If there's one thing Deric Ruttan wants to portray with Up All Night – Deric Ruttan Live, it's how much he loves ripping up the stage night after night with his band; guitarist Darren Savard, fiddle and mandolin player Denis Dufresne, bassist Travis Switzer and drummer Matthew Atkins. "With the lineup of guys I'm playing with, it really feels like a band — not just me playing with a bunch of sidemen. Not to brag on us, but I really feel our show is second to none. And the songs you hear on the live portion of this record, that's the exact order we played them in that night. I had to take some out, but I didn't shuffle the rest around at all – This is a natural representation of what we do live."
Recorded at the Calgary Stampede on July 11th, 2011 Up All Night plays like a live greatest hits record, featuring songs written by Ruttan for his own records, as well his co-writes with other artists. Among them, 'Lot Of Leavin' Left To Do' and 'What Was I Thinkin', two tracks made famous by Dierks Bentley and presented as part of a blazing nine-minute medley Ruttan kicks off with the Waylon Jennings classic 'Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way'.
Up All Night also includes four studio tracks chosen specifically to compliment his live set; including a re-mastered version of 'Where The Train Don't Stop' from 2010's Sunshine and three entirely new songs, freshly recorded in July 2011.
While Ruttan has always wanted to make a live record, initially he'd intended to use a variety of performances from multiple shows recorded during his 2010 Sunshine tour. "I decided to record the Stampede show on a whim two days before we played it. I just thought it would be fun. I didn't even have time to listen to it until I got back to Nashville. I didn't know if it was usable. But when I loaded up the tracks in the studio, I was really, really impressed. It was a wonderful night. You could just feel the pulse of the crowd and the band feeding off the energy in the room, so it just made sense to pull all the performances from that one show."
Raw, uncompromising and relentlessly energetic – from the stomp and twang of set opener 'Sing That Song Again', through intimate offerings like 'California Plates' and amped up country rockers 'When You Come Around' and 'Lovin' You Is Killin' Me' – Up All Night showcases the band's enthusiasm and substantial chops as musicians and Ruttan's unique talents as a songwriter in equal measure.
For Ruttan, however, Up All Night isn't just about celebrating his love of performing and his past work as a songwriter, it's about showing fans where he's headed as an artist. Consequently, choosing which new songs to record for Up All Night was challenging, he says. "That was the bulk of the work. I knew I wanted to put some new songs on the record, but because I only had three slots to fill, it was all the more important that they be really representative of where I am right now as an artist."
Ruttan has a keen ability for capturing the people and places that populate his songs so clearly listeners can actually see them in their mind's eye. In part, that's a product of his earliest musical influences – artists such as folk icon Gordon Lightfoot, rock artists CCR and Bruce Springsteen, and groundbreaking, crossover country stars like Steve Earle. "I've always been drawn to songs that paint pictures in your mind as you're listening," Ruttan says. "It's something I've always tried to do as a songwriter."
Over time, Ruttan's ability to paint such vivid lyrical portraits has led to opportunities to write with a growing list of his peers, including Aaron Pritchett, Eric Church, Doc Walker and Dierks Bentley. His success as a recording artist in his own right garnered him a JUNO nomination for Best Country Record in 2010 for Sunshine, as well as multiple nominations for the 2011 Canadian Country Music Awards, including Male Artist, Songwriter, Single and Video of the Year for 'That's How I Want To Go Out'. In addition, Sunshine's lead single, 'Up All Night' was the most-played Canadian country single of 2010.
With the three new tracks on Up All Night – produced by Ruttan, and recorded and mixed by Bart Busch at Station West Studios in Nashville – he proves that his talents are only becoming more finely focused with time. Whether he's painting in broad strokes lyrically, as he does on 'My Kind Of Freedom' and Up All Night's lead single, 'She's Like A Song', or filling in details more finely using his own life and experiences as raw material, Ruttan never fails to craft the kind of song it's easy for listeners to find their own lives reflected in.
That's true of even his most autobiographical efforts, and nowhere more so than on album closer 'Main Street 1979', which finds Ruttan taking a very personal trip down the main road of his old hometown; first as a child with his parents and brother, and then as a man, returning to his old haunts with his own wife and family. "That song, I cannot get through the last verse without getting a lump in my throat, it's very personal and there's a lot of truth in it."
That truth may be told using moments from Ruttan's past, but they're the same variety of mental snapshots we all have tucked away somewhere — memories we tend to bury beneath more immediate concerns, and only seem able to see in stark relief when we return home ourselves, or when a song like this comes along to remind us of them. And while Ruttan often peppers his songs with images drawn from his own life, he always leaves room for listeners to fill in details for themselves that are drawn from the palette of their own memories.
It's a rare talent; one that has fuelled Ruttan's success since he first gambled on a move to Nashville in the mid-90s to pursue a career as a songwriter. He remains dedicated to managing that career personally; a preoccupation that prompted him to create his own record label, Black T Records, on which Up All Night will be released September 20th 2011, just two days before he heads out across Canada on the 2011 CMT Hitlist Tour with Dean Brody and Aaron Lines.
But as much responsibility as Deric Ruttan takes on for himself, in even the briefest of conversations with him, you can't help but sense how grateful he is to those who have helped him to realize his dream of making a living in music. On Up All Night – Deric Ruttan Live, he expresses that gratitude more directly than ever; offering his audience both a compelling document of a single night in the life of he and his band on stage, and a telling glimpse of where he's headed as a songwriter and performer.