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Some call themselves “singer-songwriter.” Aaron Raitiere calls himself a “songwriter-singer.”
But after his debut album, Single Wide Dreamer, maybe it should be more like “songwriter-comedian.” That’s not to diminish his craft, as Raitiere is a Grammy winner whose work has found a home with some of country’s most respected paradigm-challenging artists—from Miranda Lambert to Lady Gaga, who co-wrote his Grammy-winning “I’ll Never Love Again” for A Star Is Born.
But really, the guy’s also just damn funny. Funny in the way that makes you go, “Oh yeah, that’s true." Chock full of famous friends and mixing the alchemy of song craft with the side-splitting absurdity of life, Single Wide Dreamer arrives May 6, and, according to Raitiere, it’s built around songs a little too “out there” for anyone else. Think of him as that charming but sarcastic old guy at the bar, that mildly grumpy dude everybody loves who can always be counted on for a perfectly-timed comeback, or a back-in-my-day yarn spun with more gusto and color than a Twain novel.
“I’ve got some songs that are a little too weird for anybody who takes themselves serious to actually pull off,” Raitiere says with a laugh. “You can’t really mix ‘Country Girl Shake It for Me’ with some of these songs.”
Produced by Lambert and Raitiere’s longtime friend, Anderson East, the project came together casually over a few years, distilling his 17-year career down to 12 brilliantly boisterous country tracks. The set also features friends and heroes Bob Weir, Dave Cobb, Natalie Hemby, Ashley Monroe, Robert Randolph, Foy Vance, and Waylon Payne, and it was friends like those who convinced him to do it in the first place – they didn’t want Raitiere’s songs to go unnoticed.
Raitiere eventually gave in, and although he admits he’s not much of a singer (hence the “songwriter-singer” title), he’s been noticing something strange out on the road: People dig it.
“I’ve been talking so much in my shows, I’m like ‘Hell, do I have a comedy thing going on?’” Raitiere explains. “We’re laughing and making up songs. ... So far, it’s been such a ‘go-with-it thing,’ but so much weird sh** has been happening in my life that I’m just like, ‘Ok, let’s do it.’”
That weird stuff includes an early attempt at an Ivy League education, then a switch to writing country songs, followed by more than a decade of under-the-radar respect before scoring his Grammy in 2020. In typical fashion, Raitiere blows the achievement off, saying, “If you stand in the middle of the road long enough you’re going to get hit by a car eventually,” but there’s more to it than that. For most people, the road is more like an empty parking lot. And if they do get hit by a car, it’s a truck with KC lights and a lift kit.
Conversely, much of what makes Raitiere so prized as a collaborator is found on Single Wide Dreamer. Feeling like a spiritual and artistic student of John Prine, the Kentucky native mixes equal measures dark whimsy, absurdist humor, and crazy-eyed observational wisdom into catchy, three-minute stories, often with a lesson to share. Then Raitiere delivers it all in a craggy talk-singing style with a funky folk sound, fusing hard-to-deny logic with a tendency to drop out from society, riffs on human nature, and the nature of truth itself. Each of the 12 tracks are pulled straight from his real life, and often directed at real people. But it all comes with his unique kind of brotherly love.
“It’s the art of trying to hold a middle finger in somebody’s face, and give them a hug at the same time,” Raitiere quips. “Like to make somebody feel good, but then when you walk away, they’re like ‘Wait a minute, that guy just flipped me off!’”
“Single Wide Dreamer” starts the album off, and also puts Raitiere’s personality front and center. Written a few months after his home burned down, Raitiere was crashing in a friend’s trailer and not sure what would come next – but he painted a joyful self-portrait nonetheless. With a bouncy down-home rhythm and sky-high levels of cavalier confidence, he describes a guy who’s got it all, despite not having much ... and maybe being a bit out of his mind.
“At Least We Didn’t Have Any Kids” tells a roots-rocking true story of teenaged love and ill-advised tattoos, and “Your Daddy Hates Me” takes a bluesy strut to tribute the washouts who’ve never been “marriage material.” Raitiere says each song’s subject will instantly know he’s talking about them, although they don’t know the song exists just yet.
Meanwhile, “For the Birds” emerged at the same time as the title track, with Raitiere showing his creative clout on a fiendishly simple exercise. Setting a timer for 30 minutes and challenging himself to write about whatever he could see, the result is a jaunty injection of musical joy with a fluttering guitar solo from Robert Randolph, all about what Raitiere’s “for,” and what he ain’t. Namely, he’s for anything that’s fun, anything natural, and anything that makes a person feel whole, and Lambert must have agreed, putting her own version of the song on The Weight of These Wings. Both embrace a much- needed element of silliness that the world could use some more of.
“I think they’re all a collection of the hilarious truth, because I don’t think you can make the good sh** up,” Raitiere says, going on to proclaim a smile and a belly laugh worth at least $100 in today’s market.
“I’ve been trying to get [the songs] to where you feel like you know the person, you love the person, and you hate the person – and hell, the person might be you,” Raitiere says. “Then I feel like I’m on to something, rather than just ‘truck truck party party truck truck.’ Which by the way, I should probably write that today.”