Gabe Lee

Equal parts classic songwriter and modern-day storyteller, Gabe Lee has built his own bridge between country, folk and rock. Lee has been collecting stories for years, both onstage and off. With critically-acclaimed albums like 2019's farmland, 2020's Honky-Tonk Hell, and 2022's The Hometown Kid, Lee created a connection with his fanbase by delivering his own stories to an ever-growing audience. His fourth record, Drink the River, takes a different approach. This time, Lee isn't offering listeners a peek into his internal world; he's holding up a mirror to reflect their own. Storytelling has been an anchor of Lee's music since the very beginning. He launched his career as a genre-bending musician after returning to Tennessee, quickly progressing from dive bar gigs to high-profile opening slots (including shows with Jason Isbell, Los Lobos, and other artists who, like him, blurred the lines between roots-rock, country, and other forms of American folk music) to his own headlining shows. Throughout it all, he drew upon the narrative skills he'd sharpened as a student. If albums like Honky-Tonk Hell and The Hometown Kid often unfolded like autobiographical entries from his road journal, then Drink the River shows an even broader range of his storytelling abilities. Lee isn't just writing songs about himself; he's writing songs about all of us. And maybe, in doing so, he can bring us a little closer together.