July 14, 2026

“Everybody knows how that story goes. Peace and love don’t sell like rock and roll does.” - Jonathan Something

Here we are, sprung past spring, and already in the cone-dripping death grip of summer. I’m truly sorry to have been away for so long.

If you’re still here, I thank you for waiting. I hope your days have held more laughter than tears since we last convened.

As for me, I have been dreaming of blue horses and of “eating peaches off some mighty fine trees.” And in the spirit of the great poet Wendell Berry, I thought to write to you all of something new.

I started High Shelter to collect scattered thoughts and recollect on past lives while scratching down some new melodies and possibly reviving a sunken lullaby or two. Truthfully, once I’d written a few letters and shared a few songs, a door blew open that I didn’t want to close. I had to walk on through to see what I could do next, to discover what more I had to share with you. I have to tell you, there’s a brightness up ahead I couldn’t have seen before. Something on the horizon that you’ve helped to inspire and shape. So settle in, my friends. We have quite the journey ahead of us.

Today marks the introduction of High Shelter Records and the first single from our very first artist, Jonathan Something, titled “Country Rose.” A bit about Jonathan: he wrote, performed, recorded, and mixed everything you will hear on his lovely record, One More Lonesome Cowboy Song, which will drop later this year.

What struck me and has stuck with me since the first moment I heard Jonathan’s collection of songs, is the fearlessness and joy contained in one long-play album. I didn’t want to skip a track. Whether you listen to his songs at daybreak, when the sun is just about to shake hands with tops of the pines, or whether you listen to them in the darkness of a lonely night, or with the windows down driving through rolling fields outside your town or in your earphones on the busiest subway, Jonathan transports you somewhere all his own, to a place that somehow still makes sense in any moment you find yourself in.

Get to know him. I’ll be in touch again soon. For now, I hope you’ll spend some time like the rest of us at High Shelter, “hung upon on a Country Rose.”

Yours,

JL Ross

Check out “Country Rose” by Jonathan Something

And visit us! @jonathansomething & @highshelterrecords