Remember This Name True Country Fans: Vincent Neil Emerson
If you’re anything like me, you live for those country music moments when you make a big discovery of a new artist you know is going to be entertaining you for years to come, even if big radio and the mainstream of country won’t give them the time of day. 2019 has been rich for such discoveries, from Charlie Marie, to Ian Noe, to Charles Wesley Godwin, Emily Scott Robinson, Gabe Lee, and many others. Now your radar needs to be firmly affixed upon Vincent Neil Emerson, which if everything works out, will be the next guy everyone’s going nuts about in independent country.
You may recognize his name from when “Aquaman” actor Jason Mamoa went wild over Colter Wall when he was playing a show in Vancouver eariler in 2019, and Ian Noe and Vincent Neil Emerson were on tour with him at the time. Or perhaps you’ve seen Emerson open for the Turnpike Troubadours, American Aquarium, Jason Boland, or others since he’s on Red 11’s Texas/Red Dirt-centric tour booking roster. Either way, this Ft. Worth-based singer and songwriter has been creating lots of buzz, even without releasing a lick of music … until now.
Ahead of the release of his debut album Fried Chicken & Evil Women on September 13th, Vincent Neil Emerson has made available two debut tracks that sound pretty damn promising, and speak to the scope and influence of his true-to-form brand of country music. “Willie Nelson’s Wall” is an excellent little foray into the formidable genre of Texas Swing, with all those vintage vibes perfect for shuffling feet. The other song “25 & Wastin’ Time” is more hard-charging honky tonk, but with Emerson laying down a laid back vocal track, making it easy to ease into. It’s not just the music, but the mood of Vincent Neil Emerson (or “VNE” as some call him) that makes him a performer worth watching.
Playing the bars in Ft. Worth since he was 20-years-old, Vincent Neil Emerson was raised in Van Zandt County in East Texas by a single mother of part Native American Choctaw-Apache descent. He left home at 16, working odd jobs as he traveled around, eventually taking up guitar at 18, never thinking it would become his professional career until he started writing songs and figured out he wasn’t half bad at it. The grit under his fingernails gives Vincent’s music that vein of authenticity some try in vain to duplicate, but can never authenticate.
There’s sure to be more about Vincent Neil Emerson as the release of Fried Chicken & Evil Women nears on September 13th. But until then, sit back and enjoy the first two songs from this guy that many have been waiting on debut music for, and believe will be a big name in Texas music and beyond in the coming years.
Fried Chicken & Evil Women is now available for pre-order.
TRACK LIST:
- Devil in My Bed
- Letters on the Marquee
- The Bad Side of Luck
- Willie Nelson’s Wall
- 7 Come 11
- Dade County Jail
- Fried Chicken & Evil Women
- 25 & Wastin’ Time
- Cactus Blossom Special
- Highway Shine
(Sorry, not available on YouTube, but is available through most streaming platforms.)
July 27, 2019 @ 10:04 am
pic above looks a little like tweedy.
July 27, 2019 @ 10:04 am
Gotta love a song that begins with the lyric “I’m high as a fly on Willie Nelson’s wall.”
July 28, 2019 @ 7:44 am
See also the Eleven Hundred Springs album last year ^
July 27, 2019 @ 1:52 pm
This is awesome
July 27, 2019 @ 2:20 pm
Just one more shot and I would have read that as Vince Neils’ gone country.,. thank for finding my stopping point.
July 27, 2019 @ 3:36 pm
Well that was not what I expected at all, far more rootsy than anticipated. Fingers crossed for a Home Sweet Home cover.
July 27, 2019 @ 6:37 pm
But with words replaced by Ralph Waldo.
July 27, 2019 @ 7:56 pm
Sounds pretty damn good to me.
July 27, 2019 @ 9:10 pm
Well now. As if I needed another musician to follow. Good stuff. I look forward to more.
July 28, 2019 @ 3:27 am
Sound is great but his voice kinda gets lost in the music for me. It’s like his voice and the steel guitar swapped volumes. I guess that’s one of the struggles with independent music making?
July 28, 2019 @ 12:10 pm
I agree. I like both cuts, but not 100% down with the production.
The band sounds sweet on Willie’s Wall, but the vocals could have just a smidge more pop.
On 25 and Wasting Time, everything sounds a bit rounded off.
At least I didn’t notice any fake static in the mix. 🙂
Then again, my hearing loss could have me wrong on all this.
All in all, though, definitely worth checking out and maybe picking up when it’s released!
August 2, 2019 @ 1:24 am
I’m just a little shy is all.
July 28, 2019 @ 5:16 pm
I saw this kid open for TT in Oklahoma (one of their last good shows) back in February and he killed it. Solid band – great voice. I look forward to his album.
July 29, 2019 @ 6:26 am
I’ve been looking forward to this album for a while, but I thought it was still a couple of months out! Similar to the lead up to Ian Noe’s album, I’ve spent months scrounging Youtube for reasonably-well-produced, professional videos of his shows to fuzzy cell phone recordings just to catch more.
I’m glad he released these two songs rather than Fried Chicken & Evil Women and 7-come-11 for a bit of a change of pace. I hadn’t heard 25 & Wasting Time or Willie Nelson’s Wall in decent quality at all prior to this.
July 29, 2019 @ 10:21 am
This is great. Everyone is so damn serious in 2019. There’s a void in the genre for good light hearted, almost comedic, tunes like this.
Kind of reminds me of Buck Owens. Looking forward to the album.
August 2, 2019 @ 1:26 am
Thanks for listening Ed. Party on ????
September 15, 2019 @ 12:11 pm
Who are the musicians on the album? I really like it a lot. Saw you with Colter, sorry about our California crowd that talks during performances, ugh. I listen on iTunes so I miss the liner notes of days past…
July 29, 2019 @ 10:23 am
Good sound. The first track is a fun one. However, I liked “25 and Wasting Time” better when it was called “I’ll Just Stay Here and Drinkm”
July 29, 2019 @ 2:35 pm
*”I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink”*
August 2, 2019 @ 1:21 am
Hard not to think of that Haggard tune when you hear this rythym, but he wasn’t the first one to use it, and he won’t be the last. This is partly an ode to Hag, but was inspired mainly by Margo Price’s “Hurtin’ on the bottle”. It’s sort of a response to that song, with the first lines being “I quit drinkin’ yesterday”. I hope everyone out there likes it anyhow, even though the structure has been done over and over. It’s all just folk music after all. If you don’t like it, go listen to something better. Plenty out there. ✌️
July 29, 2019 @ 12:55 pm
I saw these guys perform at a free music venue in El Paso, TX back in June, they are excellent! It great to see that they are being written up here on Saving Country Music in such a positve light. I was able to talk to the band and VNE after the show, what a bunch of great guys playing great music, very humble and respectful of the artists that have paved the way for their music. My word of advice for everyone reading; Go see them live, you will not be dissappointed in their show. Buy them a beer and they will most definately appreciate it. Waiting for them to swing on back by West Texas or Southern New Mexico.
August 2, 2019 @ 1:29 am
Good hangin’ with ya in El Paso brother Sam. Thanks for the kind words. Look forward to seeing y’all out at the next one. Cheers
September 9, 2024 @ 12:07 pm
Vince looking forward to seeing you again in El Paso tomorrow, by the way that beer is still waiting for you all, let me know!
By the way, you met my boy when you played Floore’s out in Helotes a while ago, he said you knocked it out the park…….awesome show!!
July 29, 2019 @ 1:40 pm
Prior to Red 11 he had at least two albums out – Poor Boy Songs and East Texas Blues. They were both very solid albums. Poor Boy Songs was solo acoustic and mostly traditional folk songs with an early Dylan vibe. East Texas Blues was a well done, full band effort that reminded me of Justin Townes Earle’s Yuma through Harlem River Blues era. If the new album is half as good as the old ones, with Red 11 behind him I have no doubt he’ll make a splash on the scene.
August 16, 2019 @ 11:50 am
some of the best country I have heard in a while. Colter, Tyler and Vincent are saving the genre!
September 13, 2019 @ 11:41 am
The whole album dropped today; I’m still finishing it, but of my early impressions:
VNE is a pleasure to listen to and is an entertaining song writer, but the down-tempo turn on his two most famous tracks is a strange decision. The impishness of “25 & Wastin’ Time” and “Willie Nelson’s Wall,” which would have been right at home on “Fried Chicken & Evil Women,” the most country-named song ever written, is traded for a ruminative tone that contrasts sharply both with how he’s played it live and how the song reads lyrically. Similarly, “7 Come 11,” arguably made famous by Charley Crockett (whose version of which will appear on his upcoming release, “The Valley”), comes off as a flat cover of a Silversun Pickups song.
This is all compounded by the flatness that pops up across most of the tracks. I don’t know if it was budget or the producer that led to these choices, but slowing two lively songs that are staples of VNE’s performances and then not pulling the vocals forward at all does a disservice to Emerson and his bandmates.
This is still an enjoyable album which you can crank up on a Saturday morning and leave you with a smile on your face, but while the substance of a great country album is present, some baffling decisions on the recording and production side rob it of the power it could have had right where it needed it.