tom hampton

A few songs into the new Tom Hampton album "A Month Of Somedays", it’s easy to get the sense that these songs have been simmering on low heat over the course of several soul-searching years. Hampton is certainly no stranger to the studio - on his own behalf or in the service of records by Craig Bickhardt, Dan May, Mustangs of the West, Michael Braunfeld, Chris Canterbury, or Cimarron 615 (the band he formed with fellow ex-Poco members in the wake of the 2021 death of their founder, Rusty Young). Still, the drought between releases of original material has been a long one.

His years as a journeyman multi-instrumentalist and sideman are bookended by his initial foray into music as a singer/songwriter - he released his critically acclaimed debut "Our Mutual Angels" in 1997 while simultaneously heeding the call as a session player based on his demonstrated adeptness on multiple instruments during those recording sessions. After finding himself disillusioned by the demands of driving a solo career, the transition became an easy way to hide in plain sight - “For me, it meant that I could still play music in front of people, I could still make records, but I was relieved of the pressures of blowing my own horn,” he remembers.

Over the course of subsequent years playing sessions in Philadelphia and touring with John Lilley of the Hooters, Philadelphia legend Robert Hazard, the band Idlewheel (which featured Craig Bickhardt and Poco bassist Jack Sundrud) and a stint on the road with southern rockers the Marshall Tucker Band, he made several homemade albums on a recreational basis but his focus on songwriting had taken a backseat to his instrumental craft. After relocating to Nashville and an invitation to join the pioneering country rock band Poco, he felt ready to settle into his new role in a band he’d loved since his teenage years - until the pandemic sidelined the notion of touring. With Young’s subsequent passing and the formulation of the band that grew out of the final Poco lineup, Hampton rediscovered his yellow legal pad.

“I knew I’d be expected to contribute songs to the record, and that I’d have to sharpen that skill set again and shake off the rust, but it was as if I opened up a vein,” he recalled. “I must have written a dozen songs when we started collecting material for the record, and I haven’t really slowed down since.”

That rediscovered voice in these latter day songs owes as much to Jason Isbell and John Moreland as it does to formative influences like Jackson Browne and Stephen Stills - his songs touch on fleeting intimate unspoken moments during late night drives, searching for renewal and reconnection in relationships, and the struggles of balancing ones’ dreams with the need to survive.

Other songs are conversational confrontations of bigotry ("Wrong Side of History") or character studies of other lives he’s intersected with on his path. "Disappear" is a peek into the story of original Poco drummer George Grantham, who lived with Hampton and his family for a year while transitioning into assisted living for treatment for dementia. "Gasoline" is the meditation of a truck stop cashier whose days are spent watching everyone else en route to somewhere else while they stand frozen behind the counter, and "The Ghost Of The Girl With The Smiling Eye"s recounts an imagined conversation between an encountered stranger and Hampton’s longtime friend, legendary Philadelphia disc jockey Michael Tearson. "That Song You Used To Know" is told through the eyes of a touring musician in a band whose setlist is chiseled in stone by its long-past chart successes.

Indeed, when listening to the songs on "A Month Of Somedays", it’s hard not to ponder the records Hampton would’ve made if he’d stayed on his initial path - but those thoughts are dismissed in conversation. “I can’t let myself get caught up in hypotheticals - this is happening right when it’s supposed to be happening.”

"A Month Of Somedays" will be available for purchase as physical product as well as streaming on all DSP's at the end of July 2024, with extensive tour dates to follow. Multiple packages will be available, including a companion physical disk containing alternate takes and live performances from the album.