Now that Lola’s Trailer Park and Saloon are fully back open, this Saturday there sounds like a blast. Onstage will be two soulful local country singer-songwriters from noon to 3. Along with the wonderful Joe Savage, Dana Deatherage will play, which is significant because the guy is releasing a single in mid-April as a response to the pandemic.
Deatherage wrote “It’s in You” during “the darkest days of the pandemic,” he said. “It just came to me, and I started writing it, and it felt spiritual to me at the moment. The pandemic has caused many people to suffer. Many have lost their lives, lost loved ones, suffered depression, loneliness, lost homes, jobs. Everyone has been touched in one way or another.”
For Deatherage, “It’s in You” is “a song of hope, a song of encouragement, a song to lift spirits, like everything’s going to OK.”
As our beloved former colleague Jeff Prince wrote of the singer-songwriter last year, Deatherage is not your twangy Solo cup-brandishing goofball. He has a “sweet tenor” conveying “mostly heartfelt songs of family, loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek, acceptance, appreciation, and choosing to be happy.” Though the music is decidedly country, the lyrics, Prince said, are “confessional, philosophical, and gentle.”
Deatherage’s “dark songs,” Prince continued, are softened by positive messages, probably because the singer-songwriter suffered through a personal bankruptcy and depression.
Deatherage plans on debuting “It’s in You” on 95.9-FM The Ranch the week before the mid-April release, following in a trend of Ranch help dating back to his previous two singles.
There’s no cover for the Saturday Lola’s show. Hot dog. — Anthony Mariani
