A native son of Arkansas, JD Clayton delivers a timeless form of country-rock that’s wholly the product of his environment: down-to-earth, deliberately unhurried, touched with a carefree ease that’s undeniably infectious. After several years spent grinding it out in Nashville—and kicking off a career that’s included touring alongside the likes of Dwight Yoakam, Old Crow Medicine Show, Parker McCollum, and more—the Fort Smith-bred singer/songwriter returned to his hometown and immersed himself in the making of an adventurous new album that soon led to his signing with Rounder Records. With equal parts soulful self-reflection and wildly colorful storytelling, Blue Sky Sundays immediately transports the audience into a world that moves at its own exhilarating rhythm—and ultimately reveals an artist of hard-won character and singular authenticity.

The follow-up to his critically praised 2023 debut Long Way From Home, Blue Sky Sundays finds Clayton taking the helm as producer and working with his touring band to capture the vitality and grit of his crowd-thrilling live show. “When I made my first album I’d never been on the road, but after touring so much over the past few years my band is extremely dialed-in,” says Clayton, whose live experience includes performing at major festivals like Bonnaroo and Dreamy Draw as well as opening for artists like Hank Williams Jr., Charles Wesley Godwin, Brent Cobb, and Ashley McBryde. “I wanted to make a record that showcased what’s special about each of my bandmates, and I knew the best way to do that was to produce it myself.” Recorded at the legendary Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville and mixed by seven-time Grammy Award winner Vance Powell (Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton), Blue Sky Sundays ornaments its free-flowing sound with plenty of ear-catching sonic details (including an abundance of explosive guitar solos), each crafted with a thoughtful spontaneity. “I’m always inspired by music made in the ’70s, when there wasn’t so much of a focus on getting everything exactly perfect,” says Clayton. “Life is crazy and it’s got a lot of blemishes, and I believe that music should too. These songs all came from us locking ourselves in the studio and really having fun with the songs, and I think that’s the heart of the album.”

In a glorious example of the album’s freewheeling energy, Blue Sky Sundays opens on “Let You Down”: a soul-soothing epic whose back half launches into a high-spirited jam that feels both off-the-cuff and elegantly composed. Anchored in Clayton’s warmly nuanced performance on acoustic guitar, the gently incisive track also spotlights his gift for spinning the subtlest of moments into songwriting gold. “That song came together after meeting my bass player Lee Williams at Cafe Roze in Nashville,” he says. “We were asking the barista for suggestions on where to eat dinner, and every single place she recommended was closed. I was driving home in the rain and started writing about the idea of someone letting you down, and it slowly developed into a song about falsely projecting perfection onto a person and then feeling hurt when they can’t live up to that.”

Hailing from a stretch of Arkansas that borders on the farmlands of eastern Oklahoma, Clayton got his start playing guitar as a little kid (thanks to some guidance from his grandfather, who played banjo in a bluegrass band) and later took up piano, drums, banjo, harmonica, and ukulele. After his father left his work in real estate to pursue his path as a pastor, Clayton funneled his outsize musical talent into singing and leading songs during church services all throughout his high school years, then enrolled at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and quickly formed his first band. “As I got more into songwriting I started wanting to record those songs, so sometimes I’d leave town at about 5 a.m. on a Friday, drive to Nashville and spend all weekend recording with a friend, then drive back in time for class on Monday,” he recalls. Not long after graduation, Clayton and his wife moved to Nashville in hopes of building on the momentum set in motion by his 2018 debut EP Smoke Out the Fire—then found his plans thrown into chaos when the pandemic hit just a few months later. Newly jobless and desperate for work, he soon scored a gig with a local landscaping company and began writing his debut album in his downtime. “We’d drive around in trucks all over Nashville and I’d sit in the back with my headphones on, trying to come up with songs,” he says. “Now whenever I’m in town, there’s so many spots where I’ll see all the trees and flowerbeds I planted years ago.”

While Long Way From Home centers on a graceful collision of country and folk, Blue Sky Sundays leans further into Clayton’s roots-rock influences (e.g., The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival). Along with his smoldering cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason” (a setlist staple from his days of busking at a nearby farmers market) and hard-stomping twist on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Mississippi Kid” (reimagined here as “Arkansas Kid”), the album includes standouts like the weary yet wise “High Hopes & Low Expectations” (the LP’s sole co-write, penned with Nashville veteran Kendell Marvel). On “Dirt Roads of Red,” Blue Sky Sundays serves up a piano-laced piece of Southern rock he refers to as “a cheeky song from a preacher’s kid about what happens in the afterlife,” while the sweetly anthemic “Slow & Steady” channels the blissful irresponsibility of teenage summer nights. And on “Dance Another Dance,” Clayton presents a life-affirming love song about the power of second chances, adorning the track’s tale of nearly-star-crossed romance with bluesy grooves and fiery guitar riffs. “When I moved to Nashville I worked at the same trucking company as my cousin; she had feelings for my boss but neither would admit it, so eventually she moved to Colorado,” Clayton explains. “Finally he realized he messed up and tried to get her back, and a couple years later I sang this song for the first dance at their wedding.”

In choosing a title for Blue Sky Sundays, Clayton looked to a lyric in “Slow & Steady” that echoes the joyful sense of clarity he’s experienced since moving back to Fort Smith after the birth of the first of his two daughters. “It’s essentially a line about wanting to bring happiness to someone else, which feels like it represents what I want to do with my music these days,” he says. “For me there’s a few albums I always know I can throw on whenever I’m feeling down, that instantly bring me back to a happier time in my life—to me that’s the biggest and best possible form of nostalgia. There’s so much sadness in the world lately, so hopefully this album will have that same power to turn someone’s day around in just a couple of seconds.”