Jake Kellen releases debut album on Horny Toad label
Texas Country/Americana artist debut attracting attention


/Country Music News Articles/ - July 29, 2005 - "You can never recreate the magic of an album like "Viva Terlingua" by Jerry Jeff Walker, but when we sat down to plan the album, that was the model we used and talked about," says Jake Kellen. We wanted to create an album that you could plug in to the CD player in your car and leave it for days of driving to work and back without getting burned out, an album that had a little "sing along" to it, a little fun, a little "sadness and longing" with just a touch of haunting.
"Take Me Home" is that kind of album; it has all the necessary ingredients to be big. A talented young newcomer, great melodies and lyrics that people can relate to, and talented musicians like Lloyd Maines-steel guitar (Dixie Chicks, Joe Ely), Steve Hornbeak-keyboards (Faith Hill, Richard Marx), Jimmy Mattingly-fiddle and mandolin (Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, the Grascals) along with Brian McRae's phenomenal rhythm sections and guitar work and top it off with Troy Wells amazing command of the Fender Telecaster.
What emerges is an unpretentious (Texas) country album that sounds like it grew right out of the sands of West Texas. Even with hot Nashville players, there is nothing Nashville about the sound, it is not over produced or over dramatic or "over sung".
The album winds its way through your mind-leading you from the rock and raucous "Red Roses" and "She Says She Loves Me" to the "so lonesome I could cry" ballad—"Give It Some Time", giving you just enough of the full spectrum of emotional feedback necessary to keep you wanting more. And there is more. There is the light hearted look at a failed college career in "College Days", the comical observations of a "bad drunk" in the song "Bullet Proof", as well as that haunting realization that comes when a long distance relationship ends in "September in Abilene".
Listening to the title track "Take Me Home" is all that is necessary to know why Lloyd Maines is considered a legend. He plays Dobro so that it melts and morphs back and forth with the bluesy guitar leads and then jumps out whenever the melody calls for more. There is also his perfect steel work on "September in Abilene", a song that could have been driven too far country but Lloyd holds that line somewhere between the early Eagles and a George Strait ballad that makes you long to be home.
Jake Kellen's vocals couldn't be more suited to the material either, well; after all he wrote eight of the ten songs and co-produced the album as well. There are none of those idiosyncrasies that plague many country vocalists, those who "try" to sound country and just end up being annoying—Jake is country—he's not trying to prove anything.
"Jake's an amazing talent. If we were just talking about his voice he would be an amazing talent, but he is already a great songwriter and he's only 22 years old. When you listen to songs like "If I Could" and "You and Me", and "Cap Gun Cowboys" it's just a little hard to believe that he wrote all these songs, and others, in just a couple of months leading up to the recording session", says co-producer Guy Cannon, "Makes you wonder what's yet to come". "He has that innate ability to take what was once a group of words and pump emotion into them like he does in the intro to "September in Abilene" and make that group of words something totally different, totally expressive."
"Take Me Home" is being released on July 27, 2005 by Horny Toad Records. For more information about Jake and to hear sound clips from the album you can visit the artist's website at www.jakekellen.com .

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