Sentimental Family Band is the KUTX Artist of the Month for March 2024, powered by PNC Bank.
If you close your eyes and listen to Sentimental Family Band’s “Never Love Again,” you’d be right to think it was a mid-century country classic written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant or Roy Acuff. But it’s not–it was written in this century, by the young songwriters in one of Austin’s most in-demand country outfits.
Sentimental Family Band started out playing Austin dance halls and honky-tonks, and you need a big repertoire to keep the boots moving across the floor. So they learned the classics, but then started sneaking their own songs into their set lists. “We first wanted to try writing these originals that would blend into a set that had Ray Price and Buck Owens songs,” singer and guitarist Camille Lewis told us recently. “It was a writing experiment to see if we could make our own stuff that sounded similar to the songs we were covering.”
And it’s a big success. Sweethearts Only, Sentimental Family Band’s debut album out March 29th, slots in nicely next to those honky-tonk heroes, but it’s not a pastiche. The band members have the musical chops–members have played with Molly Burch and Dana Falconberry–but also the heart of classic country songwriting. Everything–the instruments, the phrasing, the words–are pared down to the absolute essential, so that the tears-in-your-beers emotion shines the brightest.
Sentimental Family Band celebrates all month long with a Thursday night residency at Sam’s Town Point, culminating in a release party at Sagebrush on March 29th. This week on My KUTX, Camille Lewis and drummer Matthew Shepherd are the guest DJs, sharing an hour of the classic sounds that light up the band’s collective jukebox. Hear Sentimental Family Band’s My KUTX on Saturday, March 2 at 6 p.m. or listen anytime right here.
Playlist:
- Los Tres Caballeros – “La Barca”
- Skeeter Davis – “Gonna Get Along Without You Now”
- The Beach Boys – “Wonderful”
- King Sunny Ade – “Mo Ti Mo”
- Doug Sahm – “Cowboy Peyton Place”
- The Mills Brothers – “Till We Meet Again”
- Ernest Ranglin – “Flamingo (Rock Steady)”
- George Jones & Melba Montgomery – “What’s In Our Heart”
- Chet Baker – “I Fall In Love Too Easily”
- Ana Gabriel – “Es Demasiado Tarde”
- Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris – “The Angels Rejoiced Last Night”
- Patti Page – “Tennessee Waltz”
- Hailu Mergia & The Walias – “Musicawi Silt”
- Charley Pride – “Streets Of Baltimore”
- Bonnie Guitar – “Dark Moon”
