Austin, Texas — On his new album, Rock ‘n’ Roll Americana, Luke Daniel performs a song that sure sounds like a manifesto. “Get My Shit Together,” it’s called. The chorus goes, And I swear one day I’m gonna make my pay / Singing my tunes forever / If I could only get my shit together.

Well, it looks like one day might be arriving for the Austin red-dirt country rocker, who knows a little something about turning doubt into determination. Motivated by pandemic- and parenthood- induced life assessments, Daniel’s finally releasing the album he’s been dreaming of doing since he moved to Austin and began writing songs in 2005. He’s celebrating the album’s Sept. 23 release with a free 9 p.m. performance at Armadillo Den in Austin, followed by an Oct. 14 show at Poodie’s Hilltop Roadhouse in Spicewood, Texas, and a free show and listening party Oct. 15 at Austin’s Saxon Pub (more info below).

The album’s energetic mix of country spirit and rock ‘n’ roll attitude is already gaining attention at Americana radio and streaming outlets. The first single, “Long Road,” made the Alternate Root’s Top 10 playlist the first week in September, and is now streaming on iHeart Radio partner Gimme Country. SiriusXM host, blogger and publicist Eric Alper also added it to his influential 360:The Best Indie Music Spotify playlist.

Daniel’s ability to put an upbeat, even positive spin on life as a struggling working-class dude, as he also does in “Doing Pretty Good (For Poor White Trash)” gives Rock ‘n’ Roll Americana a hefty dose of its charm. He may sing of washing cash woes down with cheap beer, but he also sings of something else: Hope. Daniel makes it clear that any dream is worth pursuing if you want it badly enough, regardless of the challenges. We just have to keep the faith — “just hold on through,” as he sings on “Saturday.”

But Daniel knows success requires more than hope; you’ve also gotta step up — which he did when he joined Edgewater Music Group’s Artists on the Rise program, designed to help promising artists build professional careers. The Houston-based company helped him raise funds to record the album, tracked at Edgewater’s Sugar Land, Texas, studio, with producer Derek Hames.

As soon as Daniel got the first mixes, he sent them to a friend at Level 77 Music in Atlanta, which licenses and produces music for various uses. They commissioned him to corral “Texas sound” — that know-it-when-you-hear-it combination of grit and groove Lone Star staters call red-dirt country — into several tracks for country radio imaging music.

But Texas is hardly known for one sound, as Daniel proves by dipping his Alvies-booted toe almost into Louisiana swamp-pop territory on the grooviest track of the album, “Bad Gas Travels Fast,” written as advice to his son, Lyle. (Yes, it’s true, Lyle is named after a certain Texan who looms large among his father’s musical influences.)

Daniel stepped up again — who wouldn’t — when Edgewater asked him to become head of A&R for the music group. Now he gets to offer opportunities to others seeking to pursue their musical dreams. He’s the perfect guy to do it, too, because he’s living proof that if you don’t let doubters and naysayers talk you out of it, you might just turn “one day” into “right now.”