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Confederate Railroad comes to town

Jessica Cabe
jcabe@postindependent.com
At the Orchard Thursday night, Confederate Railroad performs for the Roaring Fork Co-op’s annual meeting.
Will Grandbois / Post Independent |

After about eight years without a studio album, outlaw country band Confederate Railroad has a new label, a new record and an itch to share what they’ve come up with.

But on Thursday night, the band was content to perform for the Roaring Fork Co-op’s annual meeting at the Orchard. More like a celebration, the event was open only to co-op members and began at 6:30 p.m.

“They asked if we wanted to come play, and I said, ‘I always like coming to Colorado,’” said lead singer Danny Shirley.



The band is best known for it’s ’90s hits like “Trashy Women” and “Daddy Never Was the Cadillac Kind.” They released a live album in 2010 but haven’t recorded anything in the studio since 2007’s “Cheap Thrills.” They’ve toured extensively, though, even when they weren’t making new records.

Recently, Shirley decided to start writing music for other country artists to perform — something he’d never done before.



“A lot of these new country music artists came to me and said — Luke Bryan said this — ‘If only you knew how many times I’ve been sitting by the river listening to Confederate Railroad CDs,’” Shirley said. After that, he thought it might be fun to write music for new country artists.

When he pitched the songs to folks in Nashville, he was met with enthusiasm, but they didn’t want to him to give the songs away. They wanted him to record a new album with Confederate Railroad. He signed with Sony, and he made the album.

“It feels really good to get a deal with Sony,” Shirley said. “It’s been really good.”

Shirley said most of the tracks on the new album, due out sometime next year, sound like classic Confederate Railroad. In fact, they re-recorded their wildly popular “Trashy Women” with guest vocalists like Willie Nelson. But because he wrote some of the songs with other artists in mind, there are a handful with an all new sound. He even put a bluegrass track at the end, just for fun.

“It didn’t fit anywhere on the album, so we put it last,” he said with a laugh.

Part of the proceeds of his album sales will go to a foundation he started, the Hunter Worley Foundation. It’s named for his friend’s son who was killed in an accident, and it helps families that have lost children pay for funeral costs, counseling and more.

“I can’t think of anything worse than losing a kid,” Shirley said.

Updates on the new album can be found at http://www.confederaterailroad.net.


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