Photos: Grayson Capps Announces THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD Album
The Fairhope, Alabama-based roots musician returns with nine new songs co-produced by Ryan Avinger and longtime guitarist Corky Hughes.
Grayson Capps has announced The Weight of the World, his first full-length album of original material in nine years, set for release November 6 via RPF Records/Royal Potato Family. The Fairhope, Alabama-based singer-songwriter returns with a collection of songs encompassing the barefoot, country boy philosophizing and earthy musical minimalism that have come to define his voice on the American roots music landscape. First single, 'Far Away,' a windswept road song that reflects upon the troubadour life, is out now.
Photo Credit: Chad Edwards
'Songwriting is my way of navigating the world. It makes me feel free and fulfilled,' says Capps. 'When I make a record, it's on my own terms and at my own pace.'
Co-produced by Ryan Avinger and Capps' longtime guitarist Corky Hughes at Dauphin Street Sound in Mobile, AL, among the album's nine songs is 'News,' a five-minute blast of psychedelic swamp rock calling out the fear-centric disinformation propagated in today's media. It's one of two tracks reflecting on the harrowing state of the times; the other, 'My Body,' previously released as a standalone single in 2025, is an evocative rock 'n' roll anthem for women's rights that doubles as a battle cry for an impending revolution.
As the LP unfolds, Capps offers the classic high-and-lonesome country balladry of 'What Will Be, Will Be,' the voodoo psych surrealism of 'Rainbow Skies,' and with the title track, 'The Weight of the World,' a languid meditation on stillness. 'Rosemary & Time' dates back to his years with the Americana supergroup Willie Sugarcapps, while the haunted desperation of 'I Can't Breathe' is juxtaposed against the whimsical, marimba-inflected lilt of 'Herricane.' Throughout, Hughes' empathic guitar lines bring vivid color to the spirit within each song, and gospel singer Symone French adds a feminine levity with angelic harmonies.
'I'm getting back to where I was a long time ago, just having this emotion and texture in the music,' says Capps. 'I'm singing better than ever, and creatively I feel like I'm returning to the frenetic pace of my earlier work.'
Capps has good reason for the years away from the studio. After a prolific run of solo albums from 2005 through 2017, he and his partner, Grammy Award-winning recording engineer Trina Shoemaker, entered the homestretch of raising children and seeing them out from the nest. 'The fledglings have all flown off,' as he sings on the title track. Simultaneously, he was caring for his father whose health was slowly deteriorating. He'd pass away in 2025. While continuing to play upwards of 150 shows a year in all corners of the world, the day-to-day responsibilities of looking after his family left little time for the solitude his songwriting demanded.
Emerging from the New Orleans music scene in the late '90s while studying theater at Tulane University, Capps formed the bands The House Levelers and Stavin Chain. Upon graduating, he'd live in squats and play music on the streets to get by. Through a charmed sequence of events, his father Ronald Everett Capps' unpublished novel, Off Magazine Street, was turned into the major motion picture, A Love Song for Bobby Long, starring John Travolta and Scarlett Johansson. Several of the junior Capps' songs would be featured on the soundtrack, ultimately leading him to step out as a solo artist with his 2005 debut album, If You Knew My Mind. Shortly thereafter, he'd be 'blown off course' when Hurricane Katrina hit his home in New Orleans. Capps, whose son had just been born, left the city, relocating to Nashville for a stint before returning to Alabama where he grew up, settling in Fairhope, the home of world-class sunsets across the Mobile Bay.
Just as comfortable in front of thousands at a 'quirky, crazy festival' as he is before 30 people at a house party, Capps is first and foremost authentic in his presentation. He weaves lyrical nuance steeped in Southern Gothic lineage through woody Gulf Coast folk and cosmic country-blues. The raw magic he conjures has resulted in a devoted cult fanbase, built entirely on his own terms. Growing older has only reinforced his steely commitment to inhabiting the present and calling the spirit toward its natural state. In Capps' songs, the beauty we long to see is all around.
'As within, so without, that's how to address the world through music,' concludes Capps. 'If you speak your truth people may not get it exactly, but they will get their own truth. But if you don't speak your truth, they get nothing. So I speak my truth.'
Tracklist
1. Far Away
2. News
3. Rosemary & Time
4. My Body
5. What Will Be, Will Be
6. I Can't Breathe
7. Rainbow Skies
8. Herricane
9. The Weight of the World
The Weight of the World is available to pre-order now on 180-gram vinyl, CD and digital formats at orcd.co/theweightoftheworld.
Tour Dates
9/17 - New Orleans, LA - Carrollton Station
9/18-20 - Ocean Springs, MS - Mississippi Songwriter Festival
9/25 - DeFuniak Springs, FL - Chautauqua Theatre
9/26 - Gulf Shores, AL - Big Beach Brewery
10/10 - Kansas City, MO - Knuckleheads
10/16 - Gulf Shores, AL - Big Beach Brewery
10/23-25 - Svalbard, Norway - Dark Season Blues Festival
10/27 - Oslo, Norway - Herr Nilsson
10/29 - Vestfossen, Norway - Gamleskolen
10/30 - Notodden, Norway - Bok & Blueshuset
10/31 - Langesund, Norway - Wrightegaarden
11/8 - Silverhill, AL - Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm
11/12 - Mobile, AL - Callaghan's Irish Social Club
11/15 - Silverhill, AL - Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm
11/22 - St. Petersburg, FL - Noisemakers
11/29 - Silverhill, AL - Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm
12/4 - Mobile, AL - Brickyard
12/5 - Ocean Springs, MS - Julep Room
12/13 - Silverhill, AL - Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm
12/31 - Josephine, AL - Pirate's Cove
1/1 - Mobile, AL - Callaghan's Irish Social Club
1/2 - Fairhope, AL - Decoy
1/15-17 - Santa Rosa Beach, FL - 30A Songwriter Festival
1/21 - Ocean Springs, MS - Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Center
Photo Credit: Chad Edwards
