Anthony Mills’ new single ‘barefoot in pineville’ is taken from his album Blue Collar Work Ethic. The record is a collection of stories that are a homage to Mill’s Louisiana heritage and factory-town upbringing. These are working songs, chronicling states of mind from the Deep South all the way to the Rubber City (aka Akron, Ohio.)
Anthony declares the new single 'barefoot in pineville' is "music for anyone who is about that hardcore porch life, fig trees, and okra" paying homage to his deep south heritage.
With a background in hip-hop and production, Anthony was persuaded forget these styles to try singing in the style of his homeland by producer David Belafonte. When Anthony realised that this was fundamentally a storytelling genre, he knew it was the right approach for his songs. Mills found laying out his family’s history liberating, while at times bringing him to tears in the studio.
Mills is a great grandchild of the industrial revolution, his family migrating from Lake Charles, Louisiana to Akron, laying roots in Flint and Detroit, Michigan along the way. Mills feels that the factory spirit is in his genes, along with the voodoo of his French-Creole Grandma Mills-Anglenais. He tells his family’s story with elements of Americana, Blues and old plantation songs to express the blue-collar inertia that runs through his veins.
‘barefoot in pineville’ is available everywhere January 18th via Icons Creating Evil Art, and his album Blue Collar Work Ethic will be released early February 8th 2019.