Chuck’s ‘Here’s the Thing About America’ resonates with the best songs in the great tradition of social conscience and racial healing. And he has the rich voice and musical chops to deliver it with grace.’

– Rosanne Cash

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  Chuck McDermott has crafted a wide variety of music in his career, but he reaches a whole other level with this nobly ambitious effort. It was conceived during the pandemic and often feels like a soothing hymn to rise above it. It's a plea for wisdom, tolerance and endurance in original songs such as the haunting "38 Degrees and Raining" and the softly ambient "On a Night Like This," together with a gospel-soul cover of "We Will Walk Through the Streets of the City," which suggest a spiritual awakening. He is backed by the best of the Boston roots scene, notably guitarist Duke Levine and former Robert Plant drummer Marco Govino, who also produces these sessions. Another plus is the galvanizing inspiration added at times by the Nashville gospel quartet, the McCrary Sisters. Chuck is exploring some new genres and distilling them with a quiet, contagious confidence

    – Steve Morse

Former Staff Music Critic, Boston Globe 28 years

Rock History Teacher, Berklee College of Music

 "Chuck"s song "Here's The Thing About America" is a beautiful, powerful song for our times. It's a moving tune, especially when reinforced by his wife's amazing video. I hope we all get to hear more from this thoughtful songwriter."

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– Buddy Miller

McDermott fosters that stoic troubadour sound – there’s not a single note on his new album Gin & Rosewater that doesn’t ring with honesty and intent.

– Lee Zimmerman

Author, and Music Journalist:

No Depression, American Songwriter, Billboard, Keyboard Magazine +

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Chuck McDermott has crafted a single, “Here’s The Thing About America”, that looks at his homeland with an eye to clarity rather than rose-tinted celebration. There’s no nostalgia in this appraisal – rather a looking to the future.

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– Americana UK

Having extensive careers in both music and politics, it was natural for McDermott to entwine both of his backgrounds in his new EP, given the events of the past year. The video and song, “We Will Walk Through The Streets Of The City”,  reflect not only the resilience and fortitude of the human spirit, but also the hope that things will change for the better. This is a powerful song written by a powerful visionary musician.

– Americana Highways

38 Degrees and Raining, the latest musical missive from the pen of American original Chuck McDermott, is a haunting concept album about the human and natural world's Biblical shitstorm we’ve collectively endured for lo these too many years. McDermott creates a singular hard country-funk with elements of gospel and ragtime — this is red and white blues-rock. The first half of the collection depicts flooding and despair in minor keys and then rises in hopeful, empathic major keys, offering inspirational hope and resolve. Throughout is his exquisite and mighty voice. (I’m jealous, ya bastid.)    

— Michael Simmons

Recording Artist, Musician, Music Journalist - MOJO, Huffington Post

Releasing at a vulnerable time in American history, the video “Here’s The Thing About America” presents visuals of Americans from all walks of life, in their daily lives and challenges, illustrating McDermott’s deep contemplation of the state of his country.

– American Blues Scene

There is a saying that “in contradiction and paradox, you can find the truth.” Boston-based Americana/Country artist Chuck McDermott knows this well and was inspired to write a song around this idea. Having spent a better part of five decades splitting his time between making music and fighting for just causes in the political world, McDermott has been around the block enough to know the world is full of contradictions. He used that knowledge to create his latest single, “You Always Do That To Me – Sometimes,” and an accompanying video, which we are pleased to premiere on Rock N Load Magazine today.

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The track is the third single from McDermott’s upcoming 7-track EP, 38 Degrees and Raining, out on March 26, 2021.

In the song, McDermott sings over a blues guitar riff, “Old things seem new / Lies now seem true / Mud fills my shoes / Black turns to Blue.” In the video, Chuck and his bandmates groove along in a heavy walking tempo, really feeling that mud. The two electric guitars and slide guitar provide the syncopated groove lines, while the McCrary Sisters add their soul flavoured vocals to the mix. The combination makes the track enticing enough to put on repeat a few times.

McDermott shares how he came up with the song, saying “I was attracted to the phrase ‘you always do that to me – sometimes’ because of the hint of humour inherent in the contradiction of something ‘always’ being done sometimes.’ That contradiction embodies a theme which can be summarized as ‘there’s light inside the dark and dark inside the light.’ So when I joined that lyric to a guitar groove I’d been working on, a marriage was made as it always does – sometimes.”

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– Rock n’ Load Magazine

Veteran Americana/Country guitarist, singer and songwriter, Chuck McDermott announces his new video for his version of “We Will Walk Through the Streets of the City.” The song is the second single from McDermott’s upcoming EP, 38 Degrees and Raining, set to release on March 26th. Produced by Anne Lyon McDermott (the artist’s wife), the video premiered on Americana Highways who called McDermott’s rendition “a powerful song written by a powerful visionary musician, and played by another one, with musical grooves that echo in the visual setting.”

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The only non-original song on the EP, “We Will Walk” was written by Garfield Haywood, an African-American pastor and songwriter in the early 1900s. The song grew to be known as an anthem of the civil rights movement, both in gospel settings and as an instrumental in the vernacular of many New Orleans style jazz/brass bands. In both settings, the song is performed in an upbeat tempo with the melody bearing a near perfect resemblance to the cowboy song, “Red River Valley.”

Having worked in politics for over 30 years, McDermott had worked extensively on legislation that eventually led to “The Environmental Justice Act of 1992,” sponsored in the House of Representatives by Congressman John Lewis and in the Senate by then-Senator Al Gore. The attempts to turn the bill into law has been a winding road that continues to this day.

“It’s gratifying to see the Biden Administration bring this issue once again to the forefront,” says McDermott. “For me, this experience was an in-depth look at just one of the many challenges of being black, brown or poor. The inequity still stares us in the face.”

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– GigSoup Music