Singer/songwriter returns to Port Townsend upon release of new album

Andrew Duhon to perform at The Palindrome

Posted

Andrew Duhon has been crooning since he was a kid riding around with his dad singing along with the country songs on the radio.

These days, with the release of his new album “Emerald Blue,” he’s forging his own road full of soul telling the story of a New Orleanian inspired by the landscape and colors of the Pacific Northwest.

He’ll be touring in support of this new album at The Palindrome at Eaglemount Cidery on Wednesday, Aug. 10.

“Down from the mountains, out to the coast, I fell for the sea like driftwood, and she scarred me up good, she scarred me up good, ’til she scarred me smooth,” Duhon sings on the title track.

Back in high school when he first started plucking away at three-chord song structures, his sister would chuckle at his singing, he said.

“It took some time to find my voice in more ways than one,” Duhon said.

The richness he now intones, however, makes this hard to believe. With vocals as warm as a camp fire on a starry night, he blends those years of practice with pop harmonies, Americana, and Appalachian folk to create a sound familiar and yet his own.

The album was written between his home just outside of New Orleans and his travels to Moses Lake where his girlfriend got a job.

“I wrote half of it up there. During the pandemic I managed to get up there and spend some time,” Duhon said, describing trips they’d take together exploring the wilderness an hour away in any direction.

As America was experiencing dramatic shifts in the aftermath of #MeToo and the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd, so too was Duhon as he wrote songs for the album.

“I had my own social justice awakening connecting the dots as we were all talking about it together,” Duhon said.

This is reflected on tracks like “Promised Land” where he names that he has never known the pain women walk so many miles with, and “Sunrise,” which looks at if his privileged circumstances could be connected to what causes a neighbor of color to live in shabbier circumstances.

“As a white man of privilege, I am not especially afflicted. I wasn’t sure I was the one who could tell the proper story,” Duhon said of the struggle to express this, then pushed forward asking “What is it in me, in us, that keeps us from knowing each other better?”

In his Northwest travels, Duhon has managed to make it to Port Townsend a couple of times before thanks to Rainshadow Recording and is excited to be back. And like many, he’s been scouting for some land to settle down with the advantage of using his tour to survey the state.

For tickets, go to andrewduhon.com/upcoming-shows.