If you’ve been following Nashville music, you’ll likely recognize Joelton Mayfield’s name; the gentle-voiced, Texas-born singer-songwriter has been playing in and around town for several years. His most recent big release was an EP called I Hope You Make It, which came in December 2019. Unfortunately, COVID came just a few months later, stopping him from building much steam behind the record. In the years since lockdown ended, he’s been hard at work on new songs and racking up heaps of miles on the road with his band. In July, he released the first new music to come from that effort, a single called “Afterlife.”
The song is a character sketch of someone who has struggled a good bit more than their outsized personality would lead casual observers to believe. As the wistful melody lilts and rocks along, Mayfield sings about how we’re prone to warp memories till they show us what we want to see: “You were just coming around to the idea / This could all work out / Waging war from the couch / Melting shell and gun into nail and hammer / For the great rebuilding / Of the way this never has been / But nevertheless gets misremembered.”
Today, we’re very pleased to premiere a performance video put together by Taped Sessions’ Olen Quinn and Jack Foster. In the piece, Mayfield and his band perform the song outside as the sun sets behind a location dubbed The Alamo Lounge. The image makes me remember playing after school as a kid, and I can almost smell cut grass and wood smoke. Maybe I’m just getting nostalgic, but that’s a perfect fit for the mood of the song.
Give it a spin and follow Mayfield on Instagram for updates (including more news about new music). If you didn’t get to see him open for John Moreland at The Basement East recently, you may have missed your last chance to see Mayfield in town for a bit; much of the rest of his year is filled with more dates with Moreland, plus some support slots for SUSTO and The Mountain Goats peppered in.
