Out Today: Captains & Cowboys – Mike Aiken

11 years ago Liv Carter Comments Off on Out Today: Captains & Cowboys – Mike Aiken

Singer-songwriter Mike Aiken releases his new CD, Captains & Cowboys today. The release via Northwind Records was timed to coincide with Earth Day in honor of Aiken’s ongoing commitment to the global environment, the CD’s content and the ‘Coal Train’ concept video. The disc is available today at retail outlets nationwide including Best Buy, Birdland Records and more and online at popular e-tailers iTunes, CDBaby, Rhapsody, Spotify, MySpace, Amazon mp3, etc. Produced by Dan Baird (Georgia Satellites) and Ben Strano (Jack Sundrud/Poco), Captains & Cowboys is Mike’s sixth studio album.

Catch more details and the music video below in the press release:

To celebrate the release, Aiken will appear live on air during Paul Shugrue’s Out Of The Box show on 89.5 FM Norfolk. In addition to performing songs from his new CD, Aiken will assist with the station’s pledge drive for NPR, taking calls and rallying donors. The show runs from 7-9 p.m. EDT, and fans can listen to the stream live on WHRV.org.

A conceptualized offering, Aiken’s new CD highlights his vocal talents on his own sweetly vibrant “Virginia” and Country Joe McDonald’s poignant lament “Save The Whales.” The title track brims with a longing for the old West and the open sea, while “Get Down River” (Brian Henneman, Bottle Rockets) addresses the challenges of living hand-in-hand with Mother Nature. Highlights abound, but it’s the earth-shattering “Coal Train” (Mike Aiken, Larry Berwald) that has Mike’s focus today – and he is releasing the song’s video in conjunction with Earth Day celebrations worldwide for a reason. This tale is not a happy one: the song outlines the destruction of our shrinking Appalachian mountains and America’s Heartland by the coal industry. “It’s time to get a national dialog going,” Mike states. “While we hear the rally of ‘Buy American,’ we are happily selling off and shipping out the very ground we stand on. It’s a complex situation that involves folks’ need to work, the industrial machine profiting from it, as well as the global environmental impact of the process itself.”

For Aiken, an avid supporter of the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race that benefits environmental concerns, raising awareness of the situation is crucial. “If the video engages just one person’s interest, then it will be worthwhile,” he notes.

 

 

Liv Carter

Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Liv Carter

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