Tag: Americana

Suzanne Cox & Brandon Ratcliff Follow Their Inspiration

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

When mother and son Suzanne Cox and Brandon Ratcliff first began posting vertical videos to social media singing harmonies and cover songs together, they were just doing it for fun. Virality hadn’t entered their minds at all. In fact, Ratcliff had almost sworn off the internet, or using social media to advance his artist or songwriting endeavors anymore. Meanwhile Cox had been asking herself, “Am I retired? Does anyone want to hear me sing?”

From their very first videos, the answer was an obvious and resounding yes. The denizens of the internet were apparently starved for Cox’s voice – but of course they were, haven’t we all been? – and were ravenous in their discovery of Ratcliff’s own talents in musicianship and songwriting. Song after song, clip after clip racked up thousands of likes and views, dozens and dozens of new followers (including quite a few celebrities), and built an organic momentum neither artist had ever seen in their music-making careers so far.

Cox, in her late 50s, and Ratcliff, in his early 30s, have both enjoyed numerous successes and accomplishments in roots music. The Cox Family won GRAMMY Awards and IBMA Awards and appeared on the iconic O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and are routinely named as one of Alison Krauss’s major influences in bluegrass and harmony singing. They are legends. Ratcliff has had record deals, prominent co-writes, his own solo releases, and been on the Nashville singer-songwriter hustle for more than a decade. But the energy behind their mother-son partnership has been unlike anything either have experienced before.

It’s no surprise, though, viewing their many popular videos or listening to their debut EP, Mother/Son Volume 1, released back in April. There’s something special here that can’t just be attributed to blood harmonies or genetic predisposition or God-given talent or “right time, right place.” There are aspects of each of these inputs throughout their current sky-bound trajectory, but the end result is certainly greater than the simple sum of its parts. And it’s landed them on the Grand Ole Opry, while continuing to garner even more views/followers Looking toward the future with excitement, they still let their inspirations and their audience guide them.

BGS sat down with Cox and Ratcliff at a coffee shop in Bellevue, Tennessee, on an afternoon dotted with sprinkling rain to talk about letting go of expectations, where they’re at now, where they’re headed next, and how badly the roots music world had been missing the inimitable voice of Suzanne Cox.

@therealbrandonratcliff I am weary, let me rest #obrotherwhereartthou #gospelmusic #acousticcovers #family #harmony @Suzanne Cox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

I wanted to start by going back to the beginning. Making music has been a lifelong thing for y’all. Your exposure to the music of your family, it being a part of the household. It’s a little bit like “chicken or the egg.” Obviously, y’all singing and being together and making music together would be a part of your family since forever. But I imagine there was a transition point when it went from being like, “We’re mother and son and we sing together,” to being, “Oh, there’s something here that maybe we should pursue.”

Suzanne Cox: I’ll have to let you tell that, ’cause you tell it very well, what happened.

Brandon Ratcliff: Thank you. When we started this really, none of [the business side of things] was on our minds. I keep telling people, “This whole thing has been a happy accident.” This has been a rare thing for me, and I don’t know if this is the same thing for Mom and them [the Cox Family], ’cause it was a different time. But for me, everything I’ve done in Nashville – for the most part, in the business – has felt a little bit like my dad always says, “Pushing a rope up a hill.” [Laughs] It’s like I’m putting so much effort into making something happen. And this [duo] thing kinda felt, for the first time ever, like we were constantly playing catch-up to what was reacting just naturally. Which has been very fun and has made us move very fast.

SC: Oh, it’s like we cannot keep up.

BR: We put something out and all of a sudden it starts working incredibly well and the next thing you know we’re like, “We gotta go record this. What are we doing? We’re late already.” That has been very exciting, fun, refreshing. The other thing is, too, having this kinda direct-to-consumer thing, where you post a video online and it resonates with people – which by the way, just even that was a surprise to us. Mom and I have talked for years about doing a project together or something. But it was mostly just for us. It was just for fun.

SC: “Someday.”

BR: “Someday we’ll do this thing. One day…” [It started when] I was back home for the holidays and we were together anyway, and singing and hanging out like we always do. I was like, “Hey, if we’re gonna sing anyway, we should just post some of these online.” Like, why not? And again, totally not thinking about the outcome. Never once considering–

SC: He was kinda done with TikTok for a little while.

BR: I was holding on loosely with the internet in general at this point. I told Mom right before, “Look, I’m not giving up on the internet, but I’d kinda let the idea that the internet would be my path to success [go].” I was like, I’ll still post, but I’m gonna try not to think about if this is gonna make my career. This was the first time I was kinda letting go of that outcome situation, and then we posted – the first thing, it was a song I was singing on the way over to her house. And it was [sings Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”], “Trailers for sale…”

SC: We were probably in Louisiana.

BR: “King of the Road.” I was singing it while I was riding the roads back there. And it did pretty well [online]. Better than most videos I had posted at that point. I was like, “Oh, this is cool,” but nothing gangbusters. But then the next one we did was a song that Mom sang on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? movie, “I Am Weary (Let Me Rest).” Yeah. We just got out there, started singing it.

SC: In front of an old vintage truck.

BR: Sang it five times in front of this old drilling rig truck. I posted it, forgot about it. My daughter’s third birthday party was later that afternoon, so I had to rush back over, get set up. All of a sudden family starts showing up and I’m getting texts from my cousins and people at the house are going like, “Dude, your video’s going viral.” I got no service out there in Louisiana.
It’s like I’m off the internet. Once I post, I’m done. So I get back on there and, sure enough, I’ve never gotten flooded with so many [notifications]. I open my phone up and it’s about to crash. It’s 400,000 views, 500,000 views. And I’m like, “What the…? This is crazy!” So then I tell Mom shortly after that, I gotta go back to Nashville.

And this, to your point, is where it starts going, “Oh wow, this is something.” This is resonating. There was one week where Rosie O’Donnell and Joe Jonas followed me and started reposting my videos. And it just keeps coming, all these people – Emily Ann Roberts, Ashley McBryde. It just kinda kept growing. Then it was immediately obvious to us and then everybody we were working with – like my producers and songwriter friends – something’s happening. The whole thing’s been like this, just accident after accident–

SC: [Smiling] Which I don’t believe is an accident.

BR: No, it’s divinely orchestrated, for sure. Very divine. The hand of God is all over this stuff.

SC: Brandon’s been at this [a long time], I [have been] for 52 years. And not really doing as much [lately], really at a point in my life where I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing in this new season. And even in prayer: “God, I’ve had a great career.” And I just thought, “Is it a time where I’m just a wife, a mother, and a grandmother?” Which is the best job. I love it. No regrets on that. No regrets. I was at a point before this all happened of just trying to figure out what my new season is. “Does anybody want to hear me sing anymore?” Still love to sing, but just had a lot going on. I had a real hard time. My husband got really sick in 2021. … And it put a lot of age on us both.

BR: Honestly, I think for us both, this season really came [while] we were both in a season of surrender. This openness – “What could happen? What God may do…”

SC: We answered quickly.

BR: It made the soil fertile for this real, raw passion – a just-living-life kinda thing. And I think it came from that season of surrender.

SC: And I was totally fine with that. I felt a calmness in that.

I hear you both communicating not a sense of giving up, but of letting go. Of realizing, “Maybe this isn’t something I need to clutch so tightly anymore.” And there is a freedom in that letting go.

SC: Yep. I agree. And also for it to be such a connection with other people. And that it resonates with people. And I love – I wasn’t reading any of the comments or anything and finally they called me and said, “Mom, you need to read these. You need to see some of this.” It’s just been such a wonderful thing to read what people say. Even if it’s, “My mamaw’s favorite song.” Or, “I bet you she can cook some good meals.” “Can I be adopted?” I just love that.

I think what stood out to me immediately is there’s something here that feels totally distinct from the Cox Family. Fresh and bright and sparkly in so many ways. But also, I was there on TikTok, y’all were on my FYP when that first video blew up. And I, like so many people who grew up with your voice, Suzanne, realized in that moment how starved I was for it. And then to see the world, all of us who did grow up with your singing have that same reaction – and then so many people who didn’t, too, have that moment of, “Who the hell is this?!” That was special to watch happen, even from the outside. Would you have ever believed people were waiting around for you to “come back”?

SC: No, I would not. And like I was telling you, a lot has gone down the pipe since then. It was a lot of heartache that I’ve gone through. We lost our dad in 2019 – so a lot of different issues. So yeah, at some point I was just thinking, “Does anybody ever even want to hear me singing?” I did. I went there. “Do I wanna hear myself sing anymore?” It wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t like I’m bawling in the bathroom or anything.

But we all have those thoughts.

SC: But we do! And it can get to your confidence, because you think that’s something in the past. For me, it was a good run [back then], and it’s been quite a gift for me to hear [the response now].

@therealbrandonratcliff I feel like I’m in a creaky old pew right now #sunday #hymns #hymnfortheweekend #motherson #familyharmony @thesuzannecox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

There’s something encouraging in how you’re speaking about yourself, because, to me, to somebody on the outside – you’re one of Alison Krauss’s favorite vocalists of all time! Suzanne Cox has the same sort of existential doubt that anyone might have. “Does my voice matter? Does the music I make matter?” And if we could all remind ourselves that’s just being human, we all have that ebb and flow.

SC: That’s right.

I think for so many of the hundreds and thousands of us, we never would have imagined that you would have that sort of doubt.

SC: It’s a little different these days. A lot of people have said, “Is she in retirement now?” I don’t know! Am I? I didn’t say it, but just life happens. As women, too, we wear just as many hats as a man does–

Even more.

SC: You’re a mother, and you’re a grandmother, and you’re fixing problems. I wasn’t heartbroken. I had a life that was good and felt good, I felt a peace about it. But I am delighted to be able to have a new song in my heart.

BR: And for me it wasn’t a shock, of course, because like you’re saying–

SC: Yeah, he’s always been so encouraging– him and his brothers.

BR: I grew up hearing mom sing and always knew she had a world-class voice. I used to hear mom all the time growing up, and me and dad would talk about it. I’d talk about it with my brother. It was like, “If anybody could hear this…”

SC: This might be when you were clueless. [Laughs]

BR: If anybody could just hear Mom singing around the house! And this kind of points to what we’re talking about again, this free space. If you could hear her sing just around the house, when she’s just messing around, you’d be like, “This woman is insanely good at singing.” It’s amazing, and almost even better than anything you hear on a recording.

SC: I feel so uncomfortable with y’all saying that. [All laugh]

BR: But to your point, though, this is a universal thing. I think this is true of a lot of us. That “dance like no one’s watching” mindset. When you don’t care, and you loosen up–

First take magic.

BR: Yes!

SC: If you’re like my sister, there was a lot of them that she did was her scratch vocal. One take!

BR: I tell Mom this all the time, and you learn this over and over with the internet, because posting online, there are diminishing returns the more you polish it. … We do have a tendency as creative people, as performers, to be perfectionists. Nothing’s ever good enough. We’re our worst critics. We all have a little bit of deep insecurities or impostor syndrome.

One of the things I love most about roots music – whether bluegrass or country or Americana or folk – is it’s always asking us to let the imperfections be. That’s why this music is so good. Because you can’t ever get a banjo in tune. Because the music has pocket. Because when you’re singing harmonies with somebody, maybe sometimes you are singing a dissonant note, or you’re singing a flat seven instead of something that’s diatonic, because “that’s how it goes.” Even though it’s got a little ugliness in it. The internet wants everyone to be perfect, but roots music is never perfect.

SC: Yep. Never perfect. Like you said, that’s what makes it really special.

@therealbrandonratcliff Can’t wait for @unclebsdamnedoleopry with @heyuncleb and the gang! April 28th we are honoring #continuum with some insanely talented artists and musicians by singing through some classics from the goat @johnmayer #motherson #cover #harmony #johnmayer @thesuzannecox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

I love how you guys are making cross-generational music in so many ways. But one of the ways that evidences itself is that I think this is some of the more “outside” or progressive music I’ve ever heard you sing, Suzanne. You’re really playing with genre in a really interesting way. Whether you’re singing a John Mayer cover or it’s “Far Side Banks of Jordan,” I love seeing how these sort of modern, more pop sensibilities are coming into the music. Then you also how the Cox Family vocal stylings have always had a modern crispness, modern licks, runs, and turns of phrase. How are you thinking about genre and playing with that?

SC: I don’t know. I’ve told Brandon this, I’ve never been one of those [tradition hardliners]. I know you say our sound [was traditional], but Daddy, from the get-go, we were doing [all kinds of styles]. He was very open. We started out old traditional country. We used to do old hayrides before we went into the bluegrass scene. But he introduced us to Don Reno & Red Smiley, plus Merle [Haggard] and Loretta Lynn. I’m getting a lot of people saying [I sound like] Loretta Lynn. She was a hero of mine, so I see that. Of course, Dolly [Parton] and Patsy Cline. But [Daddy] was really open to [different styles], so I was already at a point where I love what I love.

If I can make it sound like me, that’s what I wanna sing. So [the Cox Family] opened up for the Counting Crows. And did Eagles songs and “Blue Bayou.” We listened to classical and anything that we liked – Kenny Loggins, Loggins and Messina. … I’ve done Marvin Gaye, on that last album… It was good that he encouraged us to be able to be open.

BR: I feel like for me – and again, I wouldn’t have probably said this five years ago. I would’ve probably taken some real credit for this and been like, “I think it’s ’cause of me!” I’m young, whatever. But I think that, now, as I get older and I kinda look at the context of my life and what they did and everything, and how she raised me growing up, I kinda think it’s a natural downstream effect. Outside of just how she raised me on music, I grew up in the late ’90s, early 2000s, so I grew up listening to everything. She raised me listening to everything, like Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder, Hall & Oates, all the stuff she grew up on. But then Backstreet Boys and the rock groups of the ’90s, Sugar Ray – it was just all over the place.

SC: And Don Reno & Red Smiley. [Laughs]

BR: There’s still a box set of Merle Haggard in my truck right now. I’ve listened to all these kinds of things. I grew up with a very diverse listening, and then I was in the iPod generation, so there was the shuffling music. …

I think when we sing something, even as off the beaten path as it is, I think you just innately are you, and I am innately me. It’s fate, we’re mother-son. We kinda have similar tendencies, to notes and a choice of a run here or not there. I think that’s kinda what gives it that common thread. You can take a hard rock song or you can take an old country song, and as long as it’s me and you singing it…

SC: Sometimes it’s a challenge, too. In a good way! …

BR: But whenever I blend with Mom, it’s like I’m learning how to take the thing that I do that’s really distinct and interesting about myself, but also shed some of the other solo stuff to match with her. Because it’s me and Mom, it kinda changes the alchemy of the song a little bit in a really cool way.

One practical impact of you both being at this point in your careers – Brandon, you have already done two or three or four laps around Nashville, trying to get into the scene in the same way most folks do. Suzanne, you had this vibrant career and were asking yourself, “What now?” So, for both of you to then be able to be like, “Actually, we know we don’t have to do it the ‘Music Business’ way. We know we can just do it the way that we’re gonna do it.”

SC: Exactly. I told Brandon, “I’m 59 this year. And at this age you start relaxing a little bit more.” I could relax a little bit more, my son would say. [Laughs] But I’m learning so much, and I don’t think you can [avoid that]. I don’t think people give up. And I feel like I can still learn a lot. I’m learning from my child, I’m learning from this industry. But we always want to be unique.

BR: That’s one of the cool dynamics about being mother-son. We found a niche, I believe, too. … I’ve seen both sides. In the 12 years I’ve been here, it was the old world one minute and then everything was new. I’ve kinda gotten acclimated to this. And I’m always telling Mom, “It’s really funny we share these stories.” ‘Cause there’s stuff to learn from both eras. I’m always telling Mom, “That thing that you see as messy or weird or, ‘Oh, that was embarrassing,’ I go, ‘That’s when I and everyone else see you shine. You’re funny, you’re smart, you’re incredibly talented.'”

That’s something about this new world, the internet world, that is so different from whenever they were coming up. Where everything was kind of media-trained and scrubbed and, “Let’s shave the edges off.” Whereas now I’m telling Mom, “No, that is the goal.” When you are just yourself and I happen to catch it, that’s the thing that people light up for.

In a world where more and more, when you go on the DSPs and you hit shuffle, you might be hearing AI music, having those moments of real humanity are so important. Maybe it’s imperfect, but it’s real and it’s raw. You see so many videos online that are like three singers in a kitchen harmonizing together “impromptu.” You go to the comments and everyone’s saying, “We can hear the auto-tune.” Audiences know what’s real and what’s fake.

SC: Which is fascinating that you say that, because a lot of people have said, “Oh, there’s no way this is just in your backyard.” [Both laugh]

BR: TikTok has a great reverb, if you only knew.

SC: I think it’s funny.

I want people to think I’m tuned when I’m not!

BR: Exactly. [Laughs] I think people are jaded. I think they’re paranoid – to your point about they’re getting fed so much phony stuff. They don’t know what’s real anymore. That’s one of the encouraging things about the world we live in, I think it is increasing the demand for real human authenticity. That is a positive side of this pendulum swinging. People are fed up with this “sounds too perfect” trend. It’s indiscernible from a robot.

Even to the point that there was a girl who commented on this video we did, I posted a backstage video of us at the Opry. She said, “There’s no way this wasn’t studio-recorded before.” I’m sitting here going, “I’ll take it as a compliment.” ‘Cause I felt like I was all over the place in that video! But thank you for thinking that.

I think people are telling on themselves with a lot of the hand-wringing over what to do about AI. Of course I agree, we should be very careful with how we’re proliferating this technology and protect creators’ rights, but also AI is never gonna be able to do what Suzanne Cox’s voice does, right? And I’ve not yet heard a convincing AI bluegrass banjo player. I don’t think it’s coming for our jobs! I hope that what we’re all doing is real and human enough that AI will never come for these jobs.

SC: When they’re all in the coloring book, inside the lines, we’ll color outside … and the rest of us. We’re gonna color outside the lines. …

BR: I’ll say, I think the one thing I’ve learned from this whole experience is there are no rules.

SC: Yeah, exactly.

BR: This whole idea that you gotta post this many times, you gotta do this, you gotta do that… Blah, blah, blah. People will tell you, whether you’re talking about the internet or anything else, they’ll tell you there’s a certain math to it. I’m like, “Man, I don’t know anything about what I’m doing.” My guesses have gotten better, but I’m still clueless. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that you have to follow the pace of your inspiration. As soon as you start doing it because you feel obligated, you’ve already lost.

Photo Credit: Chase Hentges

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Katie Cole, Bella Lam, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

From Australia to Alaska and back again, You Gotta Hear This! It’s our weekly roundup of brand new roots music.

To get us started, husband-and-wife duo Benson return with a new single, out today, “First and Forevers.” Written by bluegrass songwriter, radio host, and personality Terry Herd, it’s a song about parenthood and the special relationship between a dad and his daughter. Benson yet again rally an all-star band, with Heath Williams singing lead vocal on the track. Their labelmates, Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, have a brand new album out today. To celebrate Chalk Lines and Dust we’re sharing “Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine” below. Listen to hear Jones and longtime friend Jim Lauderdale offer their rendition of the song popularized in bluegrass by the Stanley Brothers. Night Driver Grace van’t Hof also joins in on the simple trio number.

We’ve got our old friend Katie Cole back on the site today, too, with a brand new music video for “Saturn,” the singer-songwriter’s most recent single. Now living in Nashville but born and raised in Australia, we’ve featured and collaborated with Cole several times in the past – including this charming Yamaha Session from 2021. The new single is tantalizingly rootsy with folk and Americana instrumentation and lush strings. It’s celestial and dreamy.

If you’re in the mood for Good Country, watch Bella Lam’s new music video for “Bootfirst,” a perfectly poppy country track that’s suited up to make a summer splash. Lam released the single last month and the video followed earlier this week. Quippy and cute, the song’s on-the-nose hook doesn’t diminish the track’s message of agency and trusting in oneself – on the contrary, it drives the genuine message home. Put it on the poolside playlist. Also check out a brand new single from Kentucky alt-bluegrass sensations the Creekers – who earlier this week were announced as IBMA Momentum Award nominees for Band of the Year. “Follow The Sound” is an instant classic, a driving almost-MASH track about the tempting sounds of banjo, bluegrass, and festivals. It reminds of early-era SteelDrivers, but with plenty of their own signature Creekers personality. The band oozes gritty string band charm, and have quickly amassed quite the audience behind that charm and personality – and their powerful vocals, archetypical songs, and jubilant live shows, too.

For a live performance video, enjoy “Break & Mend” from Alaskan duo the Heists. Equally inspired by the land of their harsh and beautiful homeplace and by veterans who’ve found peace in such wild places, the song is bluegrassy and folky. With its intentional message and timeless vibe, it reminds of duos like Dave and Gil in this simple live performance context. The studio version, out earlier this week, includes a full band and was produced by Patrick M’Gonigle (who plays fiddle on the track.)

We hope you enjoy this week’s collection of new music and premieres! You Gotta Hear This…

Benson, “Firsts and Forevers”

Artist: Benson
Hometown: Boiling Springs, South Carolina
Song: “Firsts and Forevers”
Release Date: July 24, 2026
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “Every parental relationship is special, but I don’t think there’s anything sweeter than a daddy and daughter. The warmth and security that a father provides is unique. I was blessed with a dad who I knew was always on my side, no matter what. When I heard this song – especially knowing that Terry wrote it with his daughter in mind – I knew we had to record it. Heath Williams, as always, sang it to the moon and back.” – Kristin Scott Benson

“This one’s pretty special to me. I woke up one morning thinking about my daughter and a little slideshow started playing in my head – from the first time I held her to where she is today. It wasn’t long before this song was written. While it began as a tribute to her, it’s really for everyone who’s ever had the privilege of being called a parent. I’m especially grateful to Kristin and Wayne for bringing it to life with such a beautiful recording.” – Terry Herd, songwriter

Track Credits:
Heath Williams – Lead vocal
Wayne Benson – Mandolin
Kristin Scott Benson – Banjo
Cody Kilby – Acoustic
Kevin McKinnon – Bass
Zack Arnold – Harmony vocals

The Creekers, “Follow The Sound”

Artist: The Creekers
Hometown: Leslie County, Kentucky
Song: “Follow The Sound”
Release Date: July 24, 2026 (single)
Label: Warner Records Nashville

In Their Words: “‘Follow The Sound’ is a song written about a place back home we frequent called Ponderosa Pines. There is always some good pickin’ up there and we have been in our fair share of participating in the jam circle for hours on end. There is always a jar being passed around as well as some good smoke. You can always hear that banjo with your windows down driving in to the location. So we always say, ‘Follow the sound!'” – The Creekers

Katie Cole, “Saturn”

Artist: Katie Cole
Hometown: Born in Melbourne, Australia, but now living in Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Saturn”
Album: Forest
Release Date: July 16, 2026 (single); July 23, 2026 (video); September 24, 2026 (album)

In Their Words: “‘Saturn’ is a song about the push and pull of relationships, and the strings really lean into the moodiness of the piece. I think it is really different kind of song from my upcoming album, Forest, as it takes you on a real journey. I had always dreamed of making a record that was infused with folk instruments like acoustic guitar and piano, but also adding timeless big string arrangements akin to artists like Dusty Springfield or Nat King Cole. This project was really born from that idea. When I had written the album I had some pretty heavy discussions with my producer Howard Willing about what direction to take with production. We both agreed that the songs I had written merited taking a big swing. From there, we worked closely with Tim Lauer who worked on the orchestra arrangements for the record and he did an amazing job. I hope you will love this song like I do.” – Katie Cole

Video Credits: Directed by Chelsea Thompson.
Hair and make up by Dire Image.
Edited by Katie Cole.

The Heists, “Break & Mend”

Artist: The Heists
Hometown: Juneau, Alaska
Song: “Break & Mend”
Album: Break & Mend (EP)
Release Date: July 21, 2026 (single/video); September 24, 2026 (EP)
Label: Muskeg Collective

In Their Words: “The longer you live in Alaska, and especially if you grew up here, you inevitably lose people to the land. A plane disappears. Someone has a terrible ski accident. Or the mental and emotional toll of the long, dark, cold, wet winters becomes too much. At the same time, the land is overwhelmingly beautiful, in a way that is almost too vast for our tiny brains to compute. I’ve always found something strangely comforting in this sense of a land that can both save you and break you without judgment. Over the last few years, we’ve spent time with several men in our lives who were deeply marked by war and have also found peace in wild spaces. ‘Break & Mend’ is the first song that Andrew and I have written together and recorded.” – Erin Heist

Track Credits:
Erin Heist – Vocals
Andrew Heist – Guitar, vocals

Video Credits: Filmed and recorded by Patrick Troll.

Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, “Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine”

Artist: Chris Jones & the Night Drivers
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine”
Album: Chalk Lines and Dust
Release Date: July 24, 2026 (album)
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “‘Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine’ is a song I’ve been doing off and on for many years, sometimes just thrown in as a solo number in a set. I had never recorded it, though. I’ve also been friends with Jim Lauderdale for many years – we first met in Chicago in the mid-1980s – but until this album, we had never recorded together. For those reasons it was really fulfilling to bring those musical gaps in my life together. I first learned the song from the Stanley Brothers recording of it, but then went back and listened to Hank Williams’ solo version. This recording is a blend of the two, including Hank’s first verse, which the Stanley Brothers left out. Jim Lauderdale’s affinity for the Stanleys’ music and his friendship with Ralph Stanley made him the perfect duet partner for this song. I threw in an arrangement twist and made it a trio for the final verse, adding Grace van’t Hof’s voice. We decided to leave it instrumentally stripped down, with just me on guitar and Grace on ‘Myrtle’ (Grace’s baritone ukulele/tenor guitar hybrid).” – Chris Jones

Track Credits:
Chris Jones – Acoustic guitar, lead vocal
Jim Lauderdale – Harmony vocal
Grace van’t Hof – Harmony vocal, baritone ukulele/tenor guitar

Bella Lam, “Bootfirst”

Artist: Bella Lam
Hometown: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Song: “Bootfirst”
Release Date: June 26, 2026 (single); July 23, 2026 (video)

In Their Words: “When I wrote ‘Bootfirst,’ I wanted it to be a reminder that life doesn’t always wait for you to feel ready. So many of the best opportunities come when you decide to leap before you have everything figured out. For me, ‘bootfirst’ is a mindset, choosing courage over fear and embracing the unknown with confidence. I hope the song encourages people to stop second-guessing themselves and trust that they’re capable of more than they realize. Bringing that message to life through the music video made it even more meaningful because we were able to tell that story visually. Whether it’s chasing a dream, starting over, or simply saying yes to something new, I hope this song gives people the confidence to jump in ‘bootfirst.’ More than anything, I hope listeners carry that sense of confidence and possibility with them long after the song ends.” – Bella Lam

Photo Credit: Katie Cole by Dire Image; Bella Lam by Joey Schrader.

The Working Songwriter: Chicago Farmer

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Our guest this week on the Working Songwriter is Cody Diekhoff, better known as Chicago Farmer. He grew up in the small farming community of Delavan, Illinois, before moving to Chicago in 2003. Over the past two decades he has built a devoted following through relentless touring, first as a solo performer and more recently with this band, the Fieldnotes.

Along the way, he has shared stages with Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snider, Greg Brown, the Wood Brothers, Elizabeth Cook, Wayne Hancock, Greensky Bluegrass, Del McCoury, and Gene Ween.

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His album, Flyover Country, was recorded with members of the Band of Heathens and 2026’s Homeaid (released in March of this year) is his first full-length release in six years. Elmore Magazine says he has “the novelist’s gift of building a suspenseful story to a surprising conclusion.” While No Depression declared, “If the Midwest is looking for a voice, the search is over.” The Chicago Tribune praised him for “some of the better roots songwriting in Chicago today.”

Cody is a very, very old friend of mine. We were both coming up in the Chicago folk music scene 20 years ago. He’s one of my favorite modern artists, and he should have been on this podcast many years ago. I got the chance to catch up with him on the phone a few weeks ago to hear about his journey so far.

Photo courtesy of Chicago Farmer.

Finding Lucinda: Episode 14 (An Epilogue)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In this final chapter of the Finding Lucinda journey, Ismay gets a surprising message from Lucinda‘s former bass player, Richard “Hombre” Price. Ismay travels to Sarasota, Florida to talk about his memories of playing on Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. They watch rare home movies from the ’90s of Lucinda and the band. Through this intimate conversation, Ismay gains insights about what it means to face your fate as an artist and as a person.

This episode also features a teaser of what is coming next for this project.

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Credits:
Produced and mixed by Avery Hellman for Neanderthal Records, LLC.
Music by Ismay.
Artwork by Avery Hellman.

Find more information on Finding Lucinda here. Find our full Finding Lucinda episode archive here.

Watch Finding Lucinda, listen to the soundtrack, or find a screening near you here.

Photo of Richard “Hombre” Price and Tex Tiles courtesy of Ismay.

Basic Folk: MayaFest (Maya de Vitry)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Lancaster, Pennsylvania-born, Nashville-based songwriter Maya de Vitry has been on Basic Folk a half dozen times (she’s only second to our fave man-bestie Mark Erelli) because we are so obsessed with her songwriting perspective, from her time in the Stray Birds to her solo work. Every time she’s on the show, we try and do something special. She’s been on with her siblings (Nina & Lyle), her partner (Ethan Jodziewicz), and her musical besties (Shelby Means & Joel Timmons).

When we heard about her fifth studio album, All My Faith, we knew we had to raise the Basic Folk bar on one of the best working songwriters today. When I (Cindy) first heard Maya play these songs live, I thought they were next level. Even though I’m not a musician or songwriter of any kind, I really wanted to know why they were so incredible. I thought it would be a cool exercise to get other songwriter friends of Maya’s together to dig deep and explain what’s happening with Maya’s writing. What is it about the lyrics, the phrasing, the melodies that is really outstanding?

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Maya was down with this idea and invited Ana Egge, Caitlin Canty, John Craigie, Kristin Andreassen, and Oliver Wood on this episode of Basic Folk, so we could hear from some of her favorite writers about these new songs. We had everyone here listen to the record a few times before recording the podcast; Maya shared the lyrics, album credits, and a track-by-track write up for the songs. She chose three songs for each person to specifically dig into, but of course everyone is free to share comments on any songs. We knew it was going to be a great experience, but it turned out even better than we had hoped. The insight these writers share intensify Maya’s new songs and give an even greater understanding of why they make such an impact.

Photo Credit: Ana Egge by Lorenzo Wolff; Oliver Wood by Alysse Gafkjen; Maya de Vitry by Ethan Jodziewicz; John Craigie courtesy of the artist; Caitlin Canty by Noah Altshuler; Kristin Andreassen courtesy of the artist. 

A Jamgrass Chronology

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Dichotomy. The essence of jamgrass is the intersection of traditional and progressive ideals, techniques, and tones when it comes to the musical hot potato that is bluegrass – past, present, and future.

Throughout the generations, and within the structured lines of bluegrass, there’s a constant segment of the genre that remains eternally curious about what lies just beyond the horizon. It’s this sonic landscape of unlimited possibilities and creative fulfillment, one where the whirlwind attitudes of psychedelic rock, freeform jazz, classical music, and country gold were injected into the “high, lonesome sound,” ultimately conjuring this new melodic avenue to duck down.

The First Generation

When looking at the origins of jamgrass, the “Big Bang of Progressive Bluegrass” arguably occurred with the formation of New Grass Revival in 1971 in Louisville, Kentucky. Led by fiddler/mandolinist Sam Bush and banjoist Courtney Johnson, the outfit emerged from the ashes of another group, Bluegrass Alliance. This revolutionary quartet combined traditional bluegrass with contemporary influences from the popular rock, country and jazz of the period, the result being their self-titled debut album in 1972. In later years, bassist John Cowan and banjoist Béla Fleck would be added to the lineup.

By the early 1970s, the Earl Scruggs Revue was already well-established on the national touring circuit. With the Western North Carolina banjo great himself at the helm, Scruggs and his two sons, guitarist Randy and bassist Gary, embraced the counterculture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Scruggs not only was outspoken in his support of the anti-Vietnam movement, he also happily and genuinely welcomed those from other musical circles, including playing gigs alongside rock acts The Byrds and Steppenwolf.

Although not necessarily considered jamgrass, the Revue – with Scruggs being a vital pillar of the first generation of bluegrass as a member of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys – opened doors into an often-heavily guarded realm of traditional bluegrass. One where the fear of outsiders taking over the scene without “proper knowledge or respect” to the unspoken rules and traditions of the genre could be seen as misguided intent versus building a bigger space for more folks to tap into the history of the music and evolve their own craft, the end result being the survival and perpetuation of bluegrass.

In April 1972, the Revue’s album I Saw the Light with Some Help from My Friends featured guest appearances by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Arlo Guthrie, and Linda Ronstadt. The sessions would inspire Nitty Gritty to eventually pursue its own collaborative project, which became the seminal album Will the Circle be Unbroken – the record now regarded as a pillar of the bluegrass and country music scenes in the decades since its release in November 1972.

That winter of 1972/1973 conjured the happenstance formation of acoustic supergroup Old & In The Way. Guitarist Peter Rowan and mandolinist David Grisman, longtime friends and collaborators, found themselves at the home of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia in Stinson Beach, California. As expected, impromptu pickin’-n-grinnin’ sessions ensued.

“We started picking every night after supper [at Jerry’s],” Rowan told BGS in a 2022 interview. “We went through old song books and learned a bunch of material.”

By the early 1970s, the Dead had become one of the premier rock bands in America. Even though he was now a bonafide rock star with a massive legion of diehard fans, Garcia yearned for a simpler time in his life, which was his existence before the band itself, when he was a young, hungry bluegrass musician in the San Francisco folk scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Soon after, the trio tapped bassist John Kahn and a revolving cast of fiddlers (Richard Greene, John Hartford, Vassar Clements) and booked a handful of gigs around the Bay Area in 1973. There were no expectations set or boundaries drawn. The gatherings were more about honoring musicianship and friendship, where all present could play joyously in the sandbox together.

Old & In The Way only lasted a little more than a year, disappearing in the spring of 1974 without any fanfare or real notice of its demise. The group was kind of like a comet flying by in the night sky — bright and stunning, and yet all too fleeting, but you counted your lucky stars you were able to see and appreciate it in real time, onstage and in the audience.

And that special time and place that was Old & In The Way would be forever captured in recordings of the live shows. In 1975, the self-titled debut album was released and became the biggest selling bluegrass album of all-time until it was overtaken by the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack in 2000.

“In bluegrass, you just do the beautiful grace of presenting the music, being good neighbors and all that stuff,” Rowan says. “But you could hear us in the band going, ‘go, man, go.’ Go for it, that’s where we came from. That’s what Old and In the Way was – the ‘go for it’ signal to everybody.”

The final piece to the puzzle that is the first generation of jamgrass was filled when Hot Rize emerged in the late 1970s in Boulder, Colorado. Coming together while all being employed at the Denver Folklore Center, fiddler/mandolinist Tim O’Brien, banjoist Pete Wernick, guitarist Charles Sawtelle and bassist Nick Forster would become the pioneers of the Colorado jamgrass scene – ultimately launching countless bands in The Centennial State with their unique blend of traditional tones and innovative styles.

The Second Generation

Just like O’Brien, Leftover Salmon guitarist Vince Herman was also a West Virginia native who headed west to the Rocky Mountains in search of his musical destiny. In 1985, Herman dropped out of West Virginia University and decided to “go to Colorado and find like-minded players.” This single decision by Herman ushered in the second generation of jamgrass.

“And I knew there was a progressive bluegrass scene based around the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Hot Rize was in Boulder, which was a major influence on me,” Herman told BGS in a 2025 interview. “So, I figured Boulder would have a good progressive bluegrass scene. And it sure did, proven by pulling up and seeing a ‘Live Bluegrass Music Tonight’ sign [at a bar].”

That night in Boulder in 1985, Herman wandered in and crossed paths with multi-instrumentalist Drew Emmitt. The two were kindred spirits and immediately hit it off, with Herman eventually joining Emmitt’s Left Hand String Band. A year later, Herman launched his own band, The Salmon Heads. But, it would be New Year’s Eve 1989 when Leftover Salmon came to fruition, the ensemble being a combination of the duo’s respective band members.

“We stuck with Leftover Salmon for the first night, never knowing it would be any more than one night of a gig [in Crested Butte],” Herman says of the NYE show. “The older the tune, the more the bluegrass stomp kind of thing would go on, people would slam dance. We were like, ‘Something’s good about this.’”

By 1993, another Colorado band came rolling down the ski slopes of Crested Butte and Telluride. Formed as a casual gathering of acoustic musicians and a percussionist looking to get together during après-ski and play some tunes for free lift tickets and cold beer, the String Cheese Incident took bluegrass and pushed it more into the jamband world than any other group who came before them. Nowadays, the sextet is a glorious kitchen sink of sound and scope – bluegrass to blues, rock to reggae, jazz to jam-tronica – especially through their highly popular annual festivals, Electric Forest and Hulaween.

Heading towards the end of the century, Yonder Mountain String Band appeared on the scene in Nederland, Colorado, in 1998. The quartet originally featured a mesmerizing frontman in the late Jeff Austin, an ambitious and endlessly curious mandolin player. The core of the band was based more in traditional bluegrass, but with a heavy focus on improvisation and just seeing where the night took them. The culmination of which led to Yonder finding itself in this unique position, one that allowed the group to be booked at both lawnchair bluegrass festivals and wild-n-out jamband gatherings across America.

The Third Generation

The new millennium signaled the third generation of jamgrass. On Oct. 31, 2000, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a casual Halloween gig consisting of college buddies (who played the local bluegrass open mic night at the Blue Dolphin) would parlay itself into the creation of Greensky Bluegrass – an ensemble equally obsessed with Tony Rice and David Grisman as they were the Grateful Dead and Phish.

A few years ago, when I was interviewing frontman Paul Hoffman about the initial intent of Greensky, he replied, “To play heavy metal music on acoustic instruments.” And in the quarter-century since its inception, Greensky has become a marquee act. They blurred the lines between bluegrass and jambands, ultimately setting the stage for every band who came thereafter with ambitions to rock big venues, all in the name of jamgrass exploration.

“I think that we just have a spirit to not be limited,” Hoffman told BGS in a 2025 interview. “So, if we want to emulate all the things we love – and we’d love a diverse amount of things, musical things – we honor the acoustic nature of our heritage as a band, but we want so much more. We want [things] to keep us interested and engaged. We’ve allowed ourselves that creative freedom to try anything.”

On the other side of the Great Lakes, in Duluth, Minnesota, Trampled by Turtles formed by happenstance in 2003 on a tiny stage at Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake. A hearty blend of bluegrass, indie-folk and alt-country influences, Trampled’s sound has been described as “Midwestern Gothic” – a musical signature ultimately straddling the barriers between genres of distinct sounds and approaches.

The third generation is rounded out by the Infamous Stringdusters, coming together in 2006 in Nashville. Consisting of longtime road musicians and recent graduates of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, the group is a meticulous balance of tradgrass and jamgrass. With their core soaked in the principles of traditional bluegrass, the Dusters have never wavered from chasing their artistic muse towards the unknown horizon of Americana and rock influences that run deep in their sound.

“That’s what’s so beautiful about bluegrass music, in particular,” fiddler Jeremy Garrett told BGS in a 2026 interview. “You pass it on to the next generation and they take it and they do their thing with it. Luckily for us, we were around at a time that [that] was very important, and a transitional time in the industry.”

The Fourth & Fifth Generations

That transitional time in jamgrass of the early 2000s and 2010s sparked what is currently being considered the highwater mark of the genre – and also regarded as the fourth generation of jamgrass – as seen by guitar phenom Billy Strings bursting into the arena level, with Molly Tuttle and Sierra Hull right in the mix when it comes to bluegrass spilling into the mainstream.

Also emerging from the same Michigan scene as Greensky Bluegrass, Strings’ rocketship ride from hardscrabble beginnings to selling out any size of venue from coast to coast is the stuff of legend. Only in the summer years of his career, Strings’ playful flexibility around “bluegrass rules” is mirrored by his genuine respect for those who came before him. His knowledge of the genre is as profound as the unknown depths of his skillset and ambition, something witnessed each night he performs for an endless sea of faces.

For Hull and Tuttle, they became the first female musicians to be given the IBMA award for Mandolin Player of the Year (Hull) and Guitar Player of the Year (Tuttle). To note, Hull has now been given the honor seven times in the last 10 years. Both artists are becoming well-known for genre-bending collaborations with a fearlessness in entering new artistic realms – Hull jamming alongside Slash and Cory Wong, with Tuttle shifting into the indie-folk and alt-country scenes as of late.

Where we stand at this exact juncture is considered the fifth generation of jamgrass – a level represented by young, hungry and immensely-talented bands eager to learn, eager to rise to the occasion on the live stage – with the likes of Mountain Grass Unit, Clay Street Unit, Shadowgrass, and Magoo putting down quickly-growing roots in the scene due to impressive appearances in front of massive crowds on the festival circuit in recent years.

“We’re a live band. It’s where we really shine through, and you can just feel the energy up there. We always try to say, ‘There are only so many Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights,’ and we want to elevate that and bring the energy and the emotion and let [the audience] loose,” Clay Street Unit guitarist Sam Walker told BGS in a 2026 interview. “We want to make sure at every show we’re bringing that to the table, our full attention to the energy and making sure that everyone’s having as good a time as they can.”

In the last 55 years or so of the jamgrass movement, the sheer beauty of the genre is the mere fact that many of the architects and torchbearers are still walking this earth, still touring and proudly collaborating with the younger generations, and always offering a real sense of encouragement to happily take risks and not be afraid of what could be, onstage and in the studio – for true gratitude resides in the ancient desire to find one’s truth and purpose.

Continue exploring our Jamgrass in July coverage here. This content brought to you in partnership with Preston Thompson Guitars.

Photo Credit: Leftover Salmon by Tobin Voggesser.

Jobi Riccio Believes Sensitivity is a Superpower

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

When it’s time to recharge her creativity or reconnect with herself, Jobi Riccio goes back to nature. The mountains and hiking trails of her native Colorado were integral to her childhood and adolescence. Today, the trees, plant life, and paths of Nashville help bring her back to center.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that all things natural life and climate factor into her songwriting. Personally and professionally, Riccio has become a spokesperson for our global environment and its future. “Wildfire Season,” from her latest release, Face The Feeling, addresses these issues. Written in the aftermath of the 2020 Colorado wildfires, the song stands out in its unfiltered message, while at the same time slotting in as a perfect fit within the album’s context.

Face The Feeling was produced and engineered by Riccio’s longtime friends and colleagues Jesse Timm and Isaiah Beard. The album leans on her folk and bluegrass roots while injecting them with her passion for indie and punk rock. Riccio takes on mental health, grief, self-doubt, past and present hurt, and the long road to recovery and autonomy. It’s a lot of what is now commonly known as “big feelings,” and entirely the only walk that she knows and wants to take. All of this is served up with a healthy dose of fierce guitars.

Riccio last spoke with BGS in 2023, following the release of Whiplash. Phoning in this time to talk about Face The Feeling, she was days away from a June 9 performance at Wolf Trap as part of Songwriters Celebrate John Prine joining Emmylou Harris, Margo Price, Patty Griffin, I’m With Her, Lucius, Allison Russell, Hayes Carll, Fancy Hagood, and Tommy Prine.

Riccio’s connection to Prine dates back to her early musical influences, reaching a high point in 2023 when she was awarded the Newport Festivals Foundation’s John Prine Fellowship. The Wolf Trap concert was in some ways bringing her full circle, sharing a stage with colleagues, each playing one original and one song of Prine’s.

“I’ve done some stuff in the past with the Prine family,” she remarks. “They have welcomed me into their circle and they’ve been really sweet. It’s been a real blessing of life in Nashville, that whole experience. I’m honored and excited to get to do that show.”

Let’s start a little differently. Tell us about your day so far.

Jobi Riccio: Okay. I woke up and had breakfast on my front porch. I just moved neighborhoods in Nashville – I moved to Madison, Tennessee, and I have a nice front porch now, so I’ve been enjoying coming out and having coffee in the morning. And then I went to therapy, I came back and had a meeting with my manager, we did some co-working stuff together over Zoom, I had lunch, and now I’m doing this.

This album was written between Colorado and Nashville. How did both environments and both communities help shape the new music?

In terms of the lyrics, I feel like I have a lot of references to nature in Colorado and western nature, mostly because I’ve been speaking that language and speaking those names longer. I’m just learning the names of the trees, bushes, daylilies, and all the stuff out here now. I’ve lived in Tennessee… it’ll be five years in September, so I’m just learning everything that’s here.

Any time I’m feeling reflective, I call upon my past, thinking about my family or where I’m from. It’s a big part of my identity. But I definitely identify as an artist both from Nashville and Colorado. Nashville played a really big role in the writing of this record. I started playing a lot more electric guitar when I moved here. I started spending more and more time in my room playing. I was listening to a lot of country electric guitar, but for some reason it became this more indie-rock singer-songwriter kind of thing.

I think I wrote about Nashville and the community more. You hear that on “Love of the Song,” just kind of struggling to find my footing here, because it does take a while to figure that out. I was really lucky to know a lot of people before I moved here. I say this in the song – I was set up in all the right places, with all the right people, and I still felt a sense of “Damn, do I belong here?” The impostor syndrome of doing music for a job is really hard and I think women and femme people in general really struggle with impostor syndrome and living in our heads and second-guessing ourselves a lot more than men do. I address that in the song “Doesn’t Matter,” which closes the album.

So I think it’s a record where I come into living in Nashville and am also like, “I am worthy of doing this job and this job is such a big part of what makes this town this town.” Despite all the new development and changes that everyone’s always talking about, Nashville is and will always be Music City, and the community is what makes it great.

Where were you, mentally and emotionally, when this creative process began, and where are you now?

I was in a hard place when I started – and in the middle of it. I think it’s a brave thing that you really have to do in life, whether or not you want to, which is to own up to your shit. It’s a very crass way of saying it, but basically I was trying to outrun some shadows, trying to outrun some trauma, trying to outrun things that needed to be dealt with that were coming out in my life.

I was still pretty young when I started writing this record and [when I moved] to Nashville. I moved here almost five years ago and I started writing this record about three years ago. It’s been such an up-and-down experience. I feel like it’s mirrored the experience I’ve had with getting my sea legs as a touring musician, too. They’ve been very much in tandem.

Despite what you see online, it’s not this constant upward, “Everything’s great and it’s always getting better all the time, the gigs are always getting better.” Some nights you’re playing for 3,000 people, opening for Lucinda Williams – which I got to do – and the next night you’re in Utah playing for 50 people headlining. It’s a total rollercoaster. It’s about learning how to find the tools to ground yourself. I really needed to learn how to do that intrapersonally first, for myself, and I’m glad that I did at the beginning of writing this record. But it definitely chronicles a long journey of growth. I feel like it’s a weird time to do this job. And also growth is… you’re never done. It’s not linear. So I’m always doing my best every day, and that’s all I can ever expect of myself. And every day is different.

Were the songs finished when you began recording?

Most of them were, but not all of them, which is a new experience for me. I’m used to having all of them done and buttoned up and being like, “Okay, here we are. Let’s go record them.” But when we first started talking about what this album could be, I had the song “Doesn’t Matter,” just the idea of it, the guitar part, and the beginning of it, and I was like, “I don’t really know if this is any good.”

I played it for my co-producers, Jesse [Timm] and Isaiah [Beard], and they were like, “This is really cool. You should finish the song.” They basically watched as I finished it. I was writing stuff down actively in the studio, which I’ve never had that experience. I wrote more songs, too, that didn’t make the record. Whether or not those will go on another project or ever see the light of day, I don’t know. But I was open to seeing what would come.

Tell us about your working relationship with Jesse and Isaiah. How did it begin and how has it grown over the course of your albums?

I met Jesse at Berklee. We met on the first day of college. We were in the same dorm. They’re from Northern California, I’m from Colorado, they’re from a weird hippie town, I’m from a weird hippie town – we immediately understood each other. I feel so incredibly lucky to have met them, because not many people get to have someone who is so encouraging of their music alongside them at any stage.

Not everything I wrote in college was very good, but they were always very invested in it and also [in] finding their voice as an arranger and composer and writing string parts. I would come up with a song and they’d be like, “Oh, I came up with a string part for it. Do you like it?” That’s such a spoiled experience to have, because it would be a gorgeous thing. We’ve played together and been collaborators and friends for ten years now.

I met Isaiah through Jesse. Isaiah also went to school with us, but I didn’t know him. He was a few years older and worked the same student job with Isaiah in project bands. It’s where kids have their stuff recorded for different school projects. They both did admin work for these project band things, so they became friends. I had a friend from the songwriting program at school who had a record produced by Isaiah in Nashville. He moved here a couple of years before me, and he said it was an amazing experience. I listened to it and I thought it was just the coolest thing ever. I heard so much creativity in the production and the mix. Also, Isaiah has his own solo project and he’s one of the most creative people I’ve ever met. I reached out to him and that’s how we ended up working on Whiplash. It felt like a very organic trio and through that we became really good friends.

I moved to Nashville, he lives close by, and I feel like I’m very spoiled for having people who love and understand both me and my music. I feel truly blessed. I don’t know how else to say it. I hear how all three of us have grown as musicians on this project versus the last project. I’ve grown a lot as a writer, the mixing and production work Isaiah did is outstanding, and Jesse wrote all the string parts. I can hear all of our growth and development as individual creative people. My name is on the record, but it does really feel like a collaboration.

You play acoustic, electric, and baritone electric on this album. Tell us about your guitars – which ones you play on the album, which ones are going on the road, any backstories you’d like to share.

I only have three guitars in my personal possession, but Isaiah had a lot of guitars lent to him by our friend Jake Byrne, who works at Carter Vintage Guitars. So nice of Jake! We had a vintage Mustang that Isaiah played on “Buzzkill.” He played some very Green Day-esque type things on that song. It was just the most fun little guitar.

Isaiah owns the baritone guitar that I played. He won it in a guitar raffle at a benefit concert that I played when the Asheville, [NC] flood happened. We had a big fundraiser here in Nashville. We collaborated with some folks in Asheville to raise money and a guy out of Asheville who ran a guitar store put together this raffle. I was one of the artists on the bill, Isaiah and his partner came and entered the raffle, and he won this baritone electric with a metal neck. It’s the craziest guitar ever.

I have a Martin D-35 from 1993 that’s my baby acoustic guitar that you’ll see me playing all the time. I bought it at the Pickin’ Parlor, an acoustic guitar store in Arvada, Colorado. I was with my friend Al out around Denver looking for a guitar. I wanted a dreadnought because I was really interested in playing bluegrass. I was in college, 21 at the time, and interested in digging into flatpicking. I was like, “I need a dreadnought. There’s no other way.”

I played a lot of different guitars, and other Martins, and I fell in love with this one. It reminded me a lot of a friend’s guitar that I had played throughout the years at this bluegrass festival, RockyGrass, I grew up going to. I was like, “Oh, this feels like the twin guitar to my friend’s guitar.” That’s why I ended up buying that guitar. I’ve written so many songs on it, and it’s interesting, now that I don’t play bluegrass consistently, it’s got this whole other life and character to it as a guitar for songs. Sometimes I start writing on electric, but oftentimes I still write on that guitar, too, and transition over to electric.

I have a Fender Telecaster that Jake at Carter Vintage helped me [rig] so that it takes the flatwound strings that I like. It’s a certain sound I really enjoy that I heard Margaret Glaspy champion back in the day, and I wanted to figure out how to do that. We’ve done a lot of little mods to it over the years. I love that guitar, too. I bought it in 2021 off of a guy on Facebook in Denver. It’s not worth a ton of money, but it has a lot of sentimental value to me.

I have a Gibson Songwriter that I got through winning the John Prine Fellowship. Gibson Guitars gave me a 2024 Songwriter. It’s a beautiful guitar that lives at home on my couch. My amp that I have at home is a Fender Blues Junior. I bought it from another Berklee student for $400 on Facebook Marketplace during my senior year of college because I needed an amp.

You’ve talked, in this interview and others, about how being outdoors is important to you. Do you write when you’re out in nature? Do ideas come to you then?

Absolutely. A lot of times, if I’m stuck on something, getting out is good. I think there’s some science behind this, too – the dual motion of walking is really helpful to our brains. So I definitely find myself coming up with ideas while hiking or walking. I’ve always been that way. I’m always writing things down on my phone. Or while I’m in transit on airplanes, trains, in an Uber, or someone else is taking me somewhere, some other vehicle, in the back of a van on tour. Looking out the window, watching scenery go by, can be a regenerative, reflective place for me as well.

I probably write the most when I have a guitar in my hands, but I edit a lot and I have a lot of lyrical ideas while I’m out in nature, walking.

Phone, voice memos, pen and paper?

All three. If I’m out and about, I use my phone. I grew up writing in my journals and then I went to my phone. Everything was in my Notes app for a few years and then I was like, “I want to go back to having a journal and having handwritten lyrics. I miss going back into my journals and looking at my embarrassing little couplets of lyrics from eighth grade.” I want to be able to do that when I’m older, and look back and have more tangible objects in my life. I don’t want everything to be owned by my phone and put into my phone.

So I got several different notebooks of different sizes. I have a little notebook for journaling and writing more personal things, I have a big notebook, I have a legal pad for writing lyrics, and I have a little gratitude journal that I keep on my bedside. I have journals of all sizes now.

Are you particular about your pens?

Yes. I really like this one pen, the brand is Lamy. It’s the best pen I’ve ever owned. You can easily and accessibly buy them online, but I found it at a pen shop in Stockholm, Sweden. I think the romance of that experience also made me fall in love with this pen. They sell a lot of fancy ones that you use for calligraphy, but the one I am obsessed with is their ballpoint model. Occasionally I meet other people who love this pen. I see them with the pen and we’re like, “Oh, you like this pen too?” There’s a little cult following.

I’ve been getting into pencil recently, too. I got these free pencils at an Americanafest event, I think, and I have to figure out what brand they are, because I really like them. I’ve been enjoying having the ability to erase versus just crossing things out. It feels good. Tactile.

You write and speak openly about climate, ICE, politics, the state of the world, and of course about being an openly queer artist. You have received media attention for “Wildfire Season,” which has been called a protest song. Some people think musicians should make their music, share their art, and keep their opinions out of the spotlight. Other people, including quite recently Joan Baez, believe in using that platform to take a stand on issues. Discuss.

In the hardest times in my life, and I think this is true for most people, I’ve turned to music to process things. That was always the hope for this new record – that it could be a processing tool for anyone who needs it.

There’s so much hurt being done to people systematically right now, and I don’t think I could not talk about it. I think it feels very cathartic to attend shows where it is addressed within the lyrics, or in the banter when the artist is talking between sets. My friend Nathan Evans Fox has a great new record and he had a release show here in Nashville. He has a lot of great political country music and I felt such a sense of exhale being in that room. There was so much energy. To be in a room where it felt like church, the catharsis of release, there was such healing. It gave me a feeling of strength.

It’s a really hard time. Harm is being done to so many of us. I know that no matter what side of the political spectrum people are on, I’ve heard it said around here that everything is too expensive for most people and it’s too hot every year for most people. People are feeling the change in the air. There’s a lot of climate denial that still goes on, and yet people know that something isn’t right. Even extremely wealthy people who think they’ll be able to escape the effects of climate change, trying to shield themselves away from it, are being touched by it.

Tennessee is such a gerrymandered state. If you’re familiar at all with the political climate here, it’s really bleak, with the redistricting of Memphis and the current events that have gone down here recently. But going to protests in Nashville, showing up, is empowering. Why shouldn’t music be a space for people to feel through what’s going on, or to at least feel a little bit less alone, to feel stronger, to feel braver, to feel angry, to let that shit out? Because if you don’t let it out, then you continue to let it happen.

I feel that music is one of the most powerful tools of healing and understanding ourselves. People deserve to not feel alone, and they deserve to feel connected. If it’s upsetting to some people that I speak out about politics, I would rather call in people who are really hurting during this time and give them comfort and strength. That matters more to me than alienating people who think I should just sing songs about whatever. I really believe in the power of political songwriting, songs that do work.

When we started this interview with “Tell us about your day so far,” your list included breakfast, went to therapy, came home, met with your manager on Zoom, had lunch. You said, “I went to therapy” as casually as someone might say, “I went to the gym.” Was it a process for you to be able to say it so openly? There’s still so much stigma around mental health.

I think it’s two things. I have been described as sensitive for as long as I can remember by everyone in my family, and that used to be something that made me feel so shameful and embarrassed. I went to therapy for the first time when I was very young. I was in middle school and I was embarrassed about it at the time because this was the narrative I had around it when I was a little kid and things were very different. It’s crazy how much has changed. I think the pandemic changed a lot of things around mental health for the better. Back then I felt like, “I can’t get my emotions under control, so I have to go sit in this office and cry for two hours and it’s so weird, because I’m the most sensitive person in the world. I don’t know what it is.”

I came to songwriting as a teenager, and I found this channel of, “I can put everything in this place, and sometimes I create something that is so bad, and sometimes I create something that’s kind of good, and sometimes I create something that is totally neutral.” I used to go home after school every day and write. It was my confidante. It was what I turned to in hard times and in good times. It was how I processed my life. Once again, music as a way of processing life. Songwriting and creativity was that for me as a young, really sensitive person.

Once I wrote what I felt was actually a good song, I felt brave enough to show it to someone, and I played my first gigs, I was like, “Oh, people connect with this.” I got older, I went to music school, and I was like, “Man, maybe I really have something to say and people want to hear it.” And I met Jesse – going back to talking about them – and they’re a very sensitive person as well.

I’ve always had this thing about sensitivity is a superpower. You’re in tune to certain things that other people miss. I think most people who write songs are keen observers of the world. Sometimes you’re observing more negative things and that’s really hard, it’s painful, it requires tending to, and that’s what therapy is. I think everybody is deserving of taking care of their mental health. Now I’m in a city of songwriters, and every single person I know is a songwriter who does therapy, so I’m very much not in a stigmatized place with it because it’s been normalized to me.

I’m so much older, but it took some time for me to get there. I remember being embarrassed as a child doing it. But it’s been so many years off and on that I have done therapy, and I have seen the gifts and the fruits of my labor. So many of my songs have come out of the work I’ve done in there and the growth I’ve had. I don’t know if my therapist listens, but there’s a lot of inspiration taken from things we’ve talked about, and realizations and connections. I’m proud of myself for being able to get to that place, and I’m proud of others in my life who have had to overcome stigma about it. I’ve seen it open them up, and that’s beautiful to see.

Photo Credit: Rett Rogers

BGS 5+5: Creekbed Carter Hogan

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Creekbed Carter Hogan
Hometown: I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, but before that I spent most of my life living in Austin, Texas. I wasn’t born and raised in either, but they are the places that have shaped me the most and I think that counts for something.
Latest Album: PEASANTS REVOLT! (out July 24 2026)
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Creekbed, Creeky, Peepaw Creekbed

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

Like a Catholic cliché, my life has been changed forever by two women named Mary.

The first artist is Mary Chapin Carpenter. Watching your mom sing along to “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” with her eyes closed while she presses folded laundry to her chest, both wistful and hopeless… that does something to a person. In a family so Catholic, so conservative, so isolated – not just because of rurality, but also because of my difficult, isolationist father – Mary Chapin Carpenter was one of the few non-Christian rock-related musicians that scored my childhood, and her ferocious form of empathic songwriting has never left me.

The second Mary is Mary Gauthier. I remember the intersection I was stopped at in Austin, late at night, my now-girlfriend putting her on the aux. The first lines of “Slip of the Tongue” hit me like a gut punch: “Honey sit down, I got something to say/ Last night I drowned. I got carried away.” I remember gripping my girlfriend’s hand, crying and laughing and brimming with new, terrifying love as I listened for the first time to one of the few publicly queer Americana artists to really break through. Mary Gauthier made my life as a trans country artist possible. Nobody can see through to the soul of something like she can. It was an honor to release my cover of “Slip of the Tongue” this year, and it’ll be an honor for the rest of my life to know that my songs are in a lineage that includes her.

What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?

Man, I just really love art a lot. I’ll watch anything, read anything, listen to anything. I don’t think you need any special schooling or whatever to look at something bold and wrestle with how it makes you feel – you just need a lot of curiosity.

I’m putting out a new record in July called PEASANTS REVOLT! and in my liner notes I credit two books as inspirations: Fernando A. Flores’s Texan magical realist novel Brother Brontë and Julius S. Scott’s The Common Wind, a beautifully rendered examination of how word-of-mouth led to the Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolt in all of human history. Those two books gave as much to my new album as Hazel Dickens, Bobbie Gentry, Tracy Chapman, and ANOHNI did.

So did a whole library! The East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul, which makes formerly private collections of union organizers, activists, thinkers, and artists available to the public. The Twin Cities United Performers, a musicians’ power org I’m a member of, helps me explore the art of organizing with fellow musicians for better conditions. Picket lines are an art form, and I remain inspired every day by the people who hold them. And my songs would probably sound completely different if I weren’t spending so much of my time watching movies like John Sayles’s Matewan and Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman and Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up.

Before I could leave my small rural community, art was a way of exploring the world. Now that I can live on my own terms, art is a way of understanding the world. As an artist, why wouldn’t I try as many forms of understanding as possible?

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

This is a long answer, but it’s a story worth telling:

This past winter, as ICE invaded the Twin Cities and abducted and killed our neighbors in our streets, I received a grant from the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis to write new labor and union songs. It was a jarring juxtaposition: how could I justify research and writing songs in my room when I needed to be out on the streets with a whistle in my hand, standing my ground with my neighbors against the federal government? But the truth is, I’d already cashed half the money and it had been a lean winter, so I had to make something to show for it. I went to the East Side Freedom Library, did a boatload of research, and then I wrote songs about regular Minnesotans who’d fought the government for dignity for all. From the 1910s miners of the Mesabi Iron Range to the Indigenous founders of the American Indian Movement in the ’70s to the Willmar 8 who held a two-year picket line every single day in every single kind of weather to an Appalachian-styled ballad that tied in the history of labor resistance to what we were all doing now to protect one another, as our own mayor and governor left us in the ice and the snow to fend for ourselves.

On February 20, I took the stage at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis with a four-piece bluegrass band and presented my grant work to 250 Minnesotans. I was terrified that what I’d written hadn’t done enough justice to this incredible place that had taken me in, given me lifesaving healthcare, and taught me new things about what it means to show up for your community – and even more worried that my performance wouldn’t be good enough to raise rent money for my neighbors who were trapped in their apartments, hiding from ICE. But when I started playing these songs, the reception filled me with awe. All 250 of these people sang with me, clapped with me, cried with me, felt pain and joy and despair and hope together, out loud, with me. After the set, we got a standing ovation – and then at the merch table, the line went out the door as neighbor after neighbor came up to me to tell me about the picket lines they were holding or had held, the Minnesotans they’d recognized in my lyrics, the pain they felt and the hope that sat right beside that pain that they could now feel because of what we’d just sung together.

I’ve played a lot of incredible shows to incredible audiences, many of them much bigger and “much bigger deals.” But that show on February 20 this year was the single most important performance of my life. It meant everything to me. And it taught me, again, why I’m still here, writing songs, doing something every single day to take my place in a lineage of resistance and make a new, better world for all of us.

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

Way before I wanted to be a musician, I wanted to be a nun. The nuns I’ve known work really hard for the liberation of all people, even from within the confines of a restrictive, colonialist, organized religion. The Sisters of the Holy Names were the ones who first taught me about protesting at the School of the Americas, for example, and the Catholic Workers movement introduced liberation theology to me,and taught me about fighting for a dignified life for every living thing. I’m not a Catholic anymore – Catholicism remains closed to me as a trans person – but then again, secular convents existed in medieval Europe for people who didn’t want to convert to Catholicism, but still wanted to live in community. So maybe being a secular, liberationalist nun is still an option?

What would a perfect day as an artist and a creator look like to you?

I would wake up and every single person in the United States would have universal basic income, healthcare that serves all of our needs, and the knowledge that our taxes are funding public services instead of wars and genocides and detention centers. I’d get up to eat vegetables from our garden and groceries I could afford, in a house I share with my friends that isn’t owned by a landlord or a bank, in a neighborhood where everyone has the housing they need. I’d pick up my guitar and head out the door to a park or a third space where other people would be playing music, sharing skills, and enjoying rest for free without fear of the cops or some arbitrary law that regulates who gets to rest where. And we’d all get to that space on free public transportation that runs well and doesn’t contribute to climate change.

We’d sing and play in the heart of a food forest and then we’d take a break to swim in water that’s clean in a park we all care for. I’d go to the library and read a book about moss or something, just because it sounds interesting, while people around me use public resources to sew quilts or study or listen to CDs, our phones nowhere in sight. In the evening, I’d go to a show with my girlfriend at a venue that receives funding from the government so they don’t have to rely on alcohol sales to make their business work, and I’d happily pay money that I know goes entirely to the bands playing that night. I’d dance and dance and dance, surrounded by all kinds of people who all have the basic things they need to thrive in the bodies they have, whose bodies are no longer regulated or targeted for state violence or kept out because of a disregard for accessibility. The bands would be shit hot, because they’d know they were making a living wage and that no one was gonna come into the venue to gun us all down.

And when I’d leave the venue with my girlfriend to get on our bikes and go home to sleep, the night air would feel clean. There’d be no wildfire smoke in the air. The stars would be out, and I’d be able to see them all. I’d pass neighbor after neighbor, grinning, happy to go home to a safe place, knowing that Palestine was free and Cuba was free and Puerto Rico was free and that “Land Back” had supplanted capitalism as our guiding principle and that every worker was treated fairly. And while nothing would be perfect, because there’s always work to be done, things would feel possible. Hope would feel tenable. Every living creature would feel valued. That would be one hell of a day, I think.

Photo Credit: Emily April Allen

Folk Files: I Got the Blues

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

According to many textbooks, the blues is a genre that was born in the rural Mississippi Delta with roots in the “sorrow songs” of enslaved people. It’s easy, however, to poke holes in this origin story and instead start to see the blues as a joyful, rebellious musical expression that formed in an urban environment.

In this episode of Folk Files, we’ll take a look at different theories about the origin of the blues, separate fact from fiction, and uncover the reason why the Mississippi Delta narrative was promoted so strongly.

(Content warning: this episode has occasional explicit language and sexual references.)

LISTEN: APPLE • AMAZON • REDCIRCLE • MP3

For a list of all musical excerpts used in this episode, click here.
Visit the Delta Blues Museum.
Support Folk Files by joining our Patreon.

Host: Olivia Harding
Assistant Producer: Aaron J. Morton

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Gary Stewart, Slater Nalley, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s another New Music Friday – and You Gotta Hear This!

Starting us off this week is Western North Carolina singer-songwriter Aaron Burdett – whom you may recognize from the Steep Canyon Rangers. Burdett has a brand-new single out today, “Can’t Look Back,” a track that draws on his strengths as a storyteller and text painter. The bluegrassy song talks about little towns forgotten and left to fade from their former vitality. His labelmate, Ashby Frank, releases a brand new album today, Run This Town, so we’re sharing a track to celebrate release day. Frank always does excellent bluegrass covers of non-bluegrass songs and today’s selection is no exception. You may have never thought “Valerie” needed a string band treatment, but Frank and his group of friends/all-stars certainly sell this unexpected and delightful bluegrass cover.

American Idol alumnus Slater Nalley announced a new EP today. Hey Georgia will arrive next month, but you can hear a single from the project, “All Over Again,” below. Smooth and vibing Americana, Nalley’s charming twang delivers the love song tenderly and with plenty of passion bolstered by Hammond organ and lovely keys. You can sense every ounce of the raw emotion he channels. Also in Americana, Utah-based Wyatt Lowe shares a new music video for “Sundown.” Soulful and funky with a spaghetti western streak almost as wide as its Laurel Canyon throughline, just as you’re picturing tumbleweeds and saguaros the carnival-lit cactus enters the frame. Perfect timing.

Rounding out our collection this week is a special treat from the late Gary Stewart. Sixteen previously unheard recordings by Stewart have been released today on One Track Mind from Delmore Recording Society. To mark the release we’re sharing “Big Bad Train,” one of the earliest recordings from the new collection dating to 1967. As producer/archivist Mark Linn puts it to BGS via email, the song is “David and Goliath on wheels.” Listen to the track below and check out the full project wherever you listen to music.

Bluegrass, country, Americana, and more – there’s something for everyone to enjoy in our roundup. You Gotta Hear This…

Aaron Burdett, “Can’t Look Back”

Artist: Aaron Burdett
Hometown: Saluda, North Carolina
Song: “Can’t Look Back”
Release Date: July 17, 2026
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “I was performing at a municipal festival out west, in Montana I believe, and it was one of those towns where you could clearly see both the decay of the downtown area and also the vitality it once had, maybe not so long ago. One of those forgotten Main Street towns that atrophied after the interstate drew all the gas stations and fast food places a mile outside of the original community center. It’s a bit of history on display. I’d been working on a few lines of ‘Can’t Look Back’ already and the rest of the song seemed to write itself as I walked around and visited a couple of the stores that were still in operation.” – Aaron Burdett

Track Credits:
Aaron Burdett – Lead vocal, acoustic guitar
Kristin Scott Benson – Banjo
Carley Arrowood – Fiddle
Tristan Scroggins – Mandolin
Jon Weisberger – Upright bass
Wendy Hickman – Harmony vocal
Travis Book – Harmony vocal

Ashby Frank, “Valerie”

Artist: Ashby Frank
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Valerie”
Album: Run This Town
Release Date: July 17, 2026 (album)
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “‘Valerie’ was originally written and recorded by an English indie rock band called the Zutons, but I first heard it when Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse recorded their famous cover version. About a decade ago, I had to learn the song for a set that an artist I was working with had put together. During that process, I started thinking about recording a country/bluegrass version of it. It took a few years for that idea to come together, but I couldn’t be more pleased with the finished product. Matt Menefee (banjo), Steve Hinson (steel guitar), and Josh Shilling (keys) created a truly unique sounding texture for this track and their creative instrumentals combined with Seth Taylor (guitar) and Travis Anderson (bass) in the rhythm section really helped to make it special and incredibly fun. Two of my favorite singers on the planet, Jaelee Roberts and John Cowan, joined in for harmony vocals and I couldn’t have asked for anything more! I’m so incredibly proud of this one.” – Ashby Frank

Track Credits:
Ashby Frank – Mandolin, lead vocal
Seth Taylor – Guitars
Travis Anderson – Bass
Matt Menefee – Banjo
Tony Creasman – Drums
Jaelee Roberts – Harmony vocal
John Cowan – Harmony vocal
Josh Shilling – Piano, organ
Steve Hinson – Pedal steel guitar

Wyatt Lowe, “Sundown”

Artist: Wyatt Lowe
Hometown: Salt Lake City, Utah
Song: “Sundown”
Release Date: July 17, 2026
Label: Redline Records

In Their Words: “I’ve always been drawn to songs that reveal something new every time you hear them and ‘Sundown’ has always been one of those songs for me. Gordon Lightfoot had this incredible ability to say so much with restraint, and that’s what I wanted to honor. Rather than trying to recreate the original, I wanted to uncover another side of it.

“As we started working on the arrangement, we leaned into the tension that was already living inside the song. There are these beautiful melodies, but underneath them is this feeling that something isn’t quite settled. We pulled that to the surface with a swampy groove, guitar-driven textures, and soulful harmonies that gave the song a darker, more cinematic feel while still respecting what made the original so timeless.

“What I love most is that the song still feels alive more than 50 years later. That’s the mark of truly great songwriting. Hopefully this version introduces ‘Sundown’ to people hearing it for the first time while giving longtime Gordon Lightfoot fans a new way to experience a song they already know and love.” – Wyatt Lowe

Credits:
Wyatt Lowe – Vocals, guitar
Connor Mlynek – Rhythm guitar
Eric Stoye – Drums
Wally Barnum – Bass
Daniel Salini – Pedal steel, Dobro

Video Credits:
Will Floor – Director
Taylor Ballam – Producer
Caleb Youlton – Director of Photography
Derick Lott – Gaffer, grip
Nick Barney – Editor
MODO Studios – Production

Slater Nalley, “All Over Again”

Artist: Slater Nalley
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Song: “All Over Again”
Album: Hey Georgia (EP)
Release Date: July 17, 2026 (single); August 21, 2026 (EP)
Label: Warner Records/Warner Records Nashville

In Their Words: “‘All Over Again’ is a tale of heartbreak and second chances. It explores the irony of being let down and taken advantage of, yet still giving the person another chance. When we love something we try our best to preserve it, even if it’s not truly meant to last. That’s what this song is all about; the raw emotion that comes with taking another chance on someone. The risk, and the possible reward. I hope anyone who listens can relate and appreciate vulnerability of the lyrics, and the overall message.” – Slater Nalley

Track Credits:
Slater Nalley – Vocals
Darren Dodd – Drums, percussion
Greg Garner – Bass
Shaun Richardson – Acoustic guitar, mandolin
Philip Towns – Piano, Hammond organ
Melissa Fuller – Background vocals

Gary Stewart, “Big Bad Train”

Artist: Gary Stewart
Hometown: Dunham, Kentucky
Song: “Big Bad Train”
Album: One Track Mind
Release Date: July 17, 2026
Label: Delmore Recording Society

In Their Words: “What can you say about ‘Big Bad Train’? It’s David and Goliath on wheels. A raucous, rowdy, feel-good, spit-in-your-face anthem for the little guy who’s gotten pushed around for too long by big government. Gary’s high lonesome voice evokes the whistle of a train and his vibrato sounds like the shaking of the train coming down the tracks. And… it’s funny!

“‘Big Bad Train’ is one of the earliest recordings on One Track Mind, dating from 1967 when Gary first arrived in Nashville from Fort Pierce, Florida, on the advice of Mel Tillis and started writing songs with Billy Eldridge for Tillis’ Cedarwood Publishing Company.” – Mark Linn, producer/archivist, Delmore Recording Society

Photo Credit: Gary Stewart courtesy of Gina Stewart; Slater Nalley by Jesse DeFlorio.