Brandi Carlile has re-recorded a “Laurel Canyon-inspired” version of her 2021 album In These Silent Days and will release it on Sept. 28 via Low Country Sound/Elektra. The project, dubbed In the Canyon Haze, also includes a new cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
Carlile says the idea was inspired by having befriended Joni Mitchell in recent years and absorbing the vibes of the fabled Laurel Canyon music scene of the 1960s and ’70s. As previously reported, Carlile was instrumental in encouraging Mitchell to return to live performance for the first time in more than a decade at the Newport Folk Festival in July.
“I could see the cast of California Dreamers with embroidered flowers and peace signs on their backs drifting through a polaroid haze,” she says. “I could smell the marijuana and the incense. I could hear the CSN harmonies traveling through the canyon from Lookout Mountain and the accompanying laughter of Mama Cass. I could hear the reverb of aged wood and the dulcimer being strummed like a drum. The familiar chord progressions, confessions and communal spirit that would birth timeless songs … songs we all wish we had written. I could feel the liberation, the friction and freedom from modern day digital distractions that laid such fertile ground at the feet of west coast poets and troubadours.”
The first taste of music from In the Canyon Haze is a new rendition of “You and Me on the Rock,” which features Carlile’s wife Catherine.
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In These Silent Days topped Billboard’s Rock and Americana/Folk Albums charts and spawned three Grammy nominations. Carlile remains on tour in support of it and will next visit Red Rocks outside Denver for two sold-out shows on Sept. 9-10. The trek wraps Oct. 22 at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
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