The Delines to play Pocklington Arts Centre on February 23 with promise of new songs

The Delines’ Willy Vlautin and Amy Boone in a Madrid bar

YOU can’t make a beeline to The Delines at Pocklington Arts Centre on July 28, but jot down February 23 2021 for the Covid-enforced rearranged date.

Willy Vlautin’s retro country-soul band, from Portland, Oregon, returned from a three-year hiatus last year, enjoying two weeks at number one in the UK Americana charts with The Imperial, a record picked as Rough Trade’s album of the month and Uncut’s Americana album of the month.

The long lull in recordings was a result of lead singer Amy Boone’s need for three years of treatment and rehab after both her legs were broken severely in a car accident in Austin, Texas.

The artwork for The Delines’ 2019 album, The Imperial

The band vowed to “hang in there until the ship was ready to sail again”, their spirit sustained by knowing they had most of The Imperial’s material in the can already. Their sophomore record, the follow-up to June 2014 debut Colfax, surfaced eventually on January 11 2019 on Décor Records. A sold-out UK tour ensued that year.

The Delines are led by Vlautin, novelist and lead singer/songwriter for Richmond Fontaine, who disbanded in 2016, and Boone, co-founder with her sister Deborah Kelly of the Texan group Damnations.

In the line-up too are Freddy Trujillo, from Portland, on bass; Vlautin’s Richmond Fontaine cohort Sean Oldham on drums and multi-instrumentalist Cory Gray, rounding out the cinematic, late-night country-soul sound on keyboards and trumpet.

Amy Boone and Willy Vlautin: New songs in the pipeline

The band had been working on new material over the past months before the Coronavirus lockdown, those songs “set to be finished shortly” and sure to feature in next February’s gig.

That night’s support act will be Californian singer, songwriter and guitarist Jerry Joseph, who has just recorded his new album, The Beautiful Madness, with Drive-By Truckers, featuring Jason Isbell by the way, for August 21 release on Décor.

Ticket holders will be contacted by the PAC box office to offer them a transfer or refund. Tickets are on sale at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.