Jenson David and Kelly Miller – “Not Forgotten”

Collaborations can tell us a lot about all the players involved, and in the context of country music, they can actually influence the way the industry perceives these artists as they find a place within the hierarchy of the genre. Enter Jenson David and Kelly Miller, a pair of talented country singers whose new single “Not Forgotten” is dropping at the right time for a battered and uncertain world in need of some fresh balladry. These two musicians might not be household names, but in “Not Forgotten,” they take on a big issue with a warm and inviting personality unique to the Americana they play so passionately. 

There’s no competing for our hearts in this single, but rather two singers who know they have plenty of talent between them and decide to utilize it with efficiency in mind. Where David finds himself limited to the lower scale, Miller comes in and fills the high-end with a tonality that is second to none, their two styles of singing balancing one another out and bringing forth emotions that might not have been so obvious with different vocalists in charge of these verses. They’re not major label musicians, but they sound like a million dollars here. 

The piano gets so much love from behind the board that it rivals the vocals in terms of volume, and while I wouldn’t normally recommend this in a single – especially in country or soft rock – it somehow works really well for the way David and Miller constructed their harmony. Full-bodied was the first word to come into my mind after listening to “Not Forgotten” all the way through without any interruptions from the outside world, and for a track that runs about four and a half minutes total, that’s no small achievement to boast about. 

Production quality is essential to giving us the full spectrum of color in a song as magnificently barebones as this one is, and there’s rightly not a cloud in the sky as our singers jettison through the melodies here with ease. There are instances in which it’s almost as though we’re listening to an intimate live performance instead of a studio recording, and with the rise in so-called ‘isolation pop’ over the course of the last eight months (and an inexplicably surreal movement that’s shadowed its ascent in the American underground), this is a nice step back into normalcy for lifelong country buffs like myself. 

I had been hurting for some top shelf country music for the better part of 2020, but with the arrival of “Not Forgotten” I’m starting to feel like the real masters of this genre as we enter a new decade lie on the left side of the market far more than they do anything in the established order of artists as it stood in the 2010s. Jenson David and Kelly Miller make for an incredible team here, and I hope that I have the pleasure of hearing what they can do together in future projects as well. 

Michael Rand

The music of Jenson David has been heard all over the world in partnership with the radio plugging services offered by Musik and Film Radio Promotions Division.  Learn more https://musikandfilm.com