AFTER last year's Introducing Cale Tyson sampler, now is the time for reintroducing Cale Tyson with his sophomore record, one that sees the Nashville country starlet move on from his initial Gram Parsons comparisons.

As can be heard tonight at The Crescent, in The Crescent, off Blossom Street, York, Cale has left behind Parsons' cosmic country music for the Muscle Shoals country soul of his first album proper, Careless Soul.

Released last month on Clubhouse Records, the new record combines a contemporary air with echoes of Joe South and Solomon Burke, much to the delight of Please Please You promoter Joe Coates, who has booked tonight's gig. "Cale trekked up to Fame Studios at Muscle Shoals, Alabama last year to record what's a stunning example of the country soul this legendary studio is famous for producing."

Before that, Cale felt last year's sampler served its purpose. "It was mostly the record company's idea to do that; I'd never thought of it but once they suggested it, it was a really good thing to do as I'd done the recording sessions really close together in 2013 and 2014," he says. "I then did a long tour, going to places I'd never heard of before, but every gig was good."

This time the focus will be on Careless Soul, and 25-year-old Cale can't wait. "Every time I get to release a new record, I feel I have another album of songs ready, and I had the Careless Soul songs ready before going to the UK last year! But I'm just glad the record is coming out now," he says. "Recording is such a process; it takes time, it takes money; it's one of the most stressful things you can do."

Stressful maybe, but what a pleasure it was to record at Fame Studios. "We wanted to do a country soul record, and I thought, 'you know what, let's get out of Nashville and do a record where those records used to be made," says Cale. "We looked at the route; it was only two hours away, so we spent a week doing the songs in March last year in Muscle Shoals."

Produced by Emmylou Harris's bass player, Michael Rinne, Careless Soul comprises 11 tracks on the themes of love found and love lost, "Who I am?" and "What am I doing here?". "First of all, the songs span at least a year of writing music and going through a lot of differing times," he says. "I'd been through being in relationships and out of relationships and was homeless for a month and I'd just been poisoning my body with whatever I could put in for a while, but then I picked myself up and found new love, and the songs reflect that."

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Cale headed to Muscle Shoals with such Nashville luminaries as Jeremy Fetzer, Pete Lindberg and Brett Resnick. There they were joined by Jon Radford, Jordan Lehning, who composed all the string and horn arrangements, and David Hood, from the Fame Studios house band, The Swampers, who last played in York in The Waterboys' line-up at the Barbican last year.

"The producer, Michael Rinne, said it would be really cool to have David Hood on the record, and I thought, 'yes, but how do we do that?', but he made a few phone calls and got him on board," recalls Cale. "As with all players I had around me, it made me work all the harder because of their calibre as I always want to push myself."

"That's why I made this record, whereas my first record was a stab at making a country record, and don't get me wrong, I love it, but I really needed to find my own sound."

Recording at Fame Studios was everything Cale hoped it would be. "If you look at it from the outside it's in a strip mall, but then you go inside and it totally had that Muscle Shoals vibe. We went in there with the songs that could have made a straight album but we thought, 'no, let's draw on this place'," he says. "Like the song Easy; we thought, 'let's give it an Elvis sound', which we wouldn't have got if we'd done a Nashville recording."

Cale will be touring with Smokin' Brett Resnick on pedal steel, regular band member Andrew Hunt on bass and his "utility guy", Pete Lindberg, on drums after playing guitar on the record. "You can expect a much fuller, dynamic sound, as well as more three-piece vocal harmonies," he says. "It's also guaranteed to be a bit more rowdy than our last acoustic tour."

So, Cale, on the new album you ask yourself 'Who am I?" and "What am I doing here?", but have you come up with any answers? "I don't think I've worked that out; I don't think we ever do," he says. "I've struggled with a lot of insecurities in my past but have learned to embrace them rather than run away from them. Being able to laugh at your failings is important."

Cale Tyson plays The Crescent, York, tonight, supported by York acts Boss Caine and Mulholland from 8pm. Box office: seetickets.com; Jumbo Records, Leeds, and The Inkwell, York, or on the door from 7.30pm.