As his Valentine’s Day gift to the world in 2025, James Felice released his debut solo album The Little Ones.

About the album, James Felice explains: “Little stories about little people up against the enormity of the universe and the hideous length of eternal time, and the endless confusions of love and being loved. Big serious ideas, funny little people. All sung softly in a song.  I’ve spent my whole adult life in service to the song. Writing, recording, and playing music in ornate theaters and around campfires and rotting picnic benches in the tall grass, and gross, awesome bars and legendary clubs.. Listening to and playing and writing songs all over the damn place for my whole life. I fucking love songs. So here’s some songs for you.” 

On The Little Ones, James joins the long lineage of winking American tearjerkers, the great crying-in-your-beer smart alecks like Warren Zevon, John Prine, or even Tom Waits. With a similar rollicking ease on keyboard instruments, Felice sidles up next to Doctor John and bears Randy Newman’s torch, frequently squeezing the blood of a catchy chorus from the stone of an unlikely song subject.

But this album is far more intimate than the music of his forebears - captured mostly at home and often late at night, these songs are spacious and confessional, a simple drum machine pattern just barely keeping them lashed to the Earth, longtime Felice Brothers producer Jeremy Backofen keeping it simple, direct, and effective. More often than not the record is James and his chords, with a hint of the occasional bass, drumset, or fiddle gilding the edges of the frame. These songs sound like the things you can only say after most everyone else has fallen asleep.