The Sky Chiefs

The Sky Chiefs are what happens when two veteran singer/songwriters, Stephen McCarthy and Kevin Pittman, accidentally create something too good to stay lost forever. Stephen has spent decades playing with alt country pioneers The Long Ryders and also tours and records with the iconic Americana group The Jayhawks. Kevin spent time recording in LA and has released 2 acclaimed solo albums in recent years. 

So in the early 1990s, the pair holed up in a 100-year-old bungalow that doubled as a recording studio, songwriting lab and late-night speakeasy. Over the course of a year, they cranked out two dozen songs full of blood harmony, vintage country twang, lap steel and Telecasters loud enough to wake the departed. Then, life happened. The record got shelved, the tapes vanished, and decades passed. The album was lost until last year when the original recordings magically resurfaced in a friend’s sweltering attic. Here are 14 songs from those sessions, heard for the first time since being recorded decades ago.