Jerry Joseph has announced a new studio album, Baby, You’re The Man Who Would Be King, due Sept. 9, 2023, on Cosmo Sex School Records. As a preview of what’s to come, he has released the initial single off the impending LP, “The War I Finally Won.” 

The new collection was recorded in New York City and produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, featuring some of the best and brightest players from the Empire State. The material was scribed in Joseph’s Portland, Ore. driveway, where he worked in a vintage camping trailer, before taking his collection to the Brooklyn, N.Y. studio during the summer of 2021. 

“These for me, were a different collection of songs,” acknowledges Joseph, commenting on the forthcoming nine-track release. “If there was a theme, it was to focus on simplicity – lord knows I can be … er… verbose -, often ending with a head scratch and ‘what the hell is this song about’ upon listening to the final versions. In the end, there’s a lot more truth and vulnerability here than I’m willing to publicly concede.”

He added: “I had long been talking about making a New York record, I have spent a lot of time there but never made an album there. I met Eric Ambel a couple years earlier when he sat in with my band at Rough Trade in Brooklyn and he and I agreed these songs would be a great batch of material to finally make that album. Eric assembled a seriously wicked band, and I don’t know what he does, but it sounds like NYC to me.”

Ambel offered, “I met Jerry when our bands played together in February of 2018 at Rough Trade in Brooklyn. He invited me to sit in with him on ‘a couple songs’. That turned into half the set and the encore. I really enjoyed how loose the band was and Jerry’s super personal connection to his fans.”

Joseph tacked on a note pertaining to today’s single release: “When I was writing these songs, I had been on a Springsteen bender and thought to myself, ‘maybe it would be cool to get a bunch of harps and a holder thingy and write folky harmonica songs.’ I still can’t wrap my head around breaking my personal life rule of never, ever under any circumstances, buying a harmonica neck holder thing but here it is on ‘The War I Finally Won.’”

“‘The War I Finally Won’ has Phil Cimino stomping out a heavy folk-rock beat with Jerry playing the acoustic and the harmonica. Charlie played Mary Lee’s grandmother’s Hammond A-100 organ. I had played the electric 12 string with the band at Cowboy and added more electric guitar, acoustic guitar, tambourine, and the harmony vocals at Evie’s,” Ambel described via press release. 

Scroll down to view the tracking list. Listen to the new track, which debuted via Americana Highways today. 

Baby, You’re The Man Who Would Be King

1. The War I Finally Won
2. The Man Who Would Be King
3. 20 20 Moons
4. Book Burning
5. Canadian Boyfriend
6. Carmen Miranda
7. Am I OK
8. Loving Kindness
9. Leaving The Lights On