A true feat in 2019 is keeping a moment private, acknowledging its personal value by simply not broadcasting it in the moment. That was doable for Allen Stone, who when he wrote and performed "Give You Blue" at their wedding, managed to wait on his viral moment to package the song ahead of his upcoming album Building Balance.
While only now officially released, "Give You Blue" has gained some fame on the internet from Stone's live performances of it beginning nearly two years ago. Fans of his caught on, learning the parts on guitar and sharing the chords. “I had recently gotten engaged to my wife and was on yet another trip to another city away from her,” Stone says of the track's origins in a press release. “It seemed like our entire relationship was conceived at a distance. I was in LA writing with my friend Mike Posner. It was on one particular night of this trip that Mike, myself and our friend Adam got to talking about my new engagement. I opened up and spoke about the reality of my love. The reality that seemed to be so vacant from my music. In that moment I started singing the first line of 'Give You Blue,' 'I can’t stop the rain, but I will keep you dry.' It so embodied the emotion that I felt in that moment of distance from my wife. The reality of love is not one of perfection but of persistence. On the day of our wedding, I sang 'Give You Blue' to my wife.”
Allen Stone is among a crop of artists mixing R&B, blues and upbeat funk in new and soulful ways. Written in the backwoods of Washington state and recorded in Nashville, Building Balance is due out November 8 via ATO Records, and features British artist and producer Jamie Lidell, Grammy-winning producer Nasri, and Jeremy Most (of Emily King work), on production. It will also feature collaborations with artists like Emily King, Mike Posner and Theo Katzman of Joey Dosik of Vulfpeck. It will be Stone's third LP.
