Michael Prewitt Releases Words By A RiverI.
Words By A River
Sometimes the biggest truths arrive quietly. With Words By A River, released today on Common Loon Records, singer-songwriter and mandolinist Michael Prewitt turns toward the natural world for a thoughtful meditation on place, movement, gratitude and the experience of traveling through a world capable of extraordinary beauty and extraordinary turmoil.
Written by Prewitt, the new single carries an even greater significance within his evolving body of work: Words By A River closes his album Poor Ol’ Pitiful Human, serving as something of a final reflection on the ideas woven throughout the project.
Moving in three four time, the song brings together the threads at the heart of the album offering a deep sense of place, reverence for the natural world, curiosity about the spiritual world, the experience of traveling through life, and the importance of remaining grounded enough to recognise its gifts, both large and small.
For Prewitt, it ultimately comes down to gratitude and being present enough to experience it.
Words By A River is the last track on Poor Ol’ Pitiful Human, and for me, it brings the themes of the album full circle and lays them to rest. Noticing the world, appreciating the gifts you’ve been given, being content with your small place in it all, that’s what the album is really about. If the album is a loose narrative, Words By A River is the resolution. If the album is a church service, this is the benediction, and hopefully sends the listener out to go in peace – Michael Prewitt.
Prewitt recorded the project live in the studio alongside his touring band, CrunchGrass Supreme, capturing the interaction and spontaneity of musicians accustomed to making music together in real time. Joining Prewitt on mandolin are Aaron Bibelhauser on guitar, Max Etling on bass, Brady Wallen on banjo and Laura Orshaw on fiddle.
The result pairs traditional bluegrass instrumentation with Prewitt’s literary approach to songwriting, favouring musical conversation and human connection over something overly manufactured or polished.
Sean Sullivan engineered, produced and mixed the recording at The Tractor Shed in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, helping preserve the organic character at the center of Prewitt’s vision.
There is something especially fitting about closing the album beside a river.
Rivers move relentlessly forward while remaining inseparable from the landscapes through which they travel. That same tension, movement and belonging, wandering and rootedness, the temporal and the eternal, runs throughout Prewitt’s music and finds a natural home in Words By A River.
It also reflects the path of an artist whose own life has been shaped by movement. Recent years have taken Prewitt on international tours and onto SiriusXM airwaves, while his previous tenure with Special Consensus included two IBMA awards. Those experiences now inform a solo identity increasingly defined not only by his abilities as an instrumentalist, but by his voice as a songwriter.
Michael Prewitt
His August single East Kentucky Two-Lane explored the powerful connection between geography, home and identity. Words By A River carries that conversation forward while widening the lens — from the roads we travel to the world surrounding them and, ultimately, to the fleeting moments we experience along the way.
With Words By A River, Michael Prewitt and CrunchGrass Supreme close Poor Ol’ Pitiful Human with perhaps the album’s simplest and most enduring idea: stay grounded, remain grateful, and don’t miss the beauty while you’re passing through.
Words By A River is available worldwide today, via Common Loon Records.
Words By A River features: Michael Prewitt on mandolin, Aaron Bibelhauser on guitar, Max Etling on bass, Brady Wallen on 5-string banjo and Laura Orshaw on fiddle. It was engineered, produced and mixed by Sean Sullivan and recorded at The Tractor Shed in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
Words By A River is available now on all digital streaming and download platforms. DJ’s and radio programmers can reach out to the Common Loon Records radio team for a direct wav or mp3 download for airplay, here, and subscribers can download it from Get Played.
