It feels like it was yesterday when Logan Halstead took the independent country music world by storm when he went viral on YouTube with his song “Dark Black Coal” back in 2021, when he was only 15-years-old.
Fast forward two years later, and the Kentucky born, West Virginia raised teen was drawing crowds and announcing his debut album, Dark Black Coal.
Halstead has released a number of stellar singles leading up to the project’s release, such as “Good Ol’ Boys with Bad Names,” “Kentucky Sky,” “Coal River,” and “Man’s Gotta Eat,” as he perfectly portrays the stories of the trials and tribulations of growing up in Appalachia.
And now, the highly anticipated album has officially dropped today.
The teen weighed in on the inspiration for the title:
“I was picking around in the kitchen looking out the window and saw two cardinals playing on the fence out back. I thought back to a summer in Crittenden, Kentucky, where there were rolling hills and cow pastures.
It seemed like the sun never wanted to set there. That’s how I came up with the title.”
Dark Black Coal literally will make you reimagine yourself sitting at the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.
On top of the lead singles, the project features a studio version of Halstead’s impressive cover of Richard Thompson’s “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” which he released for his OurVinyl Sessions previously.
There’s also a gorgeous, mandolin driven song featuring Arlo McKinley called “Uneven Ground.”
Here are a few of my favorites:
“Mountain Queen”
“The Flood”
“Uneven Ground”
“Bluefoot”
“1952 Vincent Black Lightning”
