Wake The Dead
Chuck Prophet
Wake the Dead is the fourteenth solo studio album by California rock songwriter Chuck Prophet, released on October 25, 2024 via Yep Roc Records in collaboration with ¿Qiensave?, a cumbia urbana band from Salinas, California. The album grew directly out of Prophet's experience with a stage four lymphoma diagnosis in 2022, during which he found comfort and joy attending cumbia nights at clubs in San Francisco's Mission District while undergoing cancer treatment. After recovering and entering remission, he began playing informally with ¿Qiensave? and eventually invited them into the studio alongside members of his own backing band, Mission Express. The album was produced by Matt Winegar with Prophet and recorded live at Secret Sidewalk Studios in Austin, Texas, capturing the spontaneity and energy of the bands playing together in real time. Eight of the eleven tracks are co-written with Prophet's longtime lyrical collaborator Kurt Lipschutz (aka klipschutz), with others co-written with Kim Richey, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Mission Express guitarist James DePrato.
The resulting 11 songs wrap Prophet's characteristically lyrically rich and eclectic Americana songwriting in a full cumbia framework — blending Colombian rhythms with flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through a distinctly San Francisco sensibility. The album dances thematically between mortality and the joy of survival, opening with the funky, slithering title track and closing with "It's a Good Day to Be Alive," a tender love song for Prophet's life and musical partner Stephanie Finch, who sings harmony. Highlights in between include the back-to-back standouts "First Came the Thunder" and "Sally Was a Cop," and the pointed "In the Shadows (for Elon)." Wikipedia notes the album hit number one on the AMA/CDX Top 50 Album radio charts, marking Prophet's first chart-topper on that ranking.
Wake the Dead is the fourteenth solo studio album by California rock songwriter Chuck Prophet, released on October 25, 2024 via Yep Roc Records in collaboration with ¿Qiensave?, a cumbia urbana band from Salinas, California. The album grew directly out of Prophet's experience with a stage four lymphoma diagnosis in 2022, during which he found comfort and joy attending cumbia nights at clubs in San Francisco's Mission District while undergoing cancer treatment. After recovering and entering remission, he began playing informally with ¿Qiensave? and eventually invited them into the studio alongside members of his own backing band, Mission Express. The album was produced by Matt Winegar with Prophet and recorded live at Secret Sidewalk Studios in Austin, Texas, capturing the spontaneity and energy of the bands playing together in real time. Eight of the eleven tracks are co-written with Prophet's longtime lyrical collaborator Kurt Lipschutz (aka klipschutz), with others co-written with Kim Richey, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Mission Express guitarist James DePrato.
The resulting 11 songs wrap Prophet's characteristically lyrically rich and eclectic Americana songwriting in a full cumbia framework — blending Colombian rhythms with flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through a distinctly San Francisco sensibility. The album dances thematically between mortality and the joy of survival, opening with the funky, slithering title track and closing with "It's a Good Day to Be Alive," a tender love song for Prophet's life and musical partner Stephanie Finch, who sings harmony. Highlights in between include the back-to-back standouts "First Came the Thunder" and "Sally Was a Cop," and the pointed "In the Shadows (for Elon)." Wikipedia notes the album hit number one on the AMA/CDX Top 50 Album radio charts, marking Prophet's first chart-topper on that ranking.
Wake The Dead
Chuck Prophet
Wake the Dead is the fourteenth solo studio album by California rock songwriter Chuck Prophet, released on October 25, 2024 via Yep Roc Records in collaboration with ¿Qiensave?, a cumbia urbana band from Salinas, California. The album grew directly out of Prophet's experience with a stage four lymphoma diagnosis in 2022, during which he found comfort and joy attending cumbia nights at clubs in San Francisco's Mission District while undergoing cancer treatment. After recovering and entering remission, he began playing informally with ¿Qiensave? and eventually invited them into the studio alongside members of his own backing band, Mission Express. The album was produced by Matt Winegar with Prophet and recorded live at Secret Sidewalk Studios in Austin, Texas, capturing the spontaneity and energy of the bands playing together in real time. Eight of the eleven tracks are co-written with Prophet's longtime lyrical collaborator Kurt Lipschutz (aka klipschutz), with others co-written with Kim Richey, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Mission Express guitarist James DePrato.
The resulting 11 songs wrap Prophet's characteristically lyrically rich and eclectic Americana songwriting in a full cumbia framework — blending Colombian rhythms with flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through a distinctly San Francisco sensibility. The album dances thematically between mortality and the joy of survival, opening with the funky, slithering title track and closing with "It's a Good Day to Be Alive," a tender love song for Prophet's life and musical partner Stephanie Finch, who sings harmony. Highlights in between include the back-to-back standouts "First Came the Thunder" and "Sally Was a Cop," and the pointed "In the Shadows (for Elon)." Wikipedia notes the album hit number one on the AMA/CDX Top 50 Album radio charts, marking Prophet's first chart-topper on that ranking.
Wake the Dead is the fourteenth solo studio album by California rock songwriter Chuck Prophet, released on October 25, 2024 via Yep Roc Records in collaboration with ¿Qiensave?, a cumbia urbana band from Salinas, California. The album grew directly out of Prophet's experience with a stage four lymphoma diagnosis in 2022, during which he found comfort and joy attending cumbia nights at clubs in San Francisco's Mission District while undergoing cancer treatment. After recovering and entering remission, he began playing informally with ¿Qiensave? and eventually invited them into the studio alongside members of his own backing band, Mission Express. The album was produced by Matt Winegar with Prophet and recorded live at Secret Sidewalk Studios in Austin, Texas, capturing the spontaneity and energy of the bands playing together in real time. Eight of the eleven tracks are co-written with Prophet's longtime lyrical collaborator Kurt Lipschutz (aka klipschutz), with others co-written with Kim Richey, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Mission Express guitarist James DePrato.
The resulting 11 songs wrap Prophet's characteristically lyrically rich and eclectic Americana songwriting in a full cumbia framework — blending Colombian rhythms with flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through a distinctly San Francisco sensibility. The album dances thematically between mortality and the joy of survival, opening with the funky, slithering title track and closing with "It's a Good Day to Be Alive," a tender love song for Prophet's life and musical partner Stephanie Finch, who sings harmony. Highlights in between include the back-to-back standouts "First Came the Thunder" and "Sally Was a Cop," and the pointed "In the Shadows (for Elon)." Wikipedia notes the album hit number one on the AMA/CDX Top 50 Album radio charts, marking Prophet's first chart-topper on that ranking.