Dierks Bentley Commits to Keeping to His Roots on “Gravel & Gold”
It’s been a career of hits and misses for Dierks Bentley as he see-saws back and forth between pleasing his corporate masters on Music Row and paying down the mortgage on the second home in Telluride, and doing what he wants to do, which is dabbling in bluegrass and traditional country mixed with a bit of new school stuff to broaden the audience.
On his new album Gravel & Gold out February 24th, Dierks promises it will be more of the latter than the former, a more diverse offering overall, and for the first time, Dierks Bentley has stepped into the producer chair to ensure that the sound he wants is the sound you’ll get. He also brought in Ashley McBryde and Billy Strings to help him along.
“It’s been four years since I put out an album, and part of the reason for that is that I wrote and recorded two records that I didn’t feel were good enough and had to start over…twice,” says Bentley. “I’m going to be able look back on it for the rest of my life and be like, yeah, that was harder than I thought it would be, but zero regrets. I had to get it right. That’s the ‘Gravel & Gold’ of it all.”
20 years in the business now, Dierks Bentley should be at the point where he can call his own shots. And seeing him paling around with Charlie Worsham lately, and hanging out in the rain to watch Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway play their set at Telluride last summer are all good signs.
“Selfishly I’ve always wanted to have my cake and eat it too,” says Bentley. “I’m in the bluegrass space. I’m in the traditional country space. It’s always been important to me to have the love and support of this community in Nashville, particularly the older establishment and the Opry – and to know that I’m able to do that but also get out on the road and play the big venues too? It doesn’t get any better than that for me.”
We’ve already got to hear three songs ahead of the new album, including an extended bluegrass jam called “High Note” featuring Billy Strings, Charlie Worsham, along with Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton, and Sam Bush. The two other singles are are a bit more pragmatic, with “Gold” already cracking the Top 20, and “Same Ol’ Me” just released to coincide with the album announcement.
You don’t always know what you’re gonna get with a Dierks Bentley album, but there are a lot of positive signs for some good nuggets to be included in Gravel & Gold.
GRAVEL & GOLD Track List:
1. “Same Ol’ Me”
2. “Sun Sets In Colorado”
3. “Heartbreak Drinking Tour”
4. “Something Real”
5. “Still”
6. “Beer At My Funeral”
7. “Cowboy Boots” (Featuring Ashley McBryde)
8. “Gold”
9. “Walking Each Other Home”
10. “Roll On”
11. “All The Right Places”
12. “Ain’t All Bad”
13. “Old Pickup”
14. “High Note” (Featuring Billy Strings)
January 13, 2023 @ 12:13 pm
Some mighty fine picking. I love it, and I dont even like weed.
Kudos to Dierks for throwing out the albums he wasn’t happy with.
January 13, 2023 @ 12:41 pm
Can’t argue with Dierks Bentley’s strategy, if there is one.
All of his albums seem to go to #1, and for a guy who does his own thing and is not a slave to radio, he’s managed to never go 2 years without a #1 single since he started 20 years ago.
January 13, 2023 @ 1:04 pm
Uh huh….I mentioned this track in the comments section on song of the year, but got shot down by Kyle as he felt it was too novelty to be taken seriously. I stand by my previous conclusion. Very high ( haha pun) level of musicianship going on here. The Strings solo, Bryan Sutton solo, Sam Bush on Mando, and THE RIFF! That riff by Worsham is pretty stellar catchy, and interesting. It’s all done in a weird tuning. Real weird. But inventive. And the last few minutes of the song where it’s more free form picking is terrific. Song of the year!
January 13, 2023 @ 2:57 pm
“Featuring Billy Strings” and “Featuring Ashley McBryde” — that’s some encouraging signs already.
January 13, 2023 @ 2:59 pm
I’m not what you’d call plugged in. Beyond recognizing the name, I don’t know anything about Bentley. I kinda figure, if there’s something worth hearing, it’ll make its way to me in its own sweet time. Well, High Note made its way around to me. Allowing for the fact that I haven’t heard much of the competition, it’s the best mainstream country song I’ve heard in years. I can’t say why Trigger would have said otherwise, but to my ears it’s novel, but not a novelty. Yeah, the lyrics have a sense of humor, but it ain’t like this is Shirley Ellis or Ray Stevens. Anywho, I ain’t all that worried about it. Either way, it’s a heck of a catchy song with fantastic picking. If Jerry Douglas is on it, I’m already halfway home.
January 13, 2023 @ 5:28 pm
the song is decent when billy strings gets going, but bentley is a cornball. and the last thing country needs is another degenerate song about drinking or smoking weed. cant forgive him after the garbage he sent to radio the last 5 years, especially that cheese song “living”. that crap is indistinguishable from the music they play on K-Love. only time he sounded country was when he was pretending as a joke and wearing a wig
January 13, 2023 @ 6:10 pm
When Dierks taps into traditional and bluegrass he does some great shit, case in point Up On The Ridge is still a banger of an album and a few years ago at the Bluegrass festival in Raleigh he played a lot of tracks from that with Del Mccoury. With having Billy and Ashley on this album I’m going in with high hopes.
January 13, 2023 @ 6:36 pm
I like “Gold”. I haven’t heard the Billy Strings yet. Major respect for Dierks teaming up with Charlie Worsham.
January 14, 2023 @ 7:07 am
Stage full of incredible talent and a great picking jam. Yeah Derp Country needs more diverse subject matter though. Would have loved to see a Molly or Rhonda up there on stage too!
January 14, 2023 @ 3:11 pm
Looking forward to it. I have enjoyed a good few of his earlier albums.
January 14, 2023 @ 5:59 pm
I remember being fan #545? on DBs message board. I haven’t been crazy over his past two albums. This album/singles and his recent comments give me hope!
January 15, 2023 @ 8:20 am
Same ol me and gold are very generic and average dierks songs. Not bad but also forgettable and in the mix of a lot of his album filler stuff. A bit disappointing to be honest. I don’t quite get why Gold is going up the charts.
One Shot duet with Elle king is far superior in my opinion in listenability and lyrics.
The Billy strings song heats up nicely though!