“FINAL APPROACH” IS THE CENTERPIECE OF

SWAMP DOGG CONTEMPLATES THE AFTERLIFE

NEW ALBUM OUT JUNETEENTH

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(Designer: David Gorman, Download Hi-Res Here)

One of the most anticipated album releases of Black Music Month is Swamp Dogg

Contemplates The Afterlife, which by the reckoning of the iconoclastic and much celebrated

artist, is his 31st (non-compilation) full-length in a career that stretches back a phenomenal eight

decades. The album, out from S-Curve Records digitally on Juneteenth (6/19), with CD and

vinyl to follow on July 10, includes “Final Approach,” produced by Swamp Dogg along with along

with S-Curve founder Steve Greenberg, Mike Mangini and Sam Hollander, Grammy winners

who’ve individually and collectively produced artists including Joss Stone, Tom Jones, the

O’Jays, Betty Wright & the Roots, Andy Grammer, Jonas Brothers, Hanson, Digable Planets

and Public Enemy.

Swamp Dogg is fresh from appearances earlier this month at the National Museum of African

American Music in Nashville, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and, most recently, a sold-

out performance at New York’s Mercury Lounge in conjunction with the Blue Note Festival. Now,

on the cusp of his 84th birthday, he commented on the song that is making its debut

simultaneously with the album noting, “‘Final Approach’ uses an airliner metaphor but it’s more

about a home coming than dealing with the end of life. That’s something that’s inevitable but the

life I’ve lived has been truly fulfilling and I remain both hopeful and thankful. I cite some of the

music pioneers – Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and Chuck Willis — who went before their time

while I’ve come as far as I have for as long as I have and that’s something spiritually uplifting.

The great work of those guys lives on, and so do I which is why I’m OK with this ‘final approach.’

I’ve been blessed and that’s something to sing about.”

The album includes three tracks that have been released in the lead up to Juneteenth: “Waka

Waka Waka,” which features a guest vocal by Gary U.S. Bonds (with whom Swamp Dogg

collaborated on numerous hit songs in the 1970s), “Searching For Heaven,” another track that is

specific to the album’s theme, and “Acid Tongue,” originally by Jenny Lewis, with whom Swamp

Dogg has recorded in recent years.

One of the few first-generation soul artists still recording and touring, Swamp Dogg’s music has

been embraced by successive generations who are taken with his musical mastery and

iconoclastic approach to both his craft and life writ large. Testimony to his ecumenism is found in

the fact that he’s been warmly embraced within the Americana world, and in his recent

headlining appearance aboard the SiriusXM Outlaw Country Cruise. He has also made waves

of late with the release of the critically lauded documentary film Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool

Painted, currently streaming.

Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife

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Of special note is the album art, conceived by Grammy-winner David Gorman, depicting Swamp

Dogg surrounded by tomes dealing with mortality, examining a comic book in the style of a

Renaissance illuminated manuscript.

In connection with the release of Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife, and just off the heels

of his sold-out performance at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan, tour dates have been

announced for this spring and summer, with club, concert and festival shows that include stops

in Upstate New York, New England, Southern California and elsewhere, with more to be

announced.

Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife track listing

1. Searching For Heaven

2. Acid Tongue

3. Knock Knock (Memories)

4. Waka Waka Waka (feat. Gary U.S. Bonds)

5. A Million Tears Ago

6. Unhappy Song

7. Please Don’t Bury Me

8. Hot To Trot

9. Daddy’s Little Girl

10. Final Approach

Confirmed Swamp Dogg tour dates

June 17 New York, NY Blue Note Jazz Festival

June 18 Woodstock, NY Bearsville Theater

June 19 Greenfield, MA Green River Festival

June 20 Portland, ME SPACE Gallery

June 21 July 11 Manchester, VT Earth Sky Time Farm concert series

Venice, CA Venice West (Swamp Dogg’s 84th Birthday Concert)

For inquiries, please contact:

Bob Merlis / MFH:

bobmerlis@bobmerlis.com

Ben Merlis / MFH:

ben@bobmerlis.com

Jim Merlis

jim@bighassle.com