Small Town Romance, Pete Cullen & Ally Row: Highlights From This Week’s ‘Grass Roots’

Every week, ABC Country's Grass Roots program shines a light on the best independently released Australian country content. Selected from the hundreds of new tracks submitted, the one-hour program is now available on demand as well as premiering each Monday at 9pm on ABC Country, showing the health of Aussie country music across all its sub-genres. Here are four of this week's tracks you should have on your radar. 

Head here to have a listen to this week’s full episode of Grass Roots.

Small Town Romance – Wild Boys

Wild Boys is the stellar third single from Small Town Romance’s forthcoming Home Fires album, due for release on August 23. Heartbreaking in its tenderness, Wild Boys is an intimate portrait of two brothers and their mother. Recorded live in one take, it’s the sort of track that seeps down into your bones and stays with you long after you listen.

The two-time Golden Guitar Award nominees blend country, folk, Australiana, Tex-Mex and roots music to create a sound that is uniquely their own. Small Town Romance proudly carry on the incredible musical legacy of Jim’s mother, Anne Kirkpatrick, and grandparents Slim Dusty and Joy McKean.

Pete Cullen – Good Times Roll

Pete Cullen is know for having a good time, but he also wears his honest heart on his sleeve – what you see is what you get, and that is a testament in his new single Good Times Roll. Lifted from his forthcoming album, Ease Your Troubled Mind, Pete says the song sits alongside Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler in the way that it’s giving himself advice just like The Gambler did on that train bound for nowhere.

Pete says there’s no use chasing the latest sound or trend or replicating it – you’re better off just being your honest, creative self, because in the end its just you looking at yourself in the mirror at 3am after a show.

Ally Row – The Great Unknown

Gippsland duo Ally Row’s new single, The Great Unknown, is inspired by the great spaghetti westerns of the ’60s – think rattlesnakes, tumbleweeds, standoffs and Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and you’ll get the idea. The song follows the journey of a young boy navigating the hardships of growing up and living through physical hurt, the gut-wrenching pain of infatuation, and surviving the loss of someone you care for deeply.

You can listen to the latest full episode of ABC Country’s Grass Roots here.