Grace Potter is taking on free-spirited personas in her new music. On Friday (July 28), Potter dropped two new songs, “Ready Set Go” and “Lady Vagabond,” off her upcoming album, Mother Road. Both songs showcase her free-wheeling voice and bluesy style. “Ready Set Go” casts Potter as a young wanderer, as exemplified in such pointed lyrics as, I don’t need no destination/I’ve got everywhere to go/I’m a walking invitation/I’m the daughter of the Mother Road.
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“I’d been driving solo for about a week and I must’ve been desperate for some company because any time I stopped, I got this bizarre urge to jump in every car, truck, train or bus I saw drive by!” Potter explains of the origins of “Ready Set Go,” one of the first songs she wrote for the album. “While I didn’t indulge that highly questionable and risky idea in reality, I did explore it through song…and my imaginary co-pilots took me down some very unexpected roads.”
[RELATED: Grace Potter Rocks the Stage At Moon Crush; Has Three Albums Worth of New Music]
Meanwhile, the swampy “Lady Vagabond” features a foreboding melody that slinks and slithers as Potter professes in the chorus, You can call me/I won’t come/Call me Lady Vagabond/I came rolling down the mountains on the run/Call me Lady Vagabond. “On the other hand, along the many stops on Mother Road, ‘Lady Vagabond’ is, without a doubt, the steepest exit ramp to another dimension from which you cannot return,” she adds.
Mother Road drops on August 18. In the fall, she’ll embark on a tour in support of the album, beginning on September 7 in Orono, Maine, followed by several stops across the Northeast. She’ll then head South for a handful of shows, including the historic Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 17. The tour concludes on November 18 at The Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Outside of the tour, Potter will perform two sold-out shows in her native Vermont at the Shelburne Museum on September 15 and 16.
Grace Potter 2023 Mother Road Tour Dates:
Sep-07-23 Orono, ME – Collins Center for the Arts
Sep-08-23 Providence, RI – Veterans Memorial Auditorium
Sep-09-23 Lewiston, NY – Artpark
Sep-10-23 Hammondsport, NY – Pavilion at Point of the Bluff Vineyard
Sep-14-23 Concord, NH – Capitol Center for the Arts
Sep-17-23 Albany, NY – The Egg
Sep-22-23 Branford, CT – Stony Creek Brewery
Sep-23-23 New York, NY – Pier 17
Sep-24-23 Jim Thorpe, PA – Penn’s Peak
Sep-27-23 Wilmington, NC – Greenfield Lake Amphitheater
Sep-29-23 Richmond, VA – Maymont
Sep-30-23 Harrisburg, PA – Southside Stage
Oct-04-23 Kalamazoo, MI – State Theatre
Oct-05-23 Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theater
Oct-06-23 Des Moines, IA – Hoyt Sherman Place
Oct-07-23 Chicago, IL – Riviera Theater
Nov-17-23 Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle
Nov-18-23 Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore
Photo Credit: Grace Potter/Courtesy of Shore Fire Media
