Anthony D’Amato: “Hank Williams Tune”
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Like any artist, Anthony D’Amato loves to tip his cap to his influences. His melodies call to mind old folk songs, and he even wrote his graduate thesis on Bruce Springsteen. On D’Amato’s new track “Hank Williams Tune,” he tells the story of someone who can only communicate through music, cleverly alluding to lyrics and other artists that made an impact on him over the years.
D’Amato’s 2010 debut Down Wires garnered a bunch of buzz and even earned the twentysomething a nod from World Cafe’s “Next” series. That debut was largely a spare affair, with D’Amato recording much of the album in his Princeton dorm room. Between his studies, he toured with the likes of Pete Yorn and Ben Kweller.
On May 29, D’Amato will release his follow-up, titled Paper Back Bones. It was recorded with a lot of help from his friends, including violinist Amanda Shires and members from Midlake, Crooked Still, and Ben Kweller’s band. The aforementioned “Hank Williams Tune” also makes an appearance on the record. With Brittany Haas from Crooked Still on fiddle, D’Amato weaves his story on acoustic guitar and harmonica. He makes a connection between Leonard Cohen’s poems, Jack Kerouac’s novels, the Rolling Stones’ wild horses, and Hank Williams’s tunes, drawing inspiration from a half-century of art to create something deeply personal.
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