bickhardt, The Marshall Tucker Band, Robert Hazard, Dan May, Tracy Grammer and a multitude of acts who came to rely on his musical sensibilities.
Hampton was the last person to join the pioneering country-rock band Poco - but following the death of founder Rusty Young in 2021, he found himself revisiting his songwriting roots during the startup of Cimarron 615 (the band formed from the surviving members of the final Poco lineup). Writing or co-writing three of the album’s songs (including the title track), he found that he’d reopened a vein…and the songs started pouring out.
The resulting album, “A Month of Somedays”, owes as much to Jason Isbell and John Moreland as it does to formative influences Jackson Browne and Stephen Stills. The songs are character studies - honest looks at life, regret, and the passage of time that could only come from an abundance of mileage and experience. The music wears its West Coast country-rock origins on its sleeve, but rides an undercurrent of red-dirt Americana instrumentation and confessional singer/songwriter lyricism to form a unique, yet instantly familiar sonic landscape.
