When Americana singer-songwriter Tony Harrah’s wife passed away suddenly from a blood clot in her sleep, he was left with three boys and an album that proved eerily foretelling.  “I wrote a record of loss and redemption before she died. It was a Godly premonition that I didn’t realize,” he shares. Two months after his wife’s death, Tony recorded the intimately elegant and bravely vulnerable record, Unicorns.

     Charleston, West Virginia-based artist’s latest album, Unicorns, frames a man making sense of the world in the wake of profound loss. It offers forth a quality of feeling that’s both disquieting and comforting. “During my eulogy for her, I called her my ‘unicorn.’ I said these mythical creatures do exist, and that I caught one once,” Tony says.

     Since Unicorns was written before Tony’s wife’s passing, in addition to its stirring themes of love and loss, it also captures sweet snapshots of the family’s time together as well as painfully complex family dynamics.

     Musically, the album poignantly and poetically encompasses the span of American roots music.  “Miller Farm” dips into swampy delta blues; “Here I am Lord” features folk and gospel touches; and “She Cries Alone” embodies the self-reflective folk tradition.

     The album’s first single, “Sweet Lucinda,” is storyteller folk that captures the patinaed beauty of a relationship that endures. This track was also Tony’s wife’s favorite on the album. He explains: “That song is about our life together, and the idea that we were a normal relationship that spanned 15 years together and 9 years married.”

      Reflecting on Unicorns,” Tony says: “I named the album after her, and I’m sure she will hear it. For others listening to it, I hope what my story conveys is that you can conquer anything.”