Episode Details

Acclaimed local musician River Shook stopped by Live & Local this week, following the release of their self-titled album, their first as a solo artist after a ten-year run with Sarah Shook & the Disarmers.

Visit RiverShook.com.

“I think this was a way to plant my flag,” Shook says of the new album, which comes almost exactly a year after they dissolved the Disarmers. “I don’t care about fame, I don’t (even) like people looking at me…(but) I’m a songwriter first and foremost, and the entire reason I started making music in the first place was to get my songs in the world.”

Those songs are as vibrant and memorable as ever, with powerful lyrics that capture the roller coaster of surviving and finding joy through all the extreme highs and lows and slings and arrows of life, all delivered in Shook’s signature deep raspy twang that still ranks as one of the best voices the Triangle’s ever produced.

But while “River Shook” is billed as a solo album – and Shook certainly stands out as the star – it’s not really a solo project at all, but a duo. Shook co-produced all the songs at home in tandem with her partner (and fiancé) Blake Tallent, who plays eleven different instruments across the album’s ten tracks.

Shook and Tallent first came together in 2021, in a “wild chain of events” that Shook captured in the song “Running To Georgia.”

“We (had a show) in Savannah and he was our sound tech,” Shook remembers. “And when I walked into the venue to get the lay of the land, I saw him across the room and had this moment of instant recognition that was – not quite love at first sight, not quite attraction, but a moment of recognition where my brain was just like, ‘that’s my person’…

“Then (seven months later) we needed a guitarist, and my manager texted this guy in Nashville… he was unavailable, but he walked downstairs to the studio where his housemate – Blake! – was mixing a session, and asked, ‘do you want this gig?’ And Blake was like, ‘absolutely, I do.'”

Listen to the album and purchase it on Bandcamp.

Now that the album’s out, Shook is doing what they always do: hitting the road for an extended tour. Their next show is a local one – Raleigh’s Live After 5 series this Thursday, July 16, starting at 7 p.m. on Moore Square – but then they’re heading out for a pair of tours, first a monthlong West Coast swing opening for Old 97’s (including a gig in W