COLTT’S UPCOMING ALBUM, SELF-TITLED, COLTT WINTER LEPLEY

Coltt Winter Lepley is the name of Coltt’s upcoming album release and solo debut slated for early Spring. Coltt has built a professional career touring across the nation from Nashville to Boston to Laramie without ever having a song on a streaming service. This Spring, that will finally change.

Coltt plans to release a 6-track album produced by The Allegheny High’s Al Torrence at Music Garden Studios just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Allegheny High is notably known for touring with Charles Wesley Godwin and providing the instrumentation on his albums. Torrence also produced Godwin’s first two albums at Music Garden Studios. Coltt tapped the talent of additional Allegheny High members: Amico Demuzio (steel guitar, banjo), Joe Pinchotti III (drums), Nate Cratanzarite (bass), and Al Torrence playing instrumentals as well as producing (lead guitar, backing vocals, piano, and various other guitar parts). Pittsburgh locals on the album include Justin Long (Fiddle, backing vocals), and Alan Getto (harmonica, backing vocals). All the songs are original compositions of Coltt’s, and his album features his familiar modified Travis picking and rhythm guitar, his signature vocal trill, and even traditional instrumentals with the bones.

“The entirety of the album was born from Western Pennsylvania including every aspect of the songs and every musician who played on it. I’m proud of that. ”

The songs from the album, Coltt Winter Lepley, were written at Coltt’s childhood home in Bedford, Pennsylvania. Located in the Dutch Corner region of Bedford, the secluded brick farmhouse from the 1800s provided the perfect backdrop to steal away moments of solitude in his formative writing years. This area was where Country Music Hall of Fame member, Von Horton, wrote “Mockingbird Hill,” famously recorded by George Jones. The real “Mocking Bird Hill” is actually Messiah Church Road, about two miles from Coltt’s parents.’ Coltt unknowingly followed in Horton’s footsteps while quietly toiling in his parents’ living room at 2:00am formulating the melody for “Sunflower Creek,” a creative re-imaging of the very real Dunnings Creek and the first track on the album. Whether making time in the twilight hours to write the reflective “Doves and Pine Boxes,” or sitting on the front porch overlooking the Allegheny Mountains scribbling lyrics to “Tear Addressed To You,” the roots of North Appalachia and the reflections of the region he grew up in, are inseparably woven into the fabric of his work.

“I don’t want to be anyone but the best Coltt Winter Lepley I can be. But I am a product of the songs, poems, and novels I’ve become obsessed with.”

Coltt’s album draws influence from important records such as Townes Van Zandt and John Prine’s self-titled albums. Coltt grew up listening to them, as well as folks like Guy Clark, Bob Dylan, Jim Croce, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show (Shel Silverstein), and Elizabeth Cotten. Traditional songsters such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Jean Ritchie, Dave Van Ronk, and Doc Watson were instrumental in his development as well. Where Coltt feels his songs stand out is often in his literary story craft and descriptions heavily influenced by his love of literature and poetry with authors such as Ron Rash, Emily Bronte, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’ Connor, Henry Shoemaker, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Charles Baudelaire, Steve Yarbrough, and Edgar Allan Poe. He also credits his parents, Stacey Manges Lepley and Robert Lepley as well as his mentor, Kevin Kutz with shaping his artistic tastes and providing him with a supportive framework where he felt comfortable to hone his craft. This eventually led him to a masters degree in creative writing (fiction) at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts and eventually into a full-time career as a traveling songwriter and storyteller following his retirement as a race-car driver. Coltt has always known he loved old-time art and the study of stories since he was a child. The album is the product of a life well lived toward a career path of being something more akin to the professional vagabonds of antiquity.

“When you go your whole life with people telling you how old your soul is, you eventually quit trying to beat the allegations and just swim with the current. I knew from the moment I heard my first fireside ghost stories that I knew I wanted to be whatever that was when I grew up - someone who tells stories - good ones.”

Coltt Winter Lepley is simply the first collection of songs to be released in what will be the eventual catalog of songs Coltt has on the way, but one that has been a long-time coming, and in many cases, overdue. While this is Coltt’s streaming service debut, Coltt is a wiry veteran of life on the road, averaging about 180 shows a year across the nation and connoisseur of sleeping in vans in Chili’s parking lots. He looks forward to making his songs more accessible to the masses and sharing his stories with more people in new places to promote it. Coltt feels this is not only a first-step, but an incredibly solid first-effort with the help of Al Torrence at Music Garden.

“Al and the boys from The Allegheny High made the process easy and enjoyable, sure. But, there were times when Al and I were thinking the same things in the same moments, and that really made me feel comfortable with him putting together my debut for the world to enjoy. That studio magic stuff may or may not exist, but when your songs are in someone else’s hands and they’re totally in line with your vision, it makes it really exciting to move as a unit towards the final result. Plus, it’s more fun to just believe in magic anyway.”

There are a few truths Coltt holds evident, but one stands above the rest: it’s that Western Pennsylvania has its own stories to tell and heroes to hold up. He mentions Joe Magarac, Pittsburgh’s folk-hero who legend claims shaped molten steel with his bare hands on his track, “Toilet Wizard.” The song is an ode to blue collar workers he grew up watching, including his dad, a career plumber. The song encapsulates the idea that people are in large-part a product of where they’re from. Bedford, Pennsylvania is the quintessential North Appalachian town. It borders the Mason-Dixon line, is one county away from West Virginia, and was a major player in the Whiskey Rebellion with plenty of Colonial influence. It’s an area perfectly centralized between cities such as Pittsburgh, Washington DC, New York City, Baltimore, Morgantown, Harrisburg, and more. What that means is that the area is a melting pot of the areas that surround it. It’s the best and worst parts of everything Appalachia and the Rust-Belt have to offer. For Coltt, it is full of untapped inspiration and stories to tell, and this album is the first in a long line of Western PA stories to tell.

“I never felt you had to move to Nashville or New York or LA to be successful. The parts of ‘home’ I carry with me is the binding I’m stitched with. We have amazing stories here all our own about ghosts, trainwrecks, mine accidents, union strikes, folklore, lies and history. I hope folks listen to the album and understand more than anything, that this is Western Pennsylvanian music by Western Pennsylvania musicians, but stories of us all, for everyone, everywhere.”

Coltt goes on to say…

“All I really want in the end is for someone to listen to my songs and feel something, preferably laugh or cry. I hope they see my characters and stories play out in their heads. That’s all I ever wanted to do was tell stories, and I’m not sure I ever could really do anything else.”

Coltt Winter Lepley, Coltt’s debut album, comes out in early Spring. Stay tuned.