Mo Pitney and Curb Finally Slate New Album … For 2027
You’re over the moon to hear that country traditionalist Mo Pitney has a new album in the offing. After all, it’s been six years since his last one. But in typical Curb Records fashion, even though they’ve announced the new album and graced us with a new single, we’ll have to wait all the way until March 26th of 2027 until we get to hear the full thing.
Some country fans might have amnesia about the career of Mo Pitney at this point. But for those who remember, he was one of the major antidotes to Bro-Country after releasing his debut album Behind This Guitar in 2016 and Ain’t Looking Back in 2020. Mo’s released a couple of singles since then, but much of the last six years he’s been like a ghost as he suffers through the “Curb Records Artist Retention Program” that prescribes only releasing an album from an artist every five to seven years to keep them indefinitely under contract.
Even Lee Brice, who passes for the label’s big star hasn’t released a new album since 2020. Normally an album coming out in March wouldn’t be announced until November of the previous year at the earliest. This just speaks to the elongated, insufferable perspective on time that Curb Records takes. Pitney did release an excellent bluegrass album with John Meyer called Cherokee Pioneer under the name Pitney Meyer in 2025. But since it’s a side project, it might not count against the Curb contract.
Beyond all the bellyaching though, you are excited for new music from the singer and songwriter whose signature approach is to take a more thoughtful and appreciative perspective on life. You hear that in his new song “Happy Hour,” and how it inverts the meaning of the American pastime. It was written by Adam Wright and Clint Daniels, and was produced by Jim “Moose” Brown and Pitney like the rest of the new album.
Some have accused Mo Pitney of being a little cheesy or outright boring over the years. But what nobody can argue is that he’s not country. And like every artist, Mo should be allowed to flourish by having his music released in a timely manner—something Curb Records is notorious for not doing. But hopefully even the label recognizes that now is the time for a traditionalist like Mo to thrive, and hopefully his career finds a second wind through the new album.
Along with the new single “Happy Hour,” “Fiddle Around” and “Wake Up and Smell the Country (with Jake Worthington)” have also been released.
Track List:
1. “Outskirts of Town”
2. “Wake Up and Smell the Country (with Jake Worthington)”
3. “I Think I Know”
4. “Fiddle Around”
5. “Loving You”
6. “Heart Made for You”
7. “Happy Hour”
8. “God Speaks Through the Radio”
9. “Black Suit”
10. “Can’t You Hear A Brother Calling” – Mo Pitney, Sonya Isaacs, & Ben Isaacs
11. “Hole in His Heart (JoJo’s Song)”
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July 23, 2026 @ 1:01 pm
How in the hell does Curb keep their doors open? Good for Pitney finally getting another record out, but every time Curb Records pops up I have to wonder how they keep the lights on. I guess it is just owning the rights to a bunch of old Tim McGraw and various other 90’s and 2000’s artists records keeps the water bill paid?
July 23, 2026 @ 1:14 pm
The Hank Jr catalog is probably what keeps the bills paid.
July 24, 2026 @ 8:18 am
Curb seems to send money to the right places, so that he and his label have a stellar reputation in the world at large. The Curb Records page at Wikipedia reads like something prepared by the company. Mentions scholarships they’ve endowed at Belmont University and a concert hall there (that was the site of a Democratic Presidential debate). There’s like two sentences mentioning that Tim McGraw and Curb sued each other.
July 24, 2026 @ 8:30 am
If you take a trip to Music Row, you’ll see Curb’s name all over everything. Like a king, he’s worked hard on legacy building. When you walk into the Hall of Fame, the foyer is named after him, the “Mike Curb Conservatory.” He’s taken the money he’s absconded with from artists, and used it to make sure he won’t be forgotten. But artists from Merle haggard, to LeAnn Rimes, to Frank Zappa, to Hank Williams III, to Tim McGraw will remember him for something different. Let’s hope he never gets into the Hall of Fame proper, though for sure he’s trying.
July 23, 2026 @ 1:03 pm
Knowing what we know about Curb (Trigger has wrote PLENTY about it over the years), it makes you wonder, why would anybody sign with this bunch to start with?
July 23, 2026 @ 1:10 pm
Same reason a portion of Americans use payday lenders or some Latin American baseball players sign bad contracts with scummy agencies when they are 18 that promises the agent insane money over the lifetime of their career.
You have artists that are desperate for a record deal and Curb comes along and promises to change their lives.
We also have to remember when Pitney signed that contract, a record deal was a big, big deal. Now I’m not so sure it is. A lot more paths for artists to be independent than even 10 years ago.
July 23, 2026 @ 1:09 pm
Such a talented guy and one who respects the Country artists of the past. His bluegrass album was excellent!
What a crime it is to treat someone this way! Fortunately he is young enough to overcome this bonehead move by Curb. Just release him and let him do what he does best.
Keep the faith Mo and I look forward to great things from you down the road!
July 24, 2026 @ 10:45 am
Ditto …. Great voice, looking forward to the lp. The recordings with John Meyer are the best bluegrass (my favorite anyway) of recent years.
July 23, 2026 @ 1:36 pm
Nice song, but would be far better if he actually sounded or looked at least somewhat “happy.”
July 23, 2026 @ 1:38 pm
Mo is about to step on stage at Ragamuffin Hall and I check SCM and see this! Great artist.
July 23, 2026 @ 9:11 pm
Update: Mo killed it at Ragamuffin Hall tonight. Go see him. Smoking band, wonderful crew. 10/10.
July 24, 2026 @ 6:12 am
That is Really cool, Conrad.
July 24, 2026 @ 6:56 am
I would have attended that concert, Conrad, but I had a work commitment in NYC. It went well!
I will get down to Ragamuffin sometime.
July 24, 2026 @ 8:42 pm
Be sure to introduce yourself when you do! If reach out to me ahead of time (you can find the venue email at our website) your first show will be on the house!
July 23, 2026 @ 4:19 pm
Who is Mo Piney? (The T is missing from the headline.)
July 23, 2026 @ 4:48 pm
Goodness gracious,
10/10
July 23, 2026 @ 6:04 pm
It’s funny when you look back at older artists and see how they released multiple albums per year.
There is a cool website called SecondHandSongs, where you can see (and listen to most) of the recordings for just about any song you can think of.
And what you’ll see is something else that isn’t done today: multiple artists would record the same songs within a year or two.
For example, “Hello Darlin” was recorded by 24 times within the first two years, and most of the artists are household names.
I’d like to see artists go back to the practice today.
July 24, 2026 @ 8:36 am
Good gosh, why?
Artists covering other artists’ recent hit seems cheesy and low-rent and just sows confusion among occasional or new listenters who may not know who the hit belongs to.
July 24, 2026 @ 10:35 am
I posed the question about why did everybody who was involved with Billy Sherill record “My Elusive Dreams” and (don’t remember who replied) found out Sherrill had an interest in the song. I guess some people want you to record their song instead of your own.
July 24, 2026 @ 9:18 am
Good point. Things used to be so different in this business.
In 1978, Kenny Rogers released three albums (2 solo and 1 with Dottie West).
In recent years when albums still mattered, an artist would release one and they would work singles off that album for up to 5 years (sometimes more!).
I miss the days when we got lots of new music from our favorite artists.
July 24, 2026 @ 6:18 pm
Another thing that isn’t done anymore: Answer Songs. Such as:
-The Wild Side of Life/It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
-Please Help Me I’m Falling/(I Can’t Help You) I’m Falling Too
-He’ll Have to Go/He’ll Have to Stay
July 25, 2026 @ 11:05 am
I think what killed off the “answer song” was “Southern Man/Sweet Home Alabama”.
Or was it “Stairway To Heaven/Highway To Hell”?
July 23, 2026 @ 11:55 pm
Then again, Charley Crockett is the bad guy for pointing that out…
“Every time I find out I signed a deal I don’t like, and I go to these fuckin’ business people, and tell them I don’t like the deal, I don’t think it’s fair, they say ‘Tough luck kid, you shouldn’t of fuckin’ signed it.’ As soon as I hold them to that same standard, I’m the fuckin’ bad guy,” (CC)
July 24, 2026 @ 6:18 am
definitely a double standard with a lot of independent country fans here. They were also behind Sturgill Simpson when he released an entire protest album against Atlantic … before signing with Atlantic again, just like Crockett has done.
July 24, 2026 @ 6:38 am
As if anyone (I mean us) had the job of their dream, nothing to complain, no frustration, no fuss with the boss… “You shouldn’t have signed that contract, meh meh”
July 24, 2026 @ 6:57 am
Missing a lot of context.
July 24, 2026 @ 6:59 pm
Does Charlie Crocket think we’re f’in imperessed that he says “f’in” in every sentence?
I just think it makes him sound like a f’in idiot.
July 24, 2026 @ 6:58 am
Interesting album cover.
Why is Mo giving the 1000-mile stare?
July 24, 2026 @ 9:55 am
He’s been behind the curtain in the major label music world and understands now it’s nothing like most people think.
July 24, 2026 @ 9:28 am
I know I am going to get slammed for this, but I find Mike Curb to be a really interesting guy. The way he made an independent label matter in Nashville is pretty amazing. And for a label with a Nashville address to get pop airplay without issue is as well.
I also find it interesting how in the old days, Curb would license with other labels (The Judds were on Curb/RCA, for example).
And how Curb would license recordings from different labels to create compilations that included hits by an artist from different labels (Kenny Rogers’ “Greatest Country Hits” on Curb contained the original First Edition recordings as opposed to the United Artists re-recordings).
This kind of thing wasn’t commonly done back then. And this is when albums mattered. When people wanted a good ‘hits’ compilation because they couldn’t just easily make a playlist in Spotify, or before that even, burn their own CD. Nobody else was doing cross-label compilations at that time, typically.
There are two sides to every story. We naturally tend to side with the artist, as label heads are “evil” and artists are “good.”
Please don’t misunderstand me here…Curb has done many things that certainly appear to be shady and have harmed many artists, including tying them up during the years they were viable commercially. When the music was finally released, the artists’ radio days were over.
But I still find the story of Curb Records, and Mike Curb himself, to be fascinating. Mike Curb was responsible for bringing many artists to national prominence. I have a hard time thinking he is all bad.
Unpopular opinion if there ever was one. Sorry ya’ll, just my thoughts. I’m not trying to piss everybody off here. Honestly.
July 24, 2026 @ 10:04 am
Every label has done shady things. I had friends on Warner Nashville who referred to being signed to the label as being in the Witness Protection Program. “Yeah, I’m in the witness protection program over at Warner,” one guy used to say.
I had a very successful producer friend tell me years ago that (at the time) labels were signing new artists to development deals to keep them from being signed to other labels and competing with their own acts. They were put on a shelf.
Curb is far from the only label that operates in the manner it does. The music business is just that, a business.
July 25, 2026 @ 7:49 am
Worth noting that the “Greatest Hits” think was likely less “lets do the fans/artists a solid” and more “if we release a Greatest Hits album, we can keep pushing out the term we have control over an artist”.
At least that is what Curb was doing with Tim McGraw at the end. I’m no McGraw fan, but it because ridiculous how the label kept pushing out Greatest Hits albums when it was clear that McGraw only owed them 1 or 2 more albums and was going to jump to a different label and it was Curbs way of extending their control over him for as long as possible.
July 24, 2026 @ 3:58 pm
He sounds so good. Mo is a real C(c)ountry singer. And I don’t mean “real” as a description of how traditional his music is…although he’s obviously that too.
I mean that he has a natural gift for country/honky tonk phrasing and delivery. An example is how he sings the word “sour” in “whiskey sour” or the words “happy hours” at the end of the second verse..he goes up in pitch in the middle of “happy”…fantastic. He wrings emotion out of the words in a way that I haven’t heard in a long time, and it isn’t fake.
And the song is great too. As a family man, I can relate.
I still can’t believe he’s a relative nobody. Insane.
July 25, 2026 @ 7:21 am
I agree with you, King.
When Conrad announced that he was at Ragamuffin, I looked at Mo’s website tour page. He will be on the Thursday Night Opry this coming Thursday, July 30. Maybe more Opry visits would help raise his profile.
At the least, SCM folks could listen to him at WSM online this Thursday.
July 27, 2026 @ 10:21 am
He is too country for country music.
The suburbanites only want a facade and country signifiers in their country music. The real McCoy scares them.
It is why Cars isn’t heralded as a Pixar classic. The movie dared to criticize society for selling out. We don’t like that.
July 25, 2026 @ 4:27 pm
Can someone explain to me why Curb have always disliked releasing music so music so much?
I remember thinking years ago that if I was ever offered a deal by them I’d give a hard no.
July 26, 2026 @ 10:30 am
One to definitely look forward to. He is one of those artists (like Randall King), I thought was destined for greater success.
July 27, 2026 @ 7:34 am
He opened the show for Merle in 2015. I was so impressed, I even made my way to the meet & greet table. He was a nice guy. I always hoped he’d get more attention.