Brett Eldredge Brings Live Debut of New Single ‘Gabrielle’ to ‘Stephen Colbert’ [Watch]
Brett Eldredge appeared on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night (April 21), giving fans the live debut of his new single, "Gabrielle," in an intimate at-home performance that showed off a different side to his music.
Eldredge is at ease in the video above, stripping the song down and accompanying his soulful vocal performance on acoustic guitar. The performance reveals Eldredge as an accomplished acoustic guitarist as he employs a mix of muting, strumming and picking to convey the song's dynamics, his voice rising and falling as he delivers the wistful lyrics about a love that didn't work out, but is still a fond memory.
"Was it your heart or mine? / Was it just the wrong time, Gabrielle? / We never got very far / But girl, wherever you are / I wish you well / Gabrielle," Eldredge sings in the chorus of the song, which he released on April 17 as the lead single from his forthcoming fifth studio album, Sunday Drive. The song is a change of pace for Eldredge, drawing on '70s singer-songwriter influences for a track that's unlike anything else that's currently at country radio.
Eldredge changed his approach for the new album, beginning the songs alone with only a flip phone, Polaroid camera, notebook and guitar to work with. He enlisted Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, the Grammy-winning producers who helmed Kacey Musgraves' acclaimed Golden Hour, to produce the new tracks.
“I think you have to give yourself permission to do anything in life, to be brave a little bit,” Eldredge said in a press release announcing the project. “I got to a certain point where I was doing something in repetition and it was all really good… but I felt like I wasn’t giving enough of myself. It took a lot of self-awareness to finally realize that if I do really have a lot more in me, then I’ve got to step up and I’ve got to take that step off the edge. And I think enough time of doing it the same way made me realize it’s time to do it big.”
Sunday Drive is set for release on July 10.
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