Sarah Borges's unbridled joy at making music two decades into a storied career comes through loud and clear in her latest long player, aptly titled Love's Middle Name. Her third studio record with The Broken Singles, Love's Middle Name is a muscular 10 song cycle that pulses with raw, gritty, unfettered emotion. As the kids like to say: this record has all the feels.

Conduct even a quick Google search, and you'll find that Sarah has been dubbed everything from an Americana darling, to a roots rocker, to a cowpunk by tastemakers as diverse as The New York Times and Sirius XM Outlaw Country Radio. With this latest release Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles show that all of those titles are well deserved.

To call Eric Ambel “The Godfather of Americana” would be doing Ambel a disservice, as his career as a singer/guitarist/songwriter/producer stretches beyond the boundaries of even that seemingly all-encompassing genre. Before Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings were piling up Grammys behind the boards, Ambel was working with bands like the Backsliders, Bottle Rockets, and Blue Mountain, producing records that would form the foundation of what people now call Americana.

The list of artists Ambel has played with and produced is dizzying, stretching from Chip Robinson to Run DMC and Everlast. Nils Lofgren enlisted Ambel to produce his landmark solo record Crooked Line and the aforementioned Backsliders, Bottle Rockets and Blue Mountain followed, leaning on Ambel to produce the albums that remain their most memorable and enduring works. One standout over the last several years has been Ambel’s creative partnership with Sarah Borges, whose albums Good & Dirty, Love’s Middle Name, and Together Alone were all produced by Ambel. That Ambel produced the albums and gradually, seamlessly became a featured member of Borges’ touring band (performing some of his own songs), and a sometimes co-writer, speaks to the ease and effortlessness with which Ambel is able to work collaboratively with the artists who enlist Ambel to produce their records.

Here’s Sarah and Eric live