Wind-blown hills and dry riverbeds of Nicaragua. The water’s edge on a cold, rainy day beside the old sailors’ bars of Red Hook. Expectant days of anticipation awaiting the birth of one’s first child. Searching for the old soul of Atlanta. These are a few of the settings and journeys in the songs on Atlanta-via-Athens, Georgia based singer/songwriter Adam Klein’s new digital only release, Live at Leesta Vall Sound Recordings, due out April 3rd on his Cowboy Angel Music label.
Recorded in 2019 while on tour supporting his album Low Flyin’ Planes, the collection includes selections from an epic multi-hour duo recording session featuring Klein and Athens’ in-demand violinist Adam Poulin at Leesta Vall in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The proceedings were documented by filmmaker, photographer, and longtime Klein collaborator Jeff Shipman.
While much of Klein’s large catalogue—this marks his 9th album—is colored by full band instrumentation, the live in-studio session presents Klein’s songs, new and old, in a raw, duo format, capturing the essence of Klein’s literate writing and musical style in its most basic form of expression—acoustic guitar, vocals, and light added instrumentation. Here is a live album cut in single takes with no overdubs which shines a spotlight on Klein’s signature songwriting and performance style—original folk and folk rock songs inspired by a life of travel, curiosity, and artistic struggle and exploration, delivered with his gentle, yearning voice, the bright strum and thump of his playing style, and Poulin’s alternating rapid and subtle fiddle stylings.
The entire session was recorded direct to lathe-cut vinyl—the performance of each song existing on one sole 7” record introduced by Klein greeting and dedicating the unique musical artifact to a particular person or a general listener.
It was a memorable, marathon session, and felt to all involved like an accomplishment. Leesta Vall, an independent vinyl-only label, shipped out the pre-ordered songs and Klein purchased the rest to sell. A few years later, Shipman cut a video of the Leesta Vall performance of unreleased song “Counting the Days”. Armed with only the camera’s audio, they wondered if the label had a digital file of the song available to enhance the video’s audio quality. But knowing that Shipman would make use of additional footage from the sessions for videos and perhaps B-roll for future projects, Klein inquired if he could receive the full session files digitally, if they existed. Leesta Vall kindly shared the entire session of mp3 files save for the performance of one song, “Patron Saint’s Day”, which could not be found.
And so, Klein found himself in possession of these valuable recordings. Respecting the label’s model and dedication to a vinyl-only ethos, he didn’t plan on releasing the material in any other format. But having learned of Leesta Vall’s closing in 2025, Klein reached out to the label to seek permission to release the session. With the approval granted, producer/engineer Damon Moon of Standard Electric Recorders in Scottsdale, Georgia, mastered the mp3s. Limited in his capacity to mix the files—the voice and both instruments couldn’t be separated or treated individually—Moon managed to enhance the audio to release-worthy sonic quality through the master bus and mastering processes. The closing track, “Patron Saint’s Day”, was ripped to digital from the lathe-cut vinyl, and maintains a charming static-filled sound suggestive of an old field recording from the early-mid 1900s.
These days, Klein is a working father of two dedicating his time to family life and whatever creative output he can muster. “Admittedly, on a personal level, it feels like a strange time to put out music which is disconnected from the current societal moment,” says Klein. Having released in 2023 a socio-political record, Holidays in United States, written in the throes of the great American reckoning of the spring and summer of 2020, he finds himself pulled in the current troubling political climate to express his concerns and pain through song. “Over the past year, I’ve been writing a new album which is essentially a follow-up to the Holidays record, another socio-political statement on the state of our country and its fragile institutions. I hope to record that soon. But its nice to have this batch of songs which are meaningful to me,” he adds, “and are clear of any identity politics, culture wars, and the like. I feel like this showcases who I am as a songwriter and suggests what’s to come.”
Indeed, among the material of Live at Leesta Vall are five unreleased songs: two destined for a recorded but still unreleased album inspired by Klein’s experiences of the land and people of Nicaragua, called Tropical Bones (“Faithful Brigade” and “Patron Saint’s Day”), two for another partially recorded collection (“Goin’ Down to Peachtree” and “Black Lung Blues”), and a song in the vein of “Forever Young” written before the birth of his first daughter, “Counting the Days.” The live album also features multiple songs from Low Flyin’ Planes, a song each from 2015’s Archer’s Arrow (“Burnin’ Love”) and 2012’s Sky Blue DeVille (“Goodnight Nobody”), and a cover of John Hiatt’s “Feels Like Rain”.
Klein’s songwriting and active years of touring have earned accolades from Americana and folks press, multiple albums on the Euro Americana chart, an official performance at Folk Alliance, and shared stages with a long list of revered songwriters and bands including James McMurtry, Josh Ritter, Steep Canyon Rangers, Shovels & Rope, Larkin Poe, Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck.
Klein’s records have featured a who’s-who of talented musicians from Athens and beyond, including longtime producer, engineer, drummer, and vocalist Bronson Tew, singer/songwriter and activist Kyshona, producer David Barbe, David Blackmon (Widespread Panic, Jerry Reed), Randall Bramblett, Jay Gonzalez and Matt Patton (Drive-By Truckers), Bryan Howard and Carlton Owens (Cracker), Lera Lynn, and pedal steel maestro John Neff.
Klein’s music has been lauded for its “poetic penmanship” (Lonesome Highway), described as “moving folk rock” (Creative Loafing), and he’s been called “the next great American songwriter that delivers an orchestrated sound where picturesque words and musical landscapes make a song more than just a ‘tune’.” (Glide Magazine) In Live at Leesta Vall, the intrinsic qualities of Klein and his songs take center stage. The landscapes, if muted, remain powerful and perhaps wondrous. Beyond a set of tunes, these are cinematic, worn and lived-in worlds unto themselves, brought forth in a heightened yet loose moment of channeled inspiration. They are expressions which have been earned, inhabiting, as Gordon Lamb wrote of Klein’s work in Flagpole Magazine, a “still hopeful but learned repose of deep adulthood.”