Sunny Sweeney Band

Sportsmen's Tavern

 

326 Amherst St.

Buffalo NY 14207

716-874-7734

 

Sat. 6/22 @ 8:30 pm

Sunny Sweeney Band

wsg

Josh Morningstar

$15 

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialSunnySweeney/

http://sunnysweeney.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=tFRaXQIwA7I

 

Sunny Sweeney is the party and the morning after. She’s the quip that makes you laugh

and the truth that makes you cry, the devil that's egging you on and the angel

whispering that you aren’t alone. But those compelling contradictions aren’t what’s most

interesting about Sweeney: it’s the depth and brazen authenticity she brings to all her

roles that grabs you and won’t let go.

“I’ve grown up doing the bar scenes, and you have to have drinking and partying songs

there-–you have to,” Sweeney says. “Now, my songs are still about the same things, but

I feel like they’re more mature versions.”

Sweeney’s salty wisdom and Texas-hewn soprano have never sounded stronger than

they do on Trophy, her anticipated new album. Trophy is a breakthrough––the album

we all suspected she was capable of making. The wit and honesty that have always

defined her stone-cold country have blossomed into confessional, complex songwriting

for grown-ups, still whiskey-drenched and honk-tonk-ready. Drugs, death, the ex-wife,

drinking, devotion, and longing for a child: it’s all here, raw and real.

“I have not felt this good about music in a really long time,” Sweeney says from her front

porch in Texas. “I’m really excited.”

The success of artists including Margo Price, Brandy Clark, Kacey Musgraves, Miranda

Lambert, and others make it seem like the world is more open now than ever before to

smart women singing smart country. It’s about time. Sweeney is a veteran of the trade,

and has logged her miles the old-school way. A three-year residency at the Poodle Dog

Lounge in Austin––“It was a dump,” she says. “They didn’t even have a credit card

machine or liquor license.”––along with improv and stand-up comedy experience went a

long way toward teaching her how to hold a room of cynical drunks in the palm of her

hand.

The mastery of holes in the wall, major label stint, and serious songwriting chops make

Sweeney something of a rarity: an artist with barroom cred, mainstream validation, and

songs meaty enough for listening rooms. Or, as Rolling Stone put it in September 2016:

“Sweeney is one of the rare entertainers who can hold her own at CMA Fest as well as

AmericanaFest.”

Produced by Grammy nominee Dave Brainard (Brandy Clark’s 12 Stories) and recorded

at Sound Emporium and Decibel Studios in Nashville, Trophy goes 10 songs deep

without a single throwaway line. While Sweeney wrote with her longtime favorites

including Monty Holmes, Buddy Owens and Jay Clementi, she has expanded her circle

of collaborators in recent years. Lots of time writing with Lori McKenna, Caitlyn Smith,

Heather Morgan, and others resulted in a deck that’s refreshingly stacked: most of the

songs on the album were written by women. “I feel like I have branched out a little in the

writing department,” Sweeney says. “And the record I ended up writing was pretty

heavily written with females. While Sweeney didn’t intentionally set out to write almost

exclusively with women, the resulting songs capture the feminine experience with a

combination of nuance, humor, and accuracy only possible because of the source.

Album opener “Pass the Pain” is a perfect example of Sweeney canvassing familiar

territory in a more complex way. “It’s a drinking song,” she says. “It all actually

happened when I was going through my divorce.” Eased into with steel guitar and

plaintive piano, the song begins with an indignant Sweeney demanding another round,

but her brash confidence soon melts into a forlorn apology to the bartender reluctantly

pouring her drinks, making the interaction and the hurt all the more real and sad.

“Bottle by My Bed” explores a different kind of heartbreak with breathless candor. “I only

call my husband baby cause I love that word / never wanted something so bad, that it

hurts / even give up these damned old cigarettes / if I could have a bottle by my bed.”

Written with the awe-inspiring McKenna, the song lays Sweeney’s soul bare and

captures the agony of not having a child when it’s all you want. “That song is where I’m

at right now in my life,” she says. “It’s the worst pain ever. When I wrote it with Lori, I

never really even imagined singing it live––I certainly never thought I’d record it. Didn’t

think I had the balls to do it.” Thankfully, she did. The song is important, not just

because of Sweeney’s gut-wrenching delivery, but because it tells a story too seldom

told.

Sweeney wrote a total of four songs with McKenna for the record. “She’s my spirit

animal,” Sweeney says of McKenna. The pair’s “Grow Old with Me” is a tender ode to

finally finding love that can last. “Trophy” is a wry takedown of Sweeney’s husband’s exwife.

A slow burn with finger snaps and sauntering bass, the song reclaims an insult and

makes it a compliment to laugh-out-loud effect. “Nothing Wrong with Texas,” grapples

with returning to a home that has an outsized identity you needed to escape before

realizing it completes you.

The album’s two covers sound like they could have been penned by Sweeney herself.

Chris Wall’s subtly brilliant waltz “I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight” has never been in

better hands. “Pills,” written by Brennen Leigh and Noel McKay, tackles addiction and

impending overdose with jarring empathy and cleverness. “It’s a story about real life,”

Sweeney says of the song. “Brennen is one of my best friends, and we think a lot alike.”

Perhaps most of all, Trophy is proof Sweeney knows exactly what she wants. “There’s a

lot of personal stuff on this record,” she says. “I feel like the songs that get the strongest

reaction are the ones that are the most truthful––the ones that have emotion. That’s my

job as a writer: to evoke some kind of emotion. I want everybody who hears this album

to come away with something, whether it’s to feel like they’re not alone or inspired or

like they want to laugh. I just want them to feel something

 

ROLLING STONE CALLS "TROPHY" one of the most anticipated albums of 2017

January 18, 2017

Album: Trophy

Release Date: March 10th

One of the greatest gifts Texas-born Sunny Sweeney has (and there are many) is an uncanny knack for keeping listeners on their toes.

 

 

Sunny preps new album "TROPHY" - Rolling Stone

December 8, 2016

Sunny Sweeney has her eyes on the prize for 2017, sharing plans to release her new full-length album, Trophy. The collection, Sweeney's fourth overall, is due out March 10th via Thirty Tigers.

 

Coming to see the show from out of town? Please visit our friends at the Adams Mark Hotel.

http://www.adamsmark.com/

Please call 716-845-5100 to get a special Sportsmen’s Tavern Rate for Concert Series Ticket Holders.

Or try the Best Western on Delaware Avenue

http://book.bestwestern.com/bestwestern/US/NY/Buffalo-hotels/BEST-WESTERN-On-The-Avenue/Hotel-Overview.do?propertyCode=33035&cm_mmc=PTI-_-local-_-feed-_-33035

716-886-8333

Please Note that the artists have a 3 hour window to complete the show. This does not meant the performance will be 3 hours in length.

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