Smoke Tree Road
Release date: February 20th 2026
Credits, Lyrics and Background
For a full list of all the good folks who had something to do with Smoke Tree Road, all the lyrics, and some background information and anecdotes about the album's songs
click here ››
Reviews:
I Dig Roots Music
Stephen David Austin - March 30th 2026
There’s a certain kind of record that doesn’t announce itself so much as it settles in—like dust on a dashboard after a long desert drive, or the quiet hum of a roadside bar just before last call. Smoke Tree Road, the latest from Rick Shea, is that kind of record. It’s not chasing relevance or reinventing anything. Instead, it leans into the long view—memory, miles traveled, and the accumulated weight of a life spent in and around song.
read the full review
Americana Highways
John Jenkins - March 24th 2026
Smoke Tree Road is a warm, unhurried, and deeply human collection that showcases Shea’s strengths as a songwriter, guitarist, and storyteller… a record shaped by experience, reflection, and a quiet assurance that never needs to raise its voice to be heard.
read the full review
No Depression
Terry Paul Roland - Feb 18th 2026
Over his 30-year recording career, he has created a lifetime of immersion in the soul of American song across genres. This approach defines Shea’s new album, Smoke Tree Road. This album is among the best of his well-crafted albums over three decades. He calls up the best of the legends who have paved the way with echoes of Merle Haggard’s Tulare Dust.
read the full review
Jonny Whiteside
Feb 20th 2026
California country singer - songwriter Rick Shea has always been one of the good guys, a legit, from the heart, give a damn practitioner, and Smoke Tree Road demands some hard-earned veneration. The [album] spotlights his signature mix of communicative artistry, contemporary vision and traditional form.
Perfected over the course of an influential five-decade life in music, Shea’s gently implacable dynamic - a stoic Western reserve capable of transmitting an abundance of nuanced emotional content - makes for a smoldering, soul deep approach that’s profoundly effective and deeply evocative.
read the full review
Read more Smoke Tree Road reviews:
click here ››
Love & Desperation
MOJO
An instant familiarity, four stars ****
Sylvie Simmons
full review
Americana Highways
Rick Shea has long been one of the no- kidding singers who roam the Golden State, finding a spot in local night- spots and then turning on the sauce … Shea knows just how to build the dramatic tension so the song explodes exactly where it's supposed to, and listeners dive all in to see where the next one goes.
full review
San Diego Troubadour
There's not a weak song on this collection ... Shea may be southern California's best kept secret.
full review
Morning Star
... a gifted practitioner of the finest Americana.. a very impressive body of work.
full review
Northern Sky
... takes us on a journey through the southern back roads and honky-tonks of America.
full review
Alan Cackett
This guy's a master songwriter ... his muse is an earth-bound one-full of scruffy moments and care-worn emotional truths
full review
Lonesome Highway
A welcome addition to Shea's canon of fine albums.. made with care attention and love
full review
Lonestar Time
One of the greats of 'made in California country music' a valuable and significant work
full review
Glide
... the essence of Americana music, delivered by one of it's severely underrecognized talents
Jim Hynes
full review
Desert Star
... a great batch of songs and a stylish approach ... wonderful
Robert Kinsler
full review
Goldmine
(Shea’s) most definitive musical statement to date, the lessons he leaves with hislisteners are well worth retaining
full review
The Town Where I Live
Ctrl. Alt. Country
5 Stars ***** One of the most interesting singer-songwriters of the current Americana lot
full review
Deep Roots
A folk singer with a hearty voice, a sure feel for country-flavored blues and given to vivid, detailed portraits of people and places in the manner of Tom Russell, California- based veteran Rick Shea offers a folk-flavored gem. Like all outstanding folk writers, Shea knows the land and its human inhabitants
full review
Maverick
A fine collection of songs, honest country music fare. Shea is a fine writer and singer, well worth a listen.
full review
Maximum Volume
Shea shows all his gifts for telling wonderful stories, ones rooted in the reality of existence. These stories are brimming with a very special kind of frustration indeed, rather like the best American music has always seemed to. rating 8 out of 10.
full review
OC Patch
The landscape becomes a focal point in many of Shea's songs, heat, dust, wind, vacant lots, boarded-up buildings and torn-up highways create their sense of time and place.
full review
Pasadena Weekly
Movingly sung and performed, the beauty of the tale is in how the veteran artist makes it feel like it’s taken from his own life - or yours. It’s one of the hallmarks of Shea’ssongwriting.
full review
Penny Black Music
Shea can sing about leaving places we’ve never been to and make us yearn to be there, leaving the listener wanting more.
full review
Rambles
Not to be confused with some pop-flavored, faux-rooted "Americana" act Shea traffics in muscular folk music based in American tradition and experience. Devoid of fakery, Shea tells stories you will want to hear.
full review
Real Roots Café
Shea comes up with an excellent Americana CD with an infectious mix of country, rock, folk, bluesy pop
full review
The Rock Club
Straightforward country, with a hint of pub rock.
full review
Sweet Bernadine
Tres Pescadores 2013
a hauntingly nostalgic vocalist, imperative guitarist and literate, detail-rich songwriter,
do yourself a favor
– Gary von Tersch, Sing Out
a must, not only for anyone seeking a sublime set of songs, but for those whose notion of
Americana has to ring of the real thing.
– Lee Zimmerman, No Depression
Press Quotes for "Sweet Bernardine"
"Sweet Bernardine" Review Page
