Sonny Landreth

from SonnyLandreth.com: The new album features guest appearances from a number of especially noteworthy friends: Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Vince Gill, Eric Johnson, Robben Ford, Dr. John, Jimmy Buffett and Nadirah Shakoor. Longtime collaborator Dave Ranson is again on bass, Mike Burch is on drums, and friends Steve Conn and Sam Broussard are featured on keys and acoustic guitar, respectively.

“It’s the classic dream come true,” Sonny says of the all-star affair. “I wrote these songs with these guests in mind, as a tribute to their influence on me. Inviting them to come aboard led us down some amazing paths.” The album’s been in the works for the better part of a year, though a couple of tunes have longer lineages: the riff from “The Goin’ On” dates back to Sonny’s first stint with John Hiatt and was written years later with Wendy Waldman during pre-production for “Levee Town;” and “Howlin’ Moon” came together during demo sessions for “The Road We’re On.”

The disc’s title, Landreth notes, pulls in many meanings. “When I write, I try to surrender to the flow of it all and see what bubbles to the top. This time around, the word reach kept coming up. In addition to its obvious meaning, it can relate to an expanse – a reach of sky, desert, water, or in particular a channel or body of water. Also, it can refer to the direction of the wind in nautical terms, so Megan utilized waterway maps in the package design. I felt like that all really fit well thematically with the album. For me, the title is the connecting thread in terms of the writing process and the project as a whole. I reached out to all these great artists and what you hear on this disc is what came back.”