RELEASE DATE: 4/17/20

PRESS RELEASE:

Oklahoma City Record Label Reissues Texas Songwriter Doug Burr’s Beloved 2007 Album “On Promenade”

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla., February 17, 2020 – Oklahoma City-based independent record label Clerestory AV will reissue Texas songwriter Doug Burr’s remarkable 2007 record “On Promenade” on vinyl for the first time April 17.

Originally released on California label Velvet Blue Music (Richard Swift, Starflyer 59), the record garnered international praise at its release, including a Paste Magazine feature that called the album “exquisitely detailed” and likened Burr’s songwriting to the literature of Eudora Welty and Cormac McCarthy.

Doug Burr is a case study in invoking the profound disbelief that arises when a well-loved artist doesn’t garner the wider, career-advancing recognition his fans believe he deserves. In North Texas, he is undoubtedly acclaimed: For the 10-year anniversary of “On Promenade,” the Dallas Observer published a piece on how the record has influenced many other musicians from the region. Amidst the accolades for this record and his other works before and after, however, Burr chose to forgo extensive touring and the years-long, unpredictable grind of building and courting a larger audience in order to be near his family.

He has remained a prolific writer and occasional performer, cutting new records with regularity, including a 2018 single called “First Son of Connecticut” on Clerestory AV, released as a split 7” record with Oklahoma band Beau Jennings & the Tigers. Still, the resonance of “On Promenade” has lingered.

“It was one of those records that was so instantly impactful the first time I heard it that I felt like I'd known it forever,” says Chris Stellman, owner of Clerestory AV. “I've followed his music closely since, but that one has always been special and is one that I still share with people often. I'm always surprised more people don't know it—it's kind of iconic in North Texas.”

For “On Promenade,” Burr draws deftly from the playbook of the American South—hard work, humility with a twinge of discontent, an underlying mysticism steeped in religion. He sings with the urgency and plaintiveness of likeminded contemporaries Damien Jurado and David Bazan and composes with the folklore fluency of a writer’s writer. The focused lyrical stories of “On Promenade” are, as a result, emblematic of the greater human condition while ringing deeply personal.

“I’m getting on better than ever with my work,” Burr sings on “How Can the Lark (My Dear Theo).” “Oh preferential torment, to love even unreturned.”

— Becky Carman

“On Promenade” is available for preorder February 17, 2020. The album has been remastered from original audio by Jim Wilson (Airshow, Boulder, CO). Vinyl pressed by Hand Drawn Pressing in Dallas, TX. Digital download (included with LP) will feature previously unreleased track “Thought I Saw A Rose”, recorded during the “On Promenade” sessions.

PRESS FOR “ON PROMENADE”:
Exquisitely detailed, slow and deliberate, his songs have as much in common with the literature of Eudora Welty and Cormac McCarthy as with the work of the Americana dimmerati to whom he is often, and somewhat shortsightedly, compared…
— Paste Magazine

As far as I can see, Burr’s only problem now lies in how he is going to follow ‘On Promenade’. Brilliant!
— Americana UK

Denton singer-songwriter Doug Burr deserves international success.
— Fort Worth Weekly

A quiet, unsung masterpiece of modern folk/alternative country that deserves far more attention than it has garnered thus far.
— Sputnik Music

Singer/songwriter Doug Burrs new album perambulates human experience, drawing on the mystery of the South, apocalyptic evocations, and even Van Gogh’s letters…
— Modern Luxury Dallas

Burr’s ability to create a sense of mystery is what makes the song so hauntingly beautiful. I am still peeling back the layers on this, trying to find out what it is all about. I might never figure that out, and that’s alright with me.
— Sounds Country

Burr relies on great songs, not on gimmicks, and pulls on literate wit and poetry to generate the intimate ache that drives the record. There is clearly something in the water in Denton – that town has produced two of the best records of the past 12 months.
— ContactMusic.com

After repeated listens, it’s safe to say that ‘On Promenade’ is unlike any album to emerge in recent time, and no doubt it will stand as one of the most important releases of 2007. The contrast between warmth and dark melancholy is at war here, and the result is an epic draw.
— TheBlackandWhiteMag.com