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random notes, news and other ramblings …

Hey y’all, it’s Samantha & Jay! Thanks for being here!

We’re getting excited about our second full-length album “Unconditionally with Conditions” and wanted to add a few notes about our newest project.

If you loved our debut album The High Road released in 2024, you’ll immediately notice our second album is still very pop country but leans just a bit more towards Roots and Americana which is a direct reflection of where our musical inspirations have been coming from lately.

Gone Fishin' (For a Man) our first pre-release single and most of our second album has more banjo, mandolin, and fiddle in the mix and smoother flowing Americana grooves. We actually recorded parts of this new album at legendary Big Pink in West Saugerties NY (the house where The Band developed their sound for Music from Big Pink and where Bob Dylan recorded his historic “bootleg” basement tapes with The Band in 1967). The album cover art was shot in a field just minutes away from the Big Pink house and Overlook Mountain this past May 2026. That pilgrimage to Woodstock and Catskills was a part of our creative approach to immerse ourselves in whatever is inspiring us. For our debut album those inspirations mostly came from Nashville trips and our work done at Abbey Road Studios in London. (Our earliest work as a songwriting duo was inspired by our Abbey Road experiences but you’ll have to wait a bit longer to hear those songs because we’ve been writing new material ever since). In fact, we wrote or finished writing 18 brand new songs as part of our week-long stay at Big Pink. Our private lives, our work and families contribute so much to our musical inspiration as well. I’m a professional horse trainer (by day) and Jay and I have performed as a duo and as a full band throughout New England together for nearly a decade. It’s all shaped our sound for Samantha Rae in one way or another.  

Our debut and our upcoming second album were both fully co-written, recorded and produced by the two of us at our Walnut Street Studios home studio in Massachusetts. We recorded all the drums, percussion, lead & backing vocals entirely at our studio and many of the additional acoustic guitars, pianos and synths were recorded there too. You can be sure that every Samantha Rae song and video accurately reflects our growth and vision as creatives.

Some incredible contributions are tracked remotely by our Nashville team in their own home studios or on the bus or in a hotel room while touring. For the new album most keyboards were performed by Reed Pittman (frequent member of the Lady A touring band), and for both albums bass guitar was handled by Dennis Edwards (17+ year touring with Lady A), most acoustic and electric guitars were Jonathan Trebing (Lee Ann Womack, Rascal Flatts, Miranda Lambert) and Chris Loocke (Chase Rice touring guitarist and an accomplished Sony publishing songwriter), all our fiddles and most mandolins are covered by Dan Hochhalter (a member of Dierks Bentley band) and most banjos and all dobro and pedal steel guitars are played by Sasha Ostrovsky (a member of Darius Rucker’s touring band), assisting us with vocal production for the new album is Lee Turner (a member of Darius Rucker and Hootie & the Blowfish touring bands). A lot of the percussion on both albums was performed by Sandy Gennaro, Samantha and Jay together. (Sandy is an iconic rock drummer with Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett and so many more). Sandy also plays full drums one song on both albums and has provided years of mentorship to Jay and I. This same team has supported us on everything we’ve ever recorded, and we value the friendships and the incredible talent they have brought to our music.   

Awards are a nice reminder that your work is being noticed so we deeply appreciate the below organizations for recognizing what we’re doing!

• 2026 Best Original Song winner at the InterContinental Music Awards for Gaslighter (The High Road)

• 2025 Boston Music Awards Country Artist of the Year

• 5x Josie Independent Award nominee in Nashville TN

• 4x New England Music Awards nominee

• 2025 Best Original Song winner at the Williamsburg Film and Music Awards for I See in You (The High Road)

• 2020 New England Country Music Awards - we were the Group/Duo of the Year 

Check back for more updates soon!