With the release of his highly anticipated debut album Mr. Jukebox via Third Man Records, Joshua Hedley will embrace the role he was born to play: this generation’s classic country champion.

The heartbreaking, distilled, defiantly classic country that poured out of him became Mr. Jukebox, a salve and beacon for 60s honky-tonk devotees everywhere.

Album opener “Counting All My Tears” carves out the collection’s gloriously tear-jerking territory from the jump. As “oooooohhhs” and “aaaaahhhs” serve as spine-tingling harmonies – a classic-country fl ourish carried throughout Mr. Jukebox – lonely piano is joined by a familiar cast including steel and of course, fiddle.

When asked what he hopes listeners get out of Mr. Jukebox, Hedley doesn’t hesitate. “I just want people to remember they have feelings, and that they’re valid,” he says. “Not everything is Coors Light and tailgates. There are other aspects of life that aren’t so great that people experience. They’re part of life, part of what shapes people. And that’s worth noting.”