Love Has Come for You

Love Has Come for You
A '50s-style grayscale painting of a man and a woman sitting in chairs next to a roundtable with flowers and a vase and two bottles. The man is dressed in shirt and pants, and holds a glass. The woman wears a mid-calf length flowered dress and high heel shoes. Original painting by Martin Mull.
Studio album by
ReleasedApril 23, 2013
RecordedThe Living Room, West Nyack, New York
Kung Fu Bakery, Portland, Oregon
East West Studios, Los Angeles, California
Village Recorders, Los Angeles, California
Abbey Road Studios, London, England
Oceanway, Los Angeles, California
The Sound Company, London, England
GenreBluegrass
Length36:12
LabelRounder
ProducerPeter Asher
Steve Martin chronology
Rare Bird Alert
(2011)
Love Has Come for You
(2013)
Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers featuring Edie Brickell LIVE
(2014)

Love Has Come for You is a 2013 bluegrass music CD featuring a collaboration of 13 original songs composed by Steve Martin (music) and Edie Brickell (music and lyrics).[1] The album cover art is a painting entitled "After Dinner Drinks" (2008) by Martin Mull; the original work is in Steve Martin's personal art collection.[2]

Produced by Peter Asher, the album features musical appearances by bassist Esperanza Spalding, fiddlers Nicky Sanders and Sara Watkins, and guitarist Waddy Wachtel. Backing vocals and instrumental accompaniment were also performed by all contemporaneous members of the band Steep Canyon Rangers who would tour extensively with Martin and Brickell following the record release.[3]

Altered versions of "When You Get to Asheville" and "Sun's Gonna Shine" later appeared in Martin and Brickell's 2014 musical, Bright Star.

Background

[edit]

Describing his partnership with Brickell, Martin described it as a giant accident that turned out to be very rewarding.[4] The groundwork for the project arose from casual conversations in which Brickell had complimented Martin on his bluegrass records, and he in turn, offered her a melody he’d composed, but for which he had did not have any lyrics. Impressed with Brickell's writing and singing ability, Martin quickly expressed interest to further their collaboration, even though at the time Brickell and Martin lived on opposite coasts. Their first common experiment would come to fruition as the duo's first song, "Sun’s Gonna Shine."[4]

The two started to exchange files electronically as Martin sent banjo tracks to Brickell who then wrote lyrics to match them.[5] The duo's second song, created by this long-distance method would become “When You Get to Asheville,” the album's leading track. According to Martin in this early stage the project was without any set goal — "We were being led by the songs, not any kind of deal or agent"[4] as he would later recall.

As the duo was fine-tuning their demo tracks and passing them back and forth, Peter Asher was brought on as the project's producer. Asher suggested that the songs could make for an unorthodox album, as Brickell's contemporary lyrics provided an opportunity for the album to transcend Martin's traditional bluegrass style.[5] As he would later recall for The New York Times, “You didn’t have to restrict yourself to the bluegrass palette, which is a relatively formal one. It’s like if you’re writing Baroque chamber music, you only have a certain number of instruments to choose between. You don’t think, what about a few electronic parts? What about a Fender Rhodes keyboard sound? Or what, indeed, about a drummer?”[4] The final product is an album informed by bluegrass, but breaking from the genre’s boundaries.[5]

Track listing

[edit]
  1. "When You Get to Asheville" – 3:15
  2. "Get Along Stray Dog" – 2:10
  3. "Love Has Come for You" – 3:08
  4. "Friend of Mine" – 2:36
  5. "Siamese Cat" – 2:57
  6. "Yes She Did" – 1:34
  7. "Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain Baby" – 3:12
  8. "Fighter" – 2:40
  9. "King of Boys" – 2:51
  10. "Sun's Gonna Shine" – 3:05
  11. "Who You Gonna Take?" – 2:41
  12. "Shawnee" – 2:29
  13. "Remember Me This Way" – 3:31

Commercial performance

[edit]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[6]
American Songwriter[5]
Rolling Stone[7]

The album debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 albums chart on its release, selling around 15,000 copies in the United States in its first week. It also debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Bluegrass Albums,[8] and No. 2 on the Folk Albums chart.[9] The album has sold 104,000 copies in the United States as of August 2015.[10]

Personnel

[edit]

Additional musicians

Music video

[edit]

"Love Has Come for You" was made into a lyric video and published on Steve Martin's website.[11]

Charts

[edit]
Chart (2013) Peak
position
US Billboard 200[12] 21
US Top Bluegrass Albums (Billboard)[13] 1
US Folk Albums (Billboard)[14] 2
US Top Tastemaker Albums (Billboard)[15] 14

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "SteveMartin.com". SteveMartin.com. Retrieved June 24, 2013.
  2. ^ "MonstersandCritics.com". MonstersandCritics.com. Retrieved July 14, 2015.
  3. ^ "Steve Martin To Tour With Edie Brickell". Pollstar.com. January 22, 2013. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
  4. ^ a b c d Dave Itzkoff (April 19, 2013). "Something Old-Time, Something New". The New York Times.
  5. ^ a b c d Hal Horowitz. "Steve Martin & Edie Brickell: Love Has Come for You". American Songwriter. Retrieved March 18, 2024.
  6. ^ Love Has Come For You at AllMusic. Retrieved March 18, 2024.
  7. ^ Hermes, Will (April 23, 2013). "Love Has Come for You". Rolling Stone. Brian Szejka. Retrieved March 18, 2024.
  8. ^ "Bluegrass Albums". Billboard. May 11, 2013.
  9. ^ "Folk Albums". Billboard. May 11, 2013.
  10. ^ Fred Edwards (August 20, 2015). "Steve Martin & Edie Brickell Announce Second Album 'So Familiar". Billboard.
  11. ^ "Videos : Steve Martin & Edie Brickell : Love Has Come for You". SteveMartin.com. June 12, 2013. Retrieved June 24, 2013.
  12. ^ "Steve Martin Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard.
  13. ^ "Steve Martin Chart History (Top Bluegrass Albums)". Billboard.
  14. ^ "Steve Martin Chart History (Top Americana/Folk Albums)". Billboard.
  15. ^ "Steve Martin Chart History (Top Tastemaker Albums)". Billboard.