Acclaimed singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Richie Owens returns with the new album Redemption, now available on Owepar Records.
Many will consider Redemption a timely wake-up call as Owens offers an honest, gritty, and hard-hitting meditation on the current state of our society and our humanity. The powerful opening track, “Welcome To The Evening Show,” reflects on how we have allowed ourselves to drown in a tsunami of misinformation, clickbait and chaotic noise while pointing the finger at everyone but ourselves. It is a sobering snapshot of a culture obsessed with its own reflection as the narrator sits back and resigns to the realization that he can only watch helplessly as the madness continues to unfold.
Throughout Redemption, Owens confronts a world that confuses connection with control, faith with fraud, and loyalty with infatuation. He poetically expresses unflinching truths through a tradition of Southern storytelling. His ability to balance dark and light gives the album a deep, lasting resonance. Tracks such as “The Hammer” and “Don’t Muddy the Waters” deliver resilience and clarity against the chaos, while “All That Matters,” “How Long,” and “The Last Song Written” ache with reflection and longing.
More than just a collection of new songs, Redemption serves as a reckoning or even an emotional exorcism. Owens sings like a man who has seen too much to be naïve but refuses to surrender to despair. Redemption is musical journey through sin, regret, sacrifice, redemption, manipulation and loss, while still trying to cling onto hope, love and the humanity deep within us all.
This fall, Richie and his dear friend and collaborator Bob Ocker will embark on the Redemption Road Trip, a week-long roots-music pilgrimage across the American heartland — a dusty, soul-searching journey from Nashville to Los Angeles.
Inspired by the spirit of Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac, this musical travelogue will wind through the blues-soaked clubs of Memphis’ Beale Street, the dusty protest song legacy of the Woody Guthrie Center in Oklahoma, the stunning landscapes of the Texas borderlands, the decaying but still vital neon and grit of the legendary Route 66, and on to the City of Angels. During each stop, they’ll perform songs while reaffirming 40 years of musical collaboration and friendship that began in punk rock clubs of Nashville in the 1980s. Each stop will be filmed for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube — blending folk storytelling, raw acoustic performances, and road poetry, into a rolling diary called Redemption Road: Where the Journey Forgives.
For more information on Redemption, along with full song notes, visit RichieOwens.com.
Richie Owens’ Redemption is available through the Smoky Mountain DNA Shop.