Gig promotion: Courtney Marie Andrews at The Tin, 1st Mar 2017

Courtney Marie Andrews (with support from Izzie Derry) at The Tin on Wednesday, March 1st
Here's SonicPR's press release ...

COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS is delighted to announce her new album 'Honest Life', plus a series of UK shows in 2017. Perhaps currently best known for being Damien Jurado's lead guitarist, Courtney Marie Andrews has been on the road since she was 16 years old, when she left home in Arizona for her first tour. She travelled up and down the West Coast, busking and playing any bars or cafés that would have her. Soon after she took a Greyhound bus four nights straight from Phoenix to New York to do the same on the East Coast. For a decade or so since Courtney's been a session and backup singer and guitarist for nearly 40 artists – from Jimmy Eat World to Damien Jurado - but she never stopped writing her own material.

With plans to settle down for a bit and focus on her own songs, Courtney moved to Seattle in 2011 and recorded her last full-length record On My Page. However, the record had hardly been released before she was on the road again performing other artists' songs, eventually leading her overseas to play guitar and sing with Belgian star Milow. At the tour's end, the other session players joined her to record her 2014 EP Leuven Letters in one take. It was during this time that Courtney also wrote many of the songs on Honest Life. She found herself realising the impact of growing up on the road and this constant reconciling between her own and others' art and identity. Courtney takes it from there:

"While in Belgium for four months, I was going through a major heartbreak. I started growing homesick for America and the comfort of family and friends. That's where I wrote the first songs for Honest Life. It was a giant hurdle in my life, my first true growing pains as a woman. That's why I feel this record is a coming of age album. A common thread that runs through the songs is a great desire to fit somewhere, when nowhere fits - and wanting to get back home to the people I know and love. Once I got back to the USA I started to work at a small town bar. At the bar I felt I could truly empathize with the stories and lives of the people there. I wrote the other half of the songs about coming home and feeling a sense of belonging again. A lot of the stories at that bar definitely ran parallel with my own, even though our lives were so different. I was the 'musician girl'. They were farmers, construction workers, plumbers, waitresses, and cashiers. But, no matter how different, I felt we were all trying to live our most honest life."

True to her own vision, Andrews produced the resulting album herself and recorded it at Litho Studios in Seattle with recording engineer Floyd Reitsma, whose recent credits include Noah Gundersen and Pearl Jam. Honest Life will be released 20 January 2017 on 180g turquoise vinyl, CD & download, via Loose.

Tour dates:

• 21 Feb - NORWICH, Arts Centre*
• 22 Feb - MANCHESTER, RNCM*
• 23 Feb - GLASGOW, St Luke's*
• 24 Feb - EDINBURGH, The Caves*
• 25 Feb - GATESHEAD, Sage 2*
• 26 Feb - DURHAM, Old Cinema Launderette
• 27 Feb - LEEDS, Brudenell*
• 28 Feb - CARDIFF, Clwb Ifor Bach
• 1 Mar - COVENTRY, The Tin
• 2 Mar - LONDON, Union Chapel*
• 3 Mar - BRIGHTON, Concorde 2*
• 4 Mar - GUILDFORD, The Keep
• 6 Mar - LONDON, The Social
• 8 Mar - COLOGNE, Theater der Wohngemeinschaft
• 9 Mar - ARNHEM, Luxor Live
• 10 Mar - MIDDELBURG, De Spot
• 11 Mar - MOERBEKE, House Show
• 12 Mar - BRUSSELS, AB Huis 23
• 14 Mar - UTRECHT, Molenpark De Ster

* with The Handsome Family

Website links:

• Courtney Marie Andrews
• The Tin