Southern Wind is the title track from Dean Owens’ upcoming album and our Song of the Day. Co-written with Dean’s long-term musical collaborator Will Kimbrough, it’s the song that got the whole ball rolling.
Will Kimbrough: Dean and I wrote Southern Wind in a flurry of creativity. Ideas were flying. I am from so far south that Nashville is eight hours north. Dean is more of a northern man. I feel like we both understand the call of home and the contrasting call of the muse. My Southern Wind calls me to a long left behind home; I like to think that Dean’s Southern Wind calls him South to create in Nashville, Joshua Tree, New Mexico. The lure of home. The lure of the muse. Both romantic and hard to reach. That’s Southern Wind.
The video for the song is dark, moody and evocative, with shades of Trainspotting, Peaky Blinders and The The. It was filmed – by Waltzer Films – in and around Leith, where Dean grew up, and in Scotland’s oldest boxing club, Leith Victoria AAC Boxing Club (whose former members include world champion Ken Buchanan as well as Dean himself).
It features a cameo from actor Jamie Sives (Jory Cassel from Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Clash of the Titans and the upcoming Outlaw King (William Wallace) as the Boxer.
Co-writer Will Kimbrough, whose guitar features throughout the song, is a highly sought after award-winning musician, whose recent career includes being one of Emmylou Harris’s Red Dirt Boys.
Producer Neilson Hubbard (whose recent clients include John Prine and Jason Isbell, and who is an integral part of the acclaimed Orphan Brigade) says of Dean:
“Dean is a unique artist. He can turn a phrase with the best of them, and he can peer into the most intimate places with his songs… but it’s his voice that truly gives him his stand-alone quality. He sings with an ease that reminds me of the likes of Neil Finn and Sam Cooke. You never feel bogged down in any song because his voice floats in the air and transcends the listener.”
Southern Wind album is released on At The Helm Records, 16 Feb 2018
Launch Gig: Fri 2 Feb, 7.30pm, Drygate, Glasgow
Celtic Connections (part of official Showcase Scotland programme) – Ticket Link and Details here.