Sheila Vee Shares Title Track 'RIDE' From Debut Solo Album

New Jersey-based singer-songwriter Sheila Vee has released 'Ride,' the sophomore single and title track from her debut solo album, Ride, due Friday, November 6 via Ampersand Records. Produced by Vee's longtime collaborator Bob Harris of bluegrass band Borderline, who also plays acoustic guitar and piano on the track, the song captures the spirit at the center of the eight-track album: riding until the wheels fall off. 'Ride' features Vee's sister Rita Shukla on harmony vocals, award-winning Swedish Telecaster 'chicken-picker' Erik Holmbom on electric guitar, fiddler Andy Leftwich, pedal steel player Liam Bornovski, bassist Lawrence Haber and Joe McGuth on drums and percussion.

The title works as a mantra. 'Just keep truckin' no matter how chaotic, painful and frightening everything seems,' Vee says. 'Keep moving forward amidst the madness in this world — ignore obstacles and stay on course.'

Ride marks a bold new chapter for Vee as a solo artist — her grittiest, wildest and most personal work yet, fusing traditional bluegrass with pedal steel, Telecaster twang and the loose, freewheeling spirit of a Grateful Dead jam. Harris, who also produced both Magnolia Street String Band albums, brought a go-big-or-go-home attitude to the sessions. He would hear a demo and say, 'I think we need Andy Leftwich on this,' and before long, some of the best players in the country were in the room. 'No two songs have the same players, instruments or sound,' Vee says.

The album showcases Harris on guitar, mandolin, and piano throughout, alongside a stellar lineup of collaborators, including 12-time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year Michael Cleveland, dobro great Rob Ickes, Scott Vestal, Andy Leftwich, and Erik Holmbom. The album also features musicians from Vee's own community: Dan Whitener (Gangstagrass), Dave McDonald (The Last Whippoorwill), pedal steel player Liam Bornovski, drummers Joe McGuth and Brandon Revilla, bassist Lawrence Haber, fiddler Gary Oleyar, and her sister Rita Shukla on harmony vocals.

'Ride' follows lead single 'Throw Me A Line,' with Cleveland on fiddle, which arrived alongside an animated visualizer. The track shows the album's cosmic country heart. It came out of pure household chaos: Vee was trying to learn new recording software while 'the kids were hungry, the laundry was piling up, and I was staring at a computer wondering why nothing worked,' she explains. She calls the result 'Bluegrass at its core, but with some strange little detours.'

The cosmic side of Vee's sound took shape when she and musician and actor Gerry Rosenthal launched a monthly, genre-spanning jam. She picked up a Telecaster, formed the Grateful Dead tribute band Big Foot County and also performs with Disciples of the Dead. That improvisational streak 'created some healthy creative tension in the studio,' she admits. 'I wanted a jammy, psychedelic vibe… while Bob exudes traditional bluegrass to the bone.' The breakthrough came when she played Harris Old & In the Way's 'Midnight Moonlight' as an example of a 'crooked jam.' 'Once he understood my vision, we were able to find a really interesting middle ground,' she says. 'The 'cosmic' element comes from a combination of silliness, psychedelia, and a willingness to wander outside the expected boundaries of a song. It can be grounded in tradition but still feel like it might take a left turn at any moment.'

With Ride, Vee makes room for the psychedelic, comic and deeply feminine sides of her musical personality — the parts that 'didn't always have a place in the band,' she admits. Across the record, she writes about chaos and despair with beauty and a streak of dark humor. 'It's vulnerable in places, playful in others, and definitely not afraid of the strange,' she says. 'Roll Like Thunder' honors bluegrass musician Sav Sankaran (Unspoken Tradition) and his community's resilience after Hurricane Helene hit Asheville. 'Nowhere to Lay My Head,' inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, began as a folky, Dylan-style song and grew into a dreamy ballad with pedal steel and mandolin. 'Days To Dust,' her most personal song, was written during an episode of seasonal depression; she hears it as a sister song to Gillian Welch's 'Dark Turn of Mind.' 'Putting something that personal into the world can be both terrifying and liberating,' she says.

Vee first made her mark as a founding member of the acclaimed Magnolia Street String Band. As a woman of color in a genre where few have traditionally been visible, she has carved out a place in bluegrass that is fully her own.

A solo album was never on her radar, but when songs 'began to pour out of me in such a short period of time,' as Vee puts it, 'I took it as a sign.' On stage with the Sheila Vee Band, the Sheila Vee Bluegrass Band and Magnolia Street String Band, she aims for 'new old tunes — familiar enough to make you feel at home, but with something unexpected in the mix.' At its heart, Ride is an invitation. 'I'd love to see more women — and more women of color — feel empowered to step into these musical spaces and make them their own,' Vee shares.

Tracklist

'Roll Like Thunder'

'Ride'

'Day's To Dust'

'Throw Me A Line'

'In My Arms'

'Hunt'

'Nowhere to Lay My Head'

'Dreamin'

Photo Credit: Rob Shotwel