Florence Dore to celebrate long awaited new album with Irish gigs

Celebrating the release of her lauded new album – and her first solo LP in 21 years – Highways & Rocketships, Nashville-born, North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Florence Dore is set to embark on a string of Irish dates next week.

Kicking off her gigs on these shores on Saturday, April 29, the acclaimed artist will play Cleere's Bar & Theatre in Kilkenny, as part of Kilkenny Roots Festival.

The following evening, on Sunday, April 30, she'll play another night of the festival, in Billy Byrnes, Kilkenny.

She'll cap off her Irish visit with an eagerly anticipated headline show Upstairs at Whelan's in Dublin, on Wednesday, May 3.

Following a series of singles, Highways & Rocketships will be out in Ireland on April 28, ahead of Florence's run of Irish gigs. The album is released on Propeller Sound Recordings, the new imprint run by former R.E.M. manger Jefferson Holt and Music Geek Services founder Jay Coyle.

Highways & Rocketships combines elements of classic rock, Americana and '80s college radio. The album features contributions from some of most crucial figures from the past four decades of American indie-rock, including Son Volt’s Mark Spencer, sometimes-Springsteen bassist Jeremy Chatzky, dB’s members Will Rigby (Dore’s husband since 2004) and Peter Holsapple, Southern Culture on the Skids bassist Mary Huff, Mipso fiddler/vocalist Libby Rodenbough and legendary R.E.M. co-producers Don Dixon and Mitch Easter.

A native of Nashville – who's a professor by day and a star by night – Florence made her first album, Perfect City, way back in 2001.

She has also emerged as an acclaimed author, writing and editing books and magazine articles about rock, the blues and Bob Dylan, among other subjects. Her latest book, The Ink in the Grooves: Conversations on Literature and Rock ’n’ Roll, was published in October 2022 by Cornell University Press, featuring contributions from Daniel Wallace, Rick Moody, Warren Zanes, Dave Grohl, John Jeremiah Sullivan and more.

Most of the material on Highways & Rocketships emerged in a songwriting binge over several months in 2019, “when I decided to play hooky from academic research,” Florence says.

She and her bandmates gathered at Mitch Easter’s Fidelitorium Recordings studio in 2021, with Don Dixon serving as producer.

Take a look at the video for 'Sweet To Me' below: