Premiere: Lauren Pratt has been In the Valley

After CD Young American Sycamore, she joins Mavis Staples & others

Lauren Pratt’s new full-length release, Young American Sycamore, references an unusual species that, unlike most trees, sheds its bark as it matures. For Pratt, it’s her songs which evolve and are replaced by new work—from the propulsive bluegrass rhythms to the ghostly gothic textures—found in her very literate songs.

An even more compelling, if prosaic, reason for the title came late one night when she was awakened in the night by shouts and sirens. The roof of her apartment—in a complex called The Sycamores—was on fire, and Pratt was burned out of her Nashville home. It wasn’t simply the fire that burned her out; after recording and touring behind her full-length album, Days Like Tonight and producing Live At Monster Studios, Pratt found herself disheartened and disenchanted by the rigors of the music business, so, with little to pack, she enrolled in a master’s program in mental health counseling and expressive art therapy in Boston.

But the songs from her two previous releases were still out there, and she was invited to North Adams, Massachusetts to compete for the “No Depression Singer-Songwriter Award” at FreshGrass Festival. This September, after the Young American Sycamore release, Lauren will perform on the main stage, joining such Americana icons as Mavis Staples, Iron & Wine, Calexico, and Andrew Bird.

Pratt told Elmore, “‘In the Valley’ was written in a feverish burst of creativity after an album tour gone awry. This song acknowledges the imbalance that exists in the heart this side of eternity.”

_{Video by Natalie Micah and Shelby Nicole Goldsmith, Lyric edit by Still Frame Storytelling}