New Album

“By Sunrise” Now Available

“Long Prairie’s a relaxing mix of Americana & bluegrass”-Paula Todd, TF Winery

“By Sunrise” Cd’s and a CD bundle option now in store!

AUSTIN, Texas – Though most of Minnesota’s prairie lands have disappeared, references to that Little-House-on-the-Prairie time when tall grasses covered one-third of the state still abound —which explains why towns there carry names like Long Prairie, and why a Texas-based singer-songwriter might choose that name as her performing identity. It’s an homage to the place where she was born and raised. If that name evokes imagery of a heartlands setting where gentle wheatfields wave and dust clouds sometimes roll, that’s actually fitting. As demonstrated on her new album, “By Sunrise” releasing Oct. 4, Long Prairie writes songs rooted in the heart, filled with a sense of place and nature’s beauty. They carry a keen observer’s appreciation for detail — sometimes colored in tints of nostalgia, sometimes delivered in stark black-and-white — but always conveying essential truths. The kind of songs folk/Americana singers write, reaching into their own hearts and hoping to touch listeners’ souls.

“I just try to keep the music as real and honest as possible,” she says. She does exactly that in By Sunrise’s 10 tracks, which traverse miles of emotional terrain — though it more closely resembles the Texas Hill Country she currently calls home than the level lands of her birth state.

Long Prairie says her latest album’s title was inspired by a favorite Townes van Zandt song, “I’ll Be Here in the Morning.” Her fourth release, it was preceded by Tejas Moon (2023), Purdy Wings (2013) and Field of Wildflowers (2015).

By Sunrise opens with its first single, “The Little Things”; clocking in at 1 minute and 54seconds, it’s a sweet little ode to, well, appreciation. Her delicate fingerpicking is highlighted on the poignant love song, “Seamlessly,” the second single, slated for release on Sept. 20. She addresses the flip side of that — heartbreak — on “The Roses,” as in “the roses don’t take the pain away; the roses don’t unbreak my heart.” In the title tune, she sings about healing from heartache.