HOME | The High Hawks

"The High Hawks feature members of Leftover Salmon, Railroad Earth and Hard Working Americans, and they make expansive roots-rock in the vein of The Grateful Dead. A bit of breezy jam-rock that extolls the pleasures of music and togetherness."

ROLLING STONE

The High Hawks - Mother Nature's Show

Sometimes an album’s theme will emerge during the recording process. And that’s exactly what happened with The High Hawks’ new album Mother Nature’s Show.

“It was total happenstance,” says High Hawk vocalist-guitarist Vince Herman. “As albums often do, you find an unconscious thread in them.”

The unconscious thread in Mother Nature’s Show is a musical travelogue that begins in the high country and ends at the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not a stretch to say the album takes the listener down Highway 61, the oft-called “Blues Highway” immortalized by Bob Dylan that follows the Mississippi River from Minnesota to New Orleans, passing through St. Louis, Memphis and the Mississippi delta.

Most of the album was actually recorded in Minnesota at historic Pachyderm Studios in the small town of Cannon Falls, not far from the banks of the Mississippi and Highway 61, just 20 miles to the west. The sextet of roots music veterans arrived at Pachyderm on New Year’s Day 2023, a Sunday, and over the course of the year’s first week, they recorded the 12 tracks included on the record.

Mother Nature’s Show is the group’s second album, the follow-up to their acclaimed eponymous debut from 2021. Keyboardist-vocalist Chad Staehly finds significance in beginning work on the album on January 1.

“It was like, ‘All right, this is a new chapter, a new year,’” Staehly says. “It’s New Year's Day, and we're gathering together to make a record. There was something really cool about all that.”

Like Herman, the keyboardist also sees how the dozen songs on the record represent a musical travelogue.

“After I sat back and was able to digest the record, that really struck me as a strong thread,” he says. “It’s what the record is.”

It’s not surprising The High Hawks recorded a collection of songs that take the listener on a musical journey when you consider the group is a passion project comprised of six musical road warriors and friends who have logged hundreds of thousands of miles in their careers traveling the country from gig to gig.