JFH News: Russ Taff Releases New Album of Cover Songs, Titled "Cover Story"

LEGENDARY NASHVILLE MUSICIAN RUSS TAFF’S NEW ALBUM, COVER STORY OUT NOW

6X GRAMMY® AWARD-WINNING SINGER-SONGWRITER CHRONICLES HIS REMARKABLE LIFE’S JOURNEY WITH IMPASSIONED PERFORMANCES OF SONGS BY BOB DYLAN, U2, PRINCE, SIMON & GARFUNKEL, DEPECHE MODE, BILL WITHERS, AND MORE

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE INTENSELY PERSONAL TAKE ON THE NATIONAL’S “DEMONS”

COVER STORY ARRIVES VIA IMAGINE HOUSE/VERE MUSIC

Russ Taff Releases New Album of Cover Songs, Titled 'Cover Story'

NEWS SOURCE: Plan A Media
March 5, 2025

NASHVILLE, TN - 6x GRAMMY® Award-winner Russ Taff kicks off 2025 with the release of his eagerly awaited new album, Cover Story, out now via Imagine House/Vere Music. Listen HERE

Taff made his debut TV performance on WSMV in support of Cover Story on Tuesday, February 4th, backed by a full band with a second song also recorded but to be premiered at a later date to be announced soon. Watch HERE

Executive produced by Steve Taylor (Sixpence None the Richer, Newsboys), produced by John Mark Painter (Fleming & John, Ben Folds, Sevendust), and mixed by Matt Wallace (Faith No More, The Replacements), Cover Story marks perhaps the most singularly special album in Taff’s extraordinary four-decade career, chronicling his remarkable life’s journey with impassioned performances of timeless songs by such masters as Bob Dylan, U2, Prince, Simon & Garfunkel, and more. Among its many highlights is Taff’s intensely powerful take on The National’s “Demons.”

“I wasn’t comfortable at all at first with the approach Steve and John were taking,” says Russ Taff. “Because as a singer, for all of these years, there’s microphones that I like, preamps that I like. That becomes your security blanket, you feel safe and you feel secure, because that’s how you’ve done it for your whole career. But Steve and John, they said let’s do it differently this time. I got scared and said, I don’t know if I can do what you guys are asking me to do.

“Steve said to me, There’s a song from The National that I want you to look at. It was called ‘Demons’ and it was just exactly what I had been going through. The chorus, ‘I stay down with demons,’ it really opened my eyes to what was happening inside of me. I’d made all this progress and then all of a sudden, I got my knees cut out from under me and I fell right back to that insecure place. You take everything away and you’re standing just naked and you don’t know if you’re any good. You’re completely vulnerable. But then something is born out of that, you sing from a different place. It’s not guarded and it’s not controlled, it’s not the same licks that you’ve always gone back to. It was a challenge, and in that breaking, I surrendered.”

Cover Story also includes recently released renditions of Depeche Mode’s “People Are People” and Blind Willie Johnson’s “Tear This Building Down,” the latter a staple of his mother’s hugely influential record collection that fueled him as a child and now serves as opening track to the new album. Both tracks are available now at all DSPs and streaming services.

LISTEN TO “PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE”

LISTEN TO “TEAR THIS BUILDING DOWN”

From a troubled childhood in a small Pentecostal church in California’s San Joaquin Valley to the top of the charts, from impossible heights of creative success to his hard-won battle with the bottle, Russ Taff has told the story of his extraordinary life countless times over the course of his career – but never quite like this. Taff has of course had a landmark career by any standard, earning six GRAMMY® Awards, 16 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, and induction into the Gospel Music Association (GMA) Hall of Fame an unprecedented three times— as a solo artist as well as a member of both The Imperials and The Gaither Vocal Band. Praised by Billboard as “the single most electrifying voice in Christian music,” Taff has inspired like-minded artists from Kings of Leon to MercyMe with an influential singing style and body of work that includes such landmark albums as his GRAMMY® Award-winning solo debut, 1983’s Walls of Glass, 1985’s breakthrough Medals, and 1989’s chart-topping smash, The Way Home. Co-written by Taff with his beloved wife Tori, classic songs such as “We Will Stand,” “I Cry,” “Not Gonna Bow” and “Farther On” have related his spiritual journey with stunning power and deeply personal detail, how he was brought low by trauma and addiction and raised up again through the power of love and faith. In 2018, Taff’s story was further told in the acclaimed documentary, Russ Taff: I Still Believe, which saw a nationwide release in over 700 theaters. Taff has continued to be exceptionally candid regarding his private struggles over the years, most recently including an in-depth interview on Mark Laita’s hugely popular Soft White Underbelly YouTube channel that has already received close to half a million views via YouTube alone (streaming HERE).

Now, with Cover Story, Taff has gathered all the threads of his life, all the tenderness, scars, and resilient humanity, into what is perhaps his most uniquely personal album thus far. Backed by an all-star band of session superstars including Painter, guitarist Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart, Lucinda Williams, Jim Lauderdale), keyboardists Blair Masters (Garth Brooks, Casting Crowns, Peter Frampton) and Phil Madeira (Emmylou Harris, Phil Keaggy, Buddy Miller), Taff chronicles his journey via songs by legendary artists and songwriters, finding within them a similar message of faith, authenticity, and inspiration that he’s brought to his own songwriting. Taff has always brought righteous power to his music, but his impassioned performances of songs like Bob Dylan’s “I Believe In You” and Duran Duran’s worldwide #1 favorite, “Ordinary World” display something altogether new and heretofore unheard, a thunderous vigor and breadth of spirit that he’s never before revealed on record. Taff’s famously formidable voice has somehow become more potent, strengthened by the hard fought lessons and deep wisdom he’s accrued along the way. Cover Story is more than anything a story of love – the love of good friends, the love of those lives have been moved by Taff’s milestone body of work, and above all, Russ Taff’s lifelong love of the redemptive, rejuvenating power of music.

“Making Cover Story I was transported back to when I was 14 again with my acoustic guitar,” says Russ Taff. “I would sing from this place that was unfettered. It was not thought through. It wasn’t rehearsed. I began to relive what brought me into this, what brought me joy and what brought me happiness, just throwing my head back in that little Pentecostal church and singing without thinking about it. I mean, what a gift from God to rediscover that feeling.”

RUSS TAFF
COVER STORY

(Imagine House/Vere Music)

Tracklist:

Tear This Building Down

People Are People

When Love Comes To Town

Demons

Ordinary World

The Cross

Grandma’s Hands

I Believe In You

The Sound of Silence