For a vast majority of up-and-coming bands, getting a recording session with the ever-growing live session site Daytrotter is a gateway to the rest of the world with their music.

Some come from the big cities and big ambitions while others come from small towns and often humble beginnings. Singer/songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff, a man who cares about writing honest, heartfelt songs, would fit into the latter category. 

Humble Beginnings

Growing up in Bay, Mo., population 60, Rateliff didn't have much to do. That is until he found music. He spent many days and nights of his childhood singing and learning instruments as a part of musically spirited family. With devout churchgoer parents, Rateliff learned ways of singing passionately and with a gospel-like tone, something that is fully exemplified on his latest album "In Memory of Loss."

"Everyone in my family played music so I kind of grew up doing it and there wasn't a whole lot else to do," says Rateliff.

When he was a teenager, while walking through a barn he discovered an abandoned "Led Zeppelin IV" cassette tape. It changed everything. He began to listen to whatever he could get his hands on -- something that he says continues to this day.

Things weren't always easy for Rateliff and his family during that time. At 11 he started to work to help out his family. His father's untimely death two years later forced Rateliff to take on some additional responsibilities. But through it all, music was there.

"In some ways (the experiences have) been able to make me look at things a bit differently," he says, adding that his example isn't a blueprint for aspiring songwriters, but for him it's influenced his honest, intimate and deeply human approach.

As he grew older he branched off and found some friends who had a similar interest in music. He moved to Denver to work for a trucking company when he was 18 a brief scare with narcolepsy forced him to reconsider his options. During his time recovering he grew even more interested in music, beginning to write songs and eventually getting together with his close friends to form Nathaniel Rateliff and The Wheel.

Slowly, newspapers and magazines caught on and the snowball effect began. He began touring around the country, opening for bands like The Fray and getting attention from Spin and Daytrotter, with whom he's done two sessions.

"I feel kind of lucky really that anybody's paid any attention to anything we've done so far," says Rateliff. "I'm very thankful."

Now, life on the road is a lot different from those early days.

"We would play in the park for people and stuff like that. It's a quite a big difference in comparison to traveling around the country and playing shows," says Rateliff. "Traveling around the country we've seemed to get a good response from people and I've had really good listening audiences and that's really what's important."

New Music with An Old Feel

With the release of "In Memory of Loss" this week there's plenty of reasons why his emotional, heartfelt folk has caught interest with music fans and the Daytrotter site. Writing the vast majority of the songs at his house a couple years ago -- some an attempt to woo a love interest -- Rateliff was armed with several 8-track recordings. When he showed the recordings to producer Brian Deck (Califone, Iron & Wine, Modest Mouse), Deck gave him the green light.

"They really liked it and wanted me to rerecord it so I added some new material to it. I pretty much left it alone and let the songs be what they were," says Rateliff. "When I first met Brian I talked about how I wanted to keep the intimacy of the recordings I had at home and try to retain that intimacy even though we were in a really nice studio and I think we did."

"In Memory of Loss," Rateliff's debut on Rounder Records, is highlighted by powerful lyrics and vocals surrounded by minimal instrumentation that demands your full attention. It's the journey of a man who's traveled some rugged roads to get where he is, full of joys and sorrows, surrounded at all times by acoustic and electric guitars. It's at times quiet, introspective and takes more patience.

But while the songs come from personal experiences, he leaves enough room for his listeners to apply the song to themselves.

"I think the nice thing about songs or literature or art is that the viewer or listener gets to correlate the songs to their own life," says Rateliff. "My own personal connections and hidden meanings in the songs are really personally for me, that's the way I look at it."

He says the album title is dedicated to his dad. "Celebrating life -- I think that would be the best way to describe it, celebrating his life."

It's a joy for Rateliff to see crowd members getting into the same atmosphere as he is on stage.

"Sometimes it can be really enjoyable and sometimes it can be really hard. But usually, for the most part, if the audience is in the same place as you are musically it's a blessing to have that kind of feeling."

Rateliff says that whether he's famous or not, he's going to keep going out and playing music.

"People know a little more about you and are coming out to see you, it's really nice," says Rateliff. "It's always kind of shock when you're touring for awhile and say you do really well in your hometown and go out of town and there's only the other band and the bartender and sound guy. So that is realistic, makes you humble and keeps you in the right space. Even if the shows are good or bad, I'm just playing because that's what I want to do."

Nathaniel Rateliff plays tonight as part of the Daytrotter Tour at Turner Hall Ballroom with Ra Ra Riot, Delta Spirit, Pearl Gate and Free Energy, as well as Tuesday, May 25 opening for The Tallest Man on Earth.