JAMESON RODGERS - Down By The River - Head Coach Records

Boasting a resume anchored by breakout hits “Cold Beer Calling My Name” and “Some Girls,” with his debut single as an independent artist and first new music since 2023’s Whiskey Train, Jameson Rodgers has excitingly stated through the anxiousness of its official release, “This feels like the start of a new chapter in my life!”

Written by Rodgers, Brent Anderson, Michael Hardy, Smith Ahnquist, and Tom Whall, the coming of age “Down By The River” balances a modern era mid-tempo flow against a lyrical trek that checkmarks the impact that the river has made on every stage of his growing up years.   

There’s nostalgia embedded into the honesty that laces the smoothness of his voice that makes the lyrics radiate your speakers in such a way that this plays out like your part of a gathering with your longest tenured friends, sitting around a table with a cold one in hand while swapping stories of the moments that shaped your lives; with it now being Jameson’s turn in the hot seat.

Whether it was when his old man would take him down to the riverside as an adolescent to cast a line, when he made the decision for Christ and was baptized in that same river water, when in his teen years they’d crank some Marshall Tucker and throw back some underage brews, or when he and his high school crush would escape to the clutches of her daddy’s rules to let their hair down, the riverside prominently became the consistent backdrop for his life’s most significant moments.

However, the chorus sees the looking back essence of the verses meeting head-on with the depth of what the river water actually holds within its powerful grip, leaning into a forward visioned thought that rests on the hopeful prayer that God has a place in heaven for him right next to the rolling waters for when his time comes:

“Sometimes it's high

Sometimes it's low

Might be a little muddy but ain't it kind of funny

It'll wash the dirt off of your soul

And when it's my time

My time to go

Hope the Good Lord's got a house for a sinner

Down by the river

So I can keep watching it roll

Watching it roll”

Starting over as independent will naturally have its highs and lows for any artist as they learn to navigate new roads toward the definition of who they are in this current moment. With a familiarity already holding him to the ear of the country music fanbase, combining now with an easy to connect with song, Jameson Rodgers takes the first bold step into his next chapter with a big leap forward into the here and now.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)