Jamboree jumpin' at White Water

For those who prefer their bluegrass with a bit of a Western twang, High Plains Jamboree has you covered.

The Austin, Texas-based four-piece string band stops in Little Rock on Friday for a set at White Water Tavern. Little Rock singer-songwriter Joe Sundell of Sad Daddy will open the show.

"We've been together as a band about a year-and-a-half or two years," says vocalist and mandolin player Brennen Leigh.

Leigh and her Jamboree mates -- Simon Flory, bass and banjo; Noel McKay, guitar, vocals; and, on this tour, fiddle player Andy Lentz -- met through the fertile Austin music scene.

"We were all playing around and decided to give the full band thing a go," says Leigh, who had a solo career before hooking up with the Jamboree. "So far, it's been terrific."

She was 19 when she and her brother, Seth Hulbert, moved from their native Minnesota to Austin.

"We played music together as teenagers and into our early 20s," said Leigh, whose most recent solo album was Brennen Leigh sings Lefty Frizzell. "We just decided to get out of the cold and move somewhere where there was a good music scene."

McKay also had a fruitful pre-Jamboree career, co-writing "El Coyote" with Guy Clark, who discovered McKay at the 1993 Jimmie Rogers Festival in Kerrville, Texas. McKay and his brother, Hollis, had several regional hits as the McKay Brothers.

Right about here is the spot in the typical show preview piece where we start gushing about the band's latest record.

Can't do that with the High Plains Jamboree, though. Their debut full-length doesn't hit the streets or streaming services until, hopefully, spring, after which the band will continue to tour the United States and Europe.

The title of the record, which will be released by Voxhall Records, is also a question mark as of press time.

"The album doesn't have a name yet," says Leigh, who's also written songs for Lee Ann Womack, Sunny Sweeney and others. "We're just starting to work on the [cover] artwork. We want it to be top-notch."

Leigh couldn't be too forthcoming on what tracks will be on the record, but confirmed that her clever, Luddite-influenced, anti-smartphone song "Analog" made the cut. There's also a cover of "Night Cafe" by Lubbock, Texas, songwriter Terry Allen and, yes, the band did get its name from the title of another Allen song.

To record the album, and in keeping with the group's retro vibe, the Jamboree decamped to Nashville, Tenn., and the legendary Hilltop Studios, which opened in 1963.

"It's a great room," Leigh says of the studio, adding that leaving Austin to record was a wise decision. "It's good to get out of your normal routine and completely focus on the recording."

They spent a few days working on preproduction at a farm outside of Nashville and "went in and cut most of the tracks in three days," Leigh says. "Most of it [was recorded] live, with all of us in the same room."

There is an Arkansas connection on the album. Jenee Fleenor of Springdale plays fiddle on the record.

"She lives in Nashville and tours with all kinds of people," including Blake Shelton, Leigh says. "She's a friend of ours, and she really just made the record sound so much better."

Weekend on 01/26/2017