On July 16, Gabe Lee will step into the Grand Ole Opry circle for the first time, just days after releasing his latest album, Drink the River, out July 14.
For the Nashville-raised Lee, the Grand Ole Opry — which in its nearly century-long tenure has served as a bedrock for country music but also hosted bluegrass, blues, rock and Americana artists — offers a parallel for Lee’s own distinctive blend of the aforementioned styles.
“The Opry represents the dream, the community,” Gabe says. “The Opry and its stage and history are not only a tradition, but a beacon for all future musicians. It’s just a great honor to perform there.”
The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Lee grew up immersed in classical and church music, as his mother played piano and his father played guitar. “They sacrificed so much, just working hard and saving and believing in me and my music,” he recalls. Absorbing their work ethic and learning in proximity to the ever-heightening stakes of the music industry also gave Lee a clear-eyed perspective on the truths of a music career.
“A lot of my friends who grew up with musician parents got the hell outta dodge,” he recalls with a chuckle. “They were like, ‘The last thing we wanna be is in music.’ And it’s a joke among players and music people in music, like, ‘If my kids want to play music, I’d let them but I wouldn’t wish it on ‘em,’ because it is a gamble…folks get their dreams made and their dreams broken every day.”
His previous album, 2022’s The Hometown Kid, embodied Lee’s own relentless tugs of both adventure and familiar comforts. He spent a year attending Nashville’s Belmont University, bartending on the side and performing at writers rounds at Bobby’s Idle Hour Tavern, the Listening Room and Whiskey Jam. He then decamped to Indiana University to study literature and journalism, before returning to Music City to continue pursuing his craft.
But where scores of singer-songwriters spend days cranking out radio-friendly songs and seeking major label country deals, and nights networking at any number of guitar pulls and industry events, Lee draws more from cult favorite touchstones such as John Prine and Jason Isbell. Lee is the sole writer on many of his songs, and like his musical heroes, he excels in excavating from everyday moments the raw materials from which he crafts his vivid musical narratives. Drink the River showcases Lee as a troubadour filling his songs with keen observations gleaned from other people’s stories.
The album’s folk-country, acoustic flavor takes cues from Old Crow Medicine Show’s first record, while songs like “Property Line” tip the hat to Prine’s clear-eyed, light-hearted style. “It’s a bit of how John [Prine] was always a master at infusing humor in his songs. A little bit of humor goes a long way,” Lee says.
“Even Jesus Got the Blues,” which Lee began writing nearly four years ago, revels in an early SteelDrivers, blues-meets-bluegrass feel, and was inspired by a friend who succumbed to addiction. The two-year-old “Lidocaine” stems from an Uber ride, as a driver confided in Lee his story of being diagnosed with dementia at 40 years old. He also revisits “Eveline,” from his 2019 debut project farmland.
Meanwhile, the lyrics and instrumentation of album closer “Property Line” evoke the feel of the popular series Yellowstone; the song is an ode to Lee’s girlfriend’s father Jason, who owns a large plot of land in Alabama.
“I started hanging out down there and what I quickly realized is I may be from the South, but those guys are country,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve learned a lot from them and I really admire their sensibilities and the way they look at the world.”
Lee and his manager, Alex Torrez, founded the indie label Torrez Music Group, under which Lee has issued three albums (with Drink the River to be his fourth) in approximately as many years, including his breakthrough, 2020 roots-rock project Honky Tonk Hell, and last year’s The Hometown Kid. He’s kept a marathon runner’s pace — steady and relentless — as he balances studio time and writing with ever-more prominent performance slots, having shared stages with artists including Isbell, American Aquarium and Molly Tuttle. To date, Lee’s songs have registered 10.5 million official U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate.
He is also slated to perform during the Americana Music Association’s annual AMERICANAFEST in September, and was recently added to Tidal’s “Tidal Rising” new artist program, which also includes Sunny War, Kara Jackson and Kassa Overall.
“We’ve been in a double-down mentality for the past few years,” he says. “You get a little momentum, and you don’t want to lose it for a second. As a small label, we work within our means and try to roll most of our revenue from merch and streaming right back into the label in the next project.”
While many of his Nashville counterparts dream of selling out stadiums and dozens of No. 1 hits, Lee’s immediate goals are more economical. “That’s the basic dream for so many artists and writers, just getting to the point where it’s sustainable. Some of my favorite songwriters are those that play the Texas circuit. They make it work, they aren’t living in mansions, but they’ve got a roof over their heads, they keep their businesses alive and their families fed by playing music. We’re just trying to make records, tour, and not go bankrupt. We’re just out here doing the work and hopefully, the work will speak for itself.”
