Arden, North Carolina (April 5, 2021) — Following the demonstration of her fiddle virtuosity on the instrumental “Ducks On The Millpond,” Mountain Home Music Company’s Carley Arrowood returns to form with a strong vocal performance that builds on the success of last year’s “Goin’ Home Comin’ On” by offering a different angle on a similar theme.
Written by producer-bassist Jon Weisberger and Music Row hitmaker Jenn Schott, “My Kind Of Nightlife” gently contrasts crowded downtown streets and “cafes and honky tonks full of sound and light” with the glow of lightning bugs “dancing in the air” and “the call of the nightbirds.” “That’s my kind of nightlife,” Arrowood sings with a self-assurance born of her own experience and preferences, while the song’s relaxed tempo, lush harmonies and subtle instrumental backing all combine to transport the listener to the chorus’s front porch swing and an idyllic night in the country.
“It was a fun day getting to write this with Jon,” recalls Schott, whose long list of credits includes cuts by Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts, Mickey Guyton, Pam Tillis and the Eli Young Band. “I’m so thrilled Carley recorded it — and her singing and playing are both fantastic!”
Backed by the same crew that recorded “Goin’ Home Comin’ On” with her, including Steve Martin Banjo Prize and five-time IBMA Banjo Player of the Year recipient Kristin Scott Benson, Wayne Benson on mandolin, Daniel Thrailkill (guitar, harmony vocals) and her sister, Autumn (harmony vocals), Arrowood sings and plays not just skilfully, but with an interpretive sensitivity that belies her youth and suggests that she’s already a fully mature artist.
“‘My Kind of Night Life’ paints such a beautiful picture of simplicity,” she enthuses.“It captures the very essence of nostalgia and, for me, reminds me of my childhood with every line. I grew up on a dirt road in western North Carolina, and my summer evenings were spent barefoot in the backyard, playing endless pretend and catching lightning bugs with my sister and brother with nowhere in particular we had to be.”
“During the pandemic, and especially now that I’m planning my wedding,” she notesof her recently-announced engagement to Thrailkill, “I’ve come to cherish the nights when my whole family is home together, and I look forward, Lord willing, to the days when I can raise a family in the same way: running barefoot in the yard, catching lightning bugs, and just simply loving the life that God gives us.”
Listen to “My Kind of Nightlife” HERE.
About Carley Arrowood
Though she’s young, Carley Arrowood is already something of a musical veteran. Singing since she was old enough to talk, she’s been playing fiddle for over thirteen years and has spent the past five years as a featured band member with the award-winning duo of Darin & Brooke Aldridge.
Carley began playing in a classical vein but soon gravitated toward the bluegrass music and fiddle tunes of her western North Carolina home. With her sister, Autumn, she formed a band called Carolina Jasmine, which became the first all-female group to win the Junior Band Championship at the famed Fiddlers Grove convention. Her career progress flourished through high school, as she began to work at Dollywood, competed in — and took home trophies from — an impressive list of fiddle contests, and became one of the featured musicians in the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) annual Kids on Bluegrass program.
A developing songwriter — her “Jesus Drive The Train,” a co-write with the award-winning Becky Buller, earned her a showcase appearance at the IBMA’s World of Bluegrass in 2015 — Carley’s been recognized for her fiddle playing as well, receiving an IBMA Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year trophy in 2017. And in 2014, just a day after graduation, Carley began filling in with Darin and Brooke, joining them full-time that fall after turning 18. Since then, she’s performed with the duo at the Grand Ole Opry, on television shows like “Larry’s Country Diner,” on European tours and at bluegrass festivals and concerts around the country.