The New Soft Shoe, a local band that pays tribute to alt-country icon Gram Parsons by playing covers of the songs he wrote with groups such as Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds, was formed in 2010 for a monthly residency at the Happy Dog. Parsons famously pioneered what he called Cosmic American Music in the late 1960s and early 1970s and influenced acts such as the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris, Wilco and Ryan Adams.
Fifteen years after that first gig, the band — Brent Kirby on guitar, Andy Leach on guitar, Tom Prebish on bass, Rachel Brown on keyboards and Jon Niefeld on drums — will celebrate the release of its self-titled debut with a show that takes place at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 8, at Forest City Brewery, where the group has held a residency on the second Thursday of the month since 2018.
Not just a collection of covers, the album finds the band putting its own twist on Parsons’s tunes.
“Over the years, we developed interesting versions of Gram’s songs and had people react positively to them, and it was really fun to go to the studio and record them,” says Kirby in a press release. “The songs are so strong that you can bend them all sorts of ways. It has grown organically into a community that celebrates the music of Gram. But also, it has created a monthly tradition where everyone gathers in one place to be together for a shared, authentic experience. It’s a truly special thing.”
The band cut the record at Suma Recording in Painesville with studio engineer Dave Shaw and recorded the tracks live with minimal overdubs as they take on well-known songs like “Hickory Wind” and “Sin City” as well as deeper cuts such as “Can’t Take It Anymore.”
Jim Ellis, a local music fan who had a self- published fanzine called CLE in the late 1970s and recently revived his CLE Records, offered to release it.
“It’s a bit selfish, but I want to take the band’s music home with me and play it on my turntable,” Ellis states. ”There’s so much great music in Cleveland to see and hear.”
The Jan. 8th show also represents the band’s 16th anniversary, and the group will offer its “All Gram All Night” T-shirts to the faithful devotees who gathered monthly stamps in a stamp book. In addition, the new 2026 stamp book will be given out to all attendees.
The album will be available on colored 180-gram vinyl, limited Wax Mage vinyl, CD and digital download through CLE Records Bandcamp.
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