In our current troubled times, when it feels like every day presents another storm on the horizon with no sign of relief, good music is where we go for comfort, warmth, community, and ultimately redemption.  Today’s singer-songwriters are our most treasured healers, storytellers and sources of renewal.  Nick Justice’s new release, Rain Dancing on Tres Pescadores Records is an antidote the poison during the strange and stressful days of 2026.

Justice is a veteran musician and Americana based singer-songwriter.  With six albums in release since 2016, Justice finds his musical niche in the homestead founded in the basement of Woodstock by The Band & Dylan.  Indeed, his signature sound and vocal quality is reminiscent of Dylan’s days during the healing time of John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline. Rain Dancing represents a melodic cabin of songs where sonically there burns a warm fire with tasteful, gentle instrumentation that goes down like handmade stone soup.  He is an artist who doesn’t so much write as he weaves his songs laced with country-folk tradition and inspiration.  Each song in this new collection is a gem with glimpses of heartbreak, struggle, serenity and celebration all wrapped up in gentle country rhythm. The lead and steel guitar work shows up in all of the right places for the sensibility of the song. But the heart of the album is Nick Justice and his songs that invite us into the warmth of his cabin of songs.

The centerpiece of this collection is the title song, “Rain Dancing” which feels like an ode to all of those innocents and not-so-innocent around the globe who wrestle with oppression from those who ‘lord above us and create this mess.’  The official video release of the song makes it clear who he is singing to.  In the 1960s when others were fighting authoritarian rule, the Civil Rights Movement inspired many songs of encouragement, inspiration and protest.  Iconic folk singers turned out music meant to motivate action in the peaceful fight for justice.  Eric Andersen, who was once included in Bob Dylan’s Greenwich Village posse, released a counter-intuitive song of comfort dedicated to those who were fighting for their right to live and breathe.  Today, “Thirsty Boots” is a stand-out songs dedicated to those times.   Nick Justice’s song, “Rain Dancing” brings the same tone and texture to our times today and has the same feeling of timelessness and universality for anyone who struggles with the troubles encountered in their lives, especially our neighbors and friends from Latin America. But it also speaks to all of us who openly support those who are being oppressed by wrong-headed ideologies:

You can spin the feel of fortune and hope that freedom rings
Or get down on your knees and bend to the king
But you know that’s not a life that you ever want to live
Cause power corrupts leaves nothing to give
And you answer the call step up to the line
Cause nothing’s more important than holding that sign.
Rain dancing prepares me for the fight
Shield me with your armour and guide me to the light”

The production is pure and true to the music’s intended folk-country roots with veteran multi-instrumentalist producer, Ed Tree. perched in his studio-Tree House.  Guest instrumentalists include Jay Dee Maness on pedal steel who has performed with Merle Haggard and Chris Hillman’s Desert Rose Band. Singer-songwriter, Rick Shea also turns up in support of his label mate. It’s Nick’s regular guitarist, Richard Stekol whose tasteful and soulful contributions bring added dimension to the songs.  While this collection is original, the carefully chosen covers give a tip of the hat to his friends, Brad Colerick’s beautiful homage to spirituality south-of-the-border, “Juarez,” Rick Shea’s appealing and driven by his own pedal steel playing, ” Sycamore Grove” and a touching tribute to the late Bob Weir, “Only the River.”

After a series of six earlier albums including Rope the Wind and Travelling Man, this album brings us a recording artist who has found his own stream of songs that touch the soul as they speak to the times we live in with a kind of compassion and flow that makes the listener long to return for more time inside this cabin of songs where there is warmth and healing.