Lawrence Rothman Wraps Americana Trilogy With New Album — SkimNews
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- Lawrence Rothman releases "Here Lives Love/Sawdust to Stardust," which they describe as the third and final album in a trilogy of Americana-rooted records chronicling their career arc from L.A. rock bands to Nashville.
- The new album opens with "The Meaning," whose lyrics ask "Why am I breathing?" — a question Rothman traces directly back to an early conversation with David Bowie about whether their lyrics actually meant what they were saying.
- Rothman produced Amanda Shires' 2025 album "Nobody's Girl," Maggie Rose's "Half Moon," and Tift Merritt's comeback "Sugar," working at a pace of roughly one album a month by immersing themselves in the recording room rather than sitting behind the studio glass.
- Bowie, hearing Rothman's song "Montauk Fling" early in their solo career after the dissolution of that 13-year band, pushed them to be more direct about the meaning behind their chorus — the rewrite produced the line "Why do you want to fuck like strangers?"
- Rothman argues Americana is currently the most forward-thinking genre because it absorbs R&B, rock, singer-songwriter, folk, and jazz under one umbrella, and says their next album is already taking shape with more of a jazz flavor.
- Rothman uses women's vocal textures on their own records specifically to frame their low voice, with Amanda Shires, Jillian Jacqueline, Katie Pruitt, and Sarah Klang (as a duet partner on "A Fire Test") all singing on the new album.
Why it matters: Rothman has built a parallel career as a go-to Americana producer working monthly with critically respected singer-songwriters like Shires, Rose, and Merritt, and their argument that Americana is the most genre-fluid scene — already absorbing jazz, R&B, rock, and folk — reframes the category as the home for boundary-pushing American music rather than a retro acoustic niche. The Bowie anecdote also shows the lyrical-directness philosophy now driving the trilogy's final entry.
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