When Frankie Ballard was growing up in Battle Creek, Mich., his father played him one classic album over and over again: Marty Robbins’ “Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs,” featuring Robbins’ signature hit “El Paso.”
Now Ballard, a quick-draw guitarist and rough-hewn singer, has cut his own metaphorical gunfighter album, decamping from Nashville to a gritty El Paso studio to record the follow-up to his 2014 breakout Sunshine & Whiskey.
For Ballard, who scored three consecutive number-one singles off Sunshine & Whiskey — “Helluva Life,” the title track and “Young & Crazy” — it was imperative that he leave behind the safety of Nashville for the wilds of the Mexico border.
Setting up shop at the famed Sonic Ranch, just south of El Paso in Tornillo, Texas, Ballard, producer Marshall Altman (Sunshine & Whiskey) and his band threw themselves headlong into the music, eating and sleeping at the studio.
Their goal: to make a bona fide album.
“I grew up listening to albums and I loved them as bodies of work,” says Ballard. “But today, everyone cuts singles. Even Sunshine & Whiskey was recorded in chunks. We’d go into one studio, cut four, then go into another studio and cut another four. It’s groovus interruptus, man.”
To keep that groove steady, Ballard went on the lam, leaving Nashville for a few days of bare-bones rehearsals at ground zero for rock and roll and soul, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama.
“I miss musicianship on the radio. Everyone is doing this digital thing and they’re putting all these pop sounds into country music, and I love it. I dance to it at the club. But I don’t do that personally. I don’t even have a computer,” says Ballard.
From there, he continued on to the Granada Theater in Dallas for another workshop session, before arriving at El Paso’s Sonic Ranch.
Now Ballard will make his way to Long Island, appearing at The Paramount (370 New York Ave. in Huntington) on Saturday, April 15 at 8 p.m.
He will be joined by fellow country singer and songwriter, Levi Hummon.
Fore more information about Ballard, go to frankieballard.com and for tickets and further information about the event, go to paramountny.com or call 631-673-7300.
