Jon Carroll Band - Album Release Party at The Iron Horse on Tuesday, August 11 2026

EASTHAMPTON, Mass. : After launching his career as a teenager like a rocket ship, winning two GRAMMY® Awards as a member of Starland Vocal Band (“Afternoon Delight”), Jon Carroll is now deliberate and considered when it comes to releasing new music. The singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, and musician’s musician has a lot to say on his fourth solo album, “Can’t Afford Not To.” His first album in eighteen years will receive its official release on June 27 from BraveSoul Productions. Carroll penned a dozen new tunes and produced this 14-song LP, crafting a freeform collection of keen political commentary and societal observations, courageous activism, and purposeful explorations of truth set to melody-rich, horn powered, and groove-laden Americana rock, R&B, soul, jazz, and gospel music.

Carroll’s “Can’t Afford Not To” presents a gallery of musical advocacies. His lyrics address speaking out politically, reaching out socially, standing up righteously, doing right constantly, and seeking truth faithfully.

“‘Can’t Afford Not To’ completes a cycle of commentary begun at the dawning of American Neo Conservatism. I wish that these songs written during the first clashes between capitalism and progressivism were by now old hat, but they’re needed now more than ever. The clash is between truth and lies, darkness and light, unity and disarray. These songs are all about solidarity—of purpose and of reality in resistance to those forces that have long sought to divide,” said Carroll, who is based in Western Massachusetts.

The album opens with the New Orleans-styled “(You Gotta) Stand Up!” It’s a one-man protest prod to those sitting it out and shutting up in the face of authoritarianism. The track serves as the theme song for the popular Stand Up! with Pete Dominick podcast.

“Pete (Dominick) had his own show and founded the then Insight channel on SiriusXM until he was let go in a politically charged move at the dawn of the Covid pandemic. He endeavored, successfully, to bring many of his listeners to his Patreon-supported podcast. I was inspired and wrote this song as a gesture of solidarity with him and our community of listeners, comprised of folks devoted to seeking knowledge, insight, and ways forward in the struggle toward a fairer more equitable world for all,” explained Carroll who played the majority of the instruments on the album along with constructing layers of vocal harmonies.

At his core, Carroll is a storyteller and his gift shines on the midtempo guitar groove titled “Into and Outa the Storm,” an all-too-common present-day tale about a young family seeking reassurance amidst economic challenges.

“The seed for this song was planted while reading of the exodus of the newly unemployed to the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota during the 2008 economic downturn. Seeing a picture of a young family, baby in the backseat of a car among all transportable belongings rang a bell that sounded from a John Steinbeck novel past, describing a tenuous time requiring a non-tenuous renewed commitment made with more than a hint of desperation, while sailing toward an uncertain tomorrow. Staying steadfast isn’t always easy,” Carroll surmised.

The title track is a reggae-pop singalong laced with bluegrass harmonies. Carroll says that the song is a “paean to altruism and compassion, those first go-to resources in the quest for community and the very survival for our species.”

Packaging funk, jazz, pop, and disco, “Your Hook” shimmers via the skillfully plied gloss of a Nashville- based string section. Carroll’s subject is the “futile swim upstream toward the shining allure of a young siren’s eyes. The double-clutch of a growing crush is something of which he’s aware will never be reciprocated.”

Revisiting vintage Philly soul music from the seventies on the ballad “Big Goodbye,” Carroll croons a sad story of departure in three acts augmented with violin and viola performed by members of the U.S. Marine Chamber Ensemble.

“Like many, I suffer from separation anxiety and this song is autobiographical. Its three verses are representative of three acts: those heartbreaking final farewells in life from people whose circumstances prevent ever seeing one another again; broaching the subject of impending death delicately, awkwardly, and fearfully; and the final dissolution of a marriage or partnership.”

Deriving inspiration from Leon Russell, Carroll’s funky two-wheeled frolic “On His Bike” is a joyous and playful jaunt. An updated old-school romancer flirting with doo-wop and illumined by sweeping strings, “Rainy Day Someone” frames an admirer who reaches out in tough times that “hit like lightning.” Seamlessly blending the distinctive soulful sounds of New Orleans, Philly, and Detroit’s Motown, “Rich Man’s Daughter” is the portrait of domestic culture clash within a marriage.

One of two cover songs on the album, Carroll says his old-school soul version of The Winstons’ “Color Him Father” “pays tribute to fatherhood with grateful affirmations and appreciations of new beginnings and the redemptions of found family. It’s also a tribute to those who take on mentorship roles in young lives.”

Carroll adds secular gospel to the mix on “Right By You,” an anthem of everyday moral dilemmas and our seeing and thinking through them and navigating them with grace carefully and courageously.

“The song is almost a prayer, about the call to be activated at a moment’s notice to any random duty where we’re required to play our part - in society and within our personal relationships. All we can do is try to be our best.”

Decorating the funk-flavored, horn garnished “Heart Outside” with acoustic guitar reveals Carroll’s affection for Linda and Cecil Womack’s music.

“Those Womack & Womack records, with their use of acoustic guitars within the R&B genre, was an inspiration here. This is a tune about a tenacious love that hangs in there— maybe a little too long while trying maybe a little too hard. Is she ever going to let him come in?” posed Carroll.

Venturing into progressive jazz-rock, “Roll A 7, Pts. 1 & 2” challenges by marching to an odd-time signature and serves as a showcase for Nigerian percussionist-composer Tosin Aribisala, who Carroll mentored at the Strathmore Performing Arts Center’s Emerging Artists in Residence program. The song about the inevitable happenstance speaks of pushing one’s luck and daring fate too many times unfolds in two halves: the song portion followed by an extended improvisation.

Another odd-time progressive jazz-pop track packing muscular horns, “Soldier On” incorporates Brazilian jazz and vocal jazz nuances. It’s a song Carroll began writing long ago although he finds the message as relevant now as ever.

“I started writing it at the outset of the Iraq War, with its final verse written some years later as many war veterans returned home maimed and mutilated, physically and spiritually. Trouble had hit our shores, and in those ensuing awful years, those brave souls returned profoundly damaged from those conflicts. We must support them as well as each other and persevere with tenacity, vigilance, and faith.”

To close the album, Carroll selected Jimmie Rodgers’ “Waiting on A Train.”

“It’s a classic American song that I felt capped off this collection in a hopeful if not altogether poignant way. The crickets are real, and it’s the tale of a traveling soul, one with many ‘homes that call the loudest.’ The future is always right around the corner. We soldier on with heart and soul,” said the hopeful Carroll.

A child prodigy from the civil rights era South, Carroll started performing when he was eleven, gigging with R&B dance bands in his hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia. After moving to Washington, DC, he started working in clubs like The Cellar Door at age fifteen and two years later, he opened shows at The Kennedy Center and other larger venues for George Carlin, John Prine, and Seals & Crofts. At eighteen, Carroll cofounded Starland Vocal Band, which had a No. 1 pop hit, “Afternoon Delight.” Starland Vocal Band won two of the five GRAMMYs for which they were nominated, including Best New Artist and Best Arrangement for Voices, the latter being for Carroll’s arranging work.

After Starland Vocal Band’s five-album run, Carroll began building his lengthy career as a touring and recording musician, playing guitar, keyboards, singing, and arranging music alongside Mary Chapin Carpenter, Peter Wolf, Rodney Crowell, The Chicks, and countless other singer-songwriters. He released his solo debut album, “Home & Away,” in 1990. The set contained his first 7/4-time composition, “Get Closer,” which Linda Ronstadt covered and took to No. 29 on the Billboard chart. Tom Jones recorded two other songs from that collection: “Old Flame Blue” and “Walk Tall (Valley of the Shadows).” Prior to “Can’t Afford Not To,” Carroll’s last studio album was 2007’s “Love Returns,” which swept all seven Wammies for which it was nominated at the awards doled out by the Washington Area Music Association. That was followed the very next year with a double-disc live recording, “LIVE Returns,” which also won multiple Wammies. In addition to his busy touring and studio session work, Carroll has released a variety of singles between albums and has landed multiple television and film music placements. He will be touring this summer throughout the US and Canada with Carpenter.