Album Notes

Described as “Lyle Lovett singing Bruce Springsteen song wearing Dwight Yoakam’s hat,” Sean Patrick McGraw is a true over-night success decade in the making. McGraw arrived in Nashville in the mid nineties slugging away as a bartender and construction worker before landing his first publishing deal with King Lizard. In the years following he’d bounce around to several publishing houses and producers, join a few bands and make ends meet as a sideman with the likes of Dean Miller (son of Roger) and Steve Holy (Good Morning Beautiful, Brand New Girlfriend).

In 2003 McGraw responded to the cattle-call auditions of USA Networks “Nashville Star.” winning the regional competition at the Wildhorse Saloon, yet enjoying only a brief stint on the televised portion of the series. In the wake of much local news coverage, McGraw began touring in earnest around the radius of his hometown in upstate New York, venturing first to Southern Ontario, Pennsylvania and Ohio and eventually throughout the US, Canada, and the UK. Since 2006 the award winning singer-songwriter ( Independent Music Awards 2006, Great American Song Competition, Mountain Stages New Song Festival) has earned himself a reputation as the “hardest working unsigned act in Country Music” averaging over 150 dates a year, traveling in an SUV pulling a trailer.

This spring the doors finally creaked open for McGraw. Robert K Oermann hailed single “What I’d Do,” as “the finest independent release I’ve heard all year.”After the video for his self-produced track “Dollar Ain’t Worth a Dime” was added to CMT in May, the singer was hastily added to the line-up at Stage Coach, where his opening set in front of 30k prompted a rave review in the LA Times, which in turn lead to a spot on “America’s Toughest Tour” opening over twenty dates for Toby Keith and Trace Adkins, as well as an invitation to perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live in July. McGraw recently signed with new imprint Little Engine Records and is poised to release a re-mastered, re-sequenced version of his CD “Long Way From Slowin’ Down.”