Born in London, Spencer Cullum is a Nashville-based pedal steel player and guitarist. Cullum founded his own instrumental musical group called Steelism with guitarist Jeremy Fetzer in 2011. He is also quite well-known for playing with Miranda Lambert’s band. Over the years, Cullum has recorded with artists including Dolly Parton, Ruby Amanfu, and Andrew Combs. After years of playing with and supporting fellow Nashville musicians, Cullum is now taking center stage. Under Nashville label yk records, Spencer Cullum released his debut album, Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection, on November 12th.
Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection combines English folk elements with psych-rock, folk, Britpop, and many more genres. The album brings London and Nashville together as Cullum intertwines English musical elements into his collaboration with Nashville players. Cullum’s gentle voice blends with compelling guitar riffs so that neither seems to dominate the other. The album’s opening track, “Jack of Fools”, begins with a trance-inducing guitar riff layered over a four-note bass line. You can hear the influence of 60s and 70s English rock bands all over this song, particularly in the guitar solo.
It was important to Cullum to connect the UK and Tennessee in this album. In a conversation with Nashville Scene, he shared a bit about Nashville players, particularly in the folk scene. “Even though the music has an English sound, I’m seeing all these amazing players in Nashville that are sort of influenced by that sort of music, like Skyway Man, Erin [Rae] and Sean Thompson. I think it’s important to say that there are great folk pickers in Nashville who are unbelievable.”
Spencer Cullum performed live at Grimey’s with several friends including Caitlin Rose, Erin Rae, and Annie Williams, to name a few. These friend are the “coins” that Cullum alludes to with his album title. Be sure to check out the performance below!
We’ll be playing “Jack of Fools” throughout the week as we feature Spencer Cullum as our Local Artist of the Week. Catch it live on-air at 100.1FM on your dial or streaming live at lightning100.com.
