Since he first picked up a guitar as a Kentucky teenager, Kyle Daniel has done a lot of living — some of it hard, much of it rowdy, but all of it honest. Kyle taps into all that experience for his long-awaited debut album, the shimmering, dynamic Kentucky Gold. It is an album that resurrects country-rock, Southern jam, and that old-time rock & roll without apology. And it’s made to be played loud.
“I’ve been in Nashville for a while, writing, recording, and always playing shows. All of that went into making my debut album,” Kyle says. “This record represents where I come from, what I’m about, how I was raised, and where I think we’re headed.”
Produced by Brian Elmquist of the Lone Bellow, Kentucky Gold and its 11 tracks builds on the gritty blueprint Kyle first sketched out with his breakthrough solo song “Hangover Town,” a roadhouse rocker that anchored his 2018 debut EP and caught the attention of Rolling Stone magazine. The 2019 EP What’s There to Say? followed, with its boot-stomping centerpiece “God Bless America (Damn Rock n’ Roll).” On Kentucky Gold, Kyle refines the swagger and bravado of those EPs, recorded when he was still living full throttle, into something more steady and evolved.