Celebrating the rich history of women in old-time music, past, present, and future, has been an obsession of mine for over 50 years. I’ve listened to archival recordings, sat in the living room with Ola Belle Reed, Jean Ritchie, and Alice Gerrard, toured with Patsy Montana, taught Maybelle Carter’s unique guitar style, and interviewed Lily May Ledford at the Renfro Valley Barn Dance.
I was a proud member of the team that created The Birthplace of Country Music’s exhibit, “I’ve Endured: Women In Old Time Music.” And I’m thrilled that Baltimore’s Creative Alliance is hosting both the exhibit and the Say Sister! Festival celebrating women in roots music in January 2025. This playlist includes music from the past and the “I’ve Endured” exhibit, present artists from the Say Sister! Festival lineup – and the future is coming! – Cathy Fink, musician and co-curator
“I’ve Endured” – Ola Belle Reed
Ola Belle (1916-2002) was born Ola Wave Campbell in Grassy Creek, North Carolina. She was a fine traditional banjo picker and guitarist and grew up with a rich repertoire of family music. She also became a prolific songwriter, realizing that she had her own things to say and her own way to say them within the structure of old-time music. This song has been covered hundreds of times by contemporary artists. Ola Belle received a Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 1998 and was awarded a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship Award in 1986.
A native of Tennessee, Amythyst Kiah performs both original and traditional songs on banjo and guitar. She dug deep into old-time music as a student at East Tennessee State University’s roots music program. In “Polly Ann’s Hammer,” the legendary John Henry takes a back seat and his wife gets the lead role. Like the “I’ve Endured” exhibit, this effort brings light to someone who has not received the attention she may have deserved.
“When John was sick/ Polly drove steel/ Like a man, Lord, like a man … This is the hammer that killed your daddy/ Throw it down and we’ll be free…”
“Things Are Coming My Way” – Marcy Marxer
Marcy adapted this song from the singing of Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers. Marcy met the Georgia Sea Island Singers during various folk festivals and always delighted in this song. She’s been celebrating the rich history of women in country music in our duo for over 40 years. Marcy’s a multi-instrumentalist on guitar, cello banjo, mandolin, ukulele, percussion and more. This song showcases her fingerpicking guitar style.
“West Virginia Coal Disaster” – Sarah Kate Morgan
Sarah Kate Morgan steps follow right after Jean Ritchie with traditional and original songs and dulcimer playing. She’s an innovative Appalachian dulcimer player with a gorgeous voice and a love for Appalachian music and heritage. Here she sings Jean’s potent song about the 1968 Saxsewell No. 8 Mine disaster. Hang in there for the awesome instrumental at the end! Sarah Kate teaches at the Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky.
“Red Rocking Chair” – The Coon Creek Girls, Lily May Ledford
Lily May Ledford (1917-1985) from Powell, Kentucky played clawhammer banjo and fiddle and was the leader of the first all-girl string band on the radio, The Coon Creek Girls. Here her solo banjo playing is featured.
“Cotton Patch Rag” – Kimber Ludiker
Kimber plays fiddle and mandolin and sings with bluegrass group Della Mae. She’s a sixth-generation fiddler from Spokane, Washington. Here’s her winning performance of “Cotton Patch Rag” from the 2006 Grand Master Fiddle Championship.
“What The Lord Done Give You” – Cathy Fink
I was the first woman to win the West Virginia State Banjo contest (1980) – and went on to win it several times, total. In 2018 I also won the Clifftop Appalachian Music Festival Banjo Contest. This original song is played on a gut string fretless banjo, making a new tune sound old.
“I Will Not Go Down” – Amythyst Kiah featuring Billy Strings
From Amythyst’s most recent album, Still + Bright, comes this awesome collaboration with Billy Strings. It’s a powerful song and arrangement. I can tell you that if Ola Belle Reed were able to hear this song, she’d give it a big thumbs up! Speaking truth to power is part and parcel of women’s work in roots music.
“Muddy Creek” – Sarah Kate Morgan
Sarah Kate Morgan has redefined what can be done on an Appalachian dulcimer. Her trills, embellishments and awesome tone here are joined by fiddle, banjo and feet. This one will make you happy!
“Now Is the Cool of the Day” – Jean Ritchie
Jean’s clear soprano voice couldn’t be more beautiful than on this original song that draws on her traditional roots, while conjuring God’s calling to humans to take care of the earth. First released in 1977 and still timeless.
“No-See-Um Stomp” – Della Mae
Kimber tears up this original fiddle tune with an all-star band featuring Molly Tuttle, Alison Brown, Avril Smith, and Della Mae.
“Chilly Winds” – Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Cello banjo (Marcy) and five-string banjo (Cathy) make up the instrumental duo behind the vocal duet in this classic old-time song.
“The Little Devils” – Jean Ritchie
Jean’s solo voice reminds us what it must have been like to gather round the fire after dinner and hear her mother sing to the family before the age of television.
“Banjo Pickin’ Girl” – The Coon Creek Girls, Lily May Ledford
This song has become the unofficial theme song of many a banjo pickin’ girl and string band. Lily May Ledford and the Coon Creek Girls sang this on the WLS Barn Dance (Chicago), Renfro Valley Barn Dance (KY) and Lily May continued singing it solo for the rest of her career.
Say Sister! Festival takes place in Baltimore, Maryland at the Creative Alliance on January 10 & 11, 2025. Tickets – in person and “watch from home” – are available here. The “I’ve Endured: Women of Old Time Music” exhibit opens at Creative Alliance on January 3 at 6pm.
Photo Credit: Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer by Irene Young; Amythyst Kiah by Photography by Kevin & King; Sarah Kate Morgan by Jared Hamilton. Poster Credit: Gina Dilg
Each year, when we begin the process of curating our year-end round-ups with our BGS and Good Country contributors, our prompt is never about superlatives or true “best of year” selections. We don’t strive to craft these lists based on “shoulds” – what record should be considered the best of the year? What should a list of the best bluegrass, old-time, Americana, and folk music include?
We perhaps couldn’t be less interested in such a list. Are they entertaining to read? Oh, yes. There’s almost no better year-end pastime than quickly scrolling through a “best of” list to find if you agree or disagree, or if your favorite album is included, or if your obvious choice is another’s glaring omission. But the beauty of music – especially these more traditional and folkway-adjacent forms – isn’t objectivity; it’s the intricately personal, particular, and subjective that’s hardest to capture.
Still, each year, as fall transitions to winter, we try our best to capture just that. In 2024, we tasked our BGS contributors with collecting their most favorite, most impactful, most resonant, and most persistent albums, songs, and performances. A quick Google search will reveal dozens of collections of the “most important” music of the year, but rather than wading into that very crowded space we hope our BGS Class of 2024 reflects the most ethereal, intangible, and fantastic music we encountered this year.
As such, our Class of 2024 has ended up with a lovely variety of albums and songs spanning the entire, expansive American roots music scene. You’ll hear picks like troubadours Willi Carlisle and Amythyst Kiah, there are straight-ahead grassers like Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, and Brenna MacMillan, and we’ve got buzzworthy acts like MJ Lenderman and Katie Gavin represented here, too. It’s not all bluegrass – it’s not any one thing, really! – but we hope you’ll find plenty to love and, hopefully, much exemplary roots music you might not have found anywhere else.
Scroll to find a playlist version of our BGS Class of 2024 below, plus stay tuned for more year-end collections coming your way, including our favorite musical moments, 2024 Good Country, our music book picks for the year, and more. – Justin Hiltner, editor, BGS and Good Country
Willi Carlisle, Critterland
I didn’t catch on to Willi Carlisle until this year, which might be because he’s only just beginning to garner more broad commercial success – or, if I’m being honest, it could be because I mistakenly assumed he was just another white guy with an acoustic guitar and a microphone. But I was wrong.
Carlisle is a rare storyteller, a poet, an openly queer man from the South, and one of the most meticulous folk songwriters releasing music right now. This year, he dropped his third full-length album, Critterland, underlining his status as all of the above and proving he can masterfully weave old-time, country, folk, and honky-tonk influences into a cohesive style all his own. Whether he’s singing about spiritual existentialism, rural queer experiences, or his many meandering journeys across the U.S., Carlisle’s lyricism is captivating, rich, and alive. If you haven’t already listened to Critterland, don’t let the year roll over without doing it. – Dana Yewbank
Jake Xerxes Fussell, When I Am Called
Jake Xerxes Fussell’s version of the work song “Gone to Hilo” on his 2024 album, When I Am Called, is gorgeous. It reveals part of how he revitalizes and contextualizes new folk songs. Fussell is a man of great learning, but he wears it loosely and with pleasure. “Hilo,” the song, has a number of versions – some are about Hawaii and some are about Peru (a town called Ihru). Some are about a sailor named Tommy, others are about someone named Johnny. Usually it’s Johnny in Hawaii and Tommy in Peru; Elijah Wald’s 2024 book about Muddy Waters suggests that it might not be Hilo or Ihru, but “the Hollow,” and could originate from the vernacular of enslaved people.
Fussell, playing live in Toronto, didn’t interpolate the Hollow, but in a perfect three minutes, traded lines and verses, sometimes about one place, sometimes about the other, in a delicate blending of received wisdom. The smartest and most moving moment highlighting what it means to make music that I heard this year. – Steacy Easton
Katie Gavin, What A Relief
For years now I’ve been making an incredibly silly joke about how “MUNA are my favorite bluegrass band.” With her first solo album, the group’s lead singer and central songwriter, Katie Gavin, brings their resplendent and queer musical universe decidedly into our roots music realms. Producer Tony Berg (Nickel Creek, Molly Tuttle, Amythyst Kiah, Andrew Bird) in the control room and Sara & Sean Watkins as session players are just two of the inputs that make What A Relief delightfully folky, fiddley, and string band-infused. MUNA’s acoustic set at the iconic Newport Folk Festival this summer – and Gavin’s totally solo, side stage Newport performance of much of this material – further solidified the dancey, club-ready group as a true folk ensemble.
At first it was a joke, but I don’t think it’s a joke anymore! Like all of Gavin’s work, these songs are both fun and gutting, poignant while light and convivial. What A Relief is a standout for 2024. – Justin Hiltner
Liv Greene, Deep Feeler
Liv Greene is a huge cry baby – and a liar. She even comes right out and admits it on the first line of her new album Deep Feeler:
“I’m aware I’m a liar. Always lying to myself about my expectations/ I’m aware I’m a crier, and I know. All this crying doesn’t help the situation…”
Greene, who is the Deep Feeler in question, has grown tremendously on her sophomore album. She’s become one of the most promising young artists to create songs that tap right into the center of your heart. This is enormously true on her 2024 album through songs like “Wild Geese,” “Flowers,” and “Made it Mine Too.” She attributes that growth to honestly writing about being queer for the first time. Deep Feeler crawls in and stays with you. Who knew honesty could feel this good? – Cindy Howes
Brittany Haas & Lena Jonsson, The Snake
On their second duo album of fiddle tunes (their first, self-titled collab dropped in 2015), Brittany Haas of Nashville and Lena Jonsson of Stockholm went even deeper into what’s possible in the blending of their native countries’ fiddle traditions. This time, they leaned far more on the Swedish end of the collaboration, emphasizing harmony over chord progressions, exploring the possibilities inherent in “second voice” dueting. They also tried their hand at writing a suite in the style of J.S. Bach – no small feat. The result is an utter delight for music geeks and casual fans alike, as folks can appreciate the languid lines and danceable moments they weave together throughout. – Kim Ruehl
Humbird, Right On
I remember where I was the first time I heard Siri Undlin sing, “There is an old barn on a ghost farm / Hollowed out and filled with stars…” the opening couplet of Humbird’s take-no-prisoners roots rocker “Cornfields and Roadkill.” I will reluctantly admit to some initial resentment that a songwriter who wasn’t me had written a song of such poetic efficiency and political potency. Undlin’s songwriting shines throughout the nine tracks of 2024’s Right On: the quiet earnestness of “Quickest Way” would have been at home on an early Kacey Musgraves album, and “Song for the Seeds” lays out both practical and spiritual methods for liberation, Farmer’s Almanac-style. But the palpable chemistry between musicians playing in a room together is the star of the show here. Humbird is an essential band to listen to as we watch the American empire crumble in real time. – Lizzie No
Katelyn Ingardia, “Silence”
This year, Katelyn Ingardia’s “Silence” got me feeling some type of way. I don’t know what they injected into this song, but I’m quite literally addicted to it. Bad day? I’m playing “Silence.” In a long line for coffee? I’m playing “Silence.” Cooking up girl dinner? I’m playing “Silence.” I scream a little on the inside every time I hear the fiddle kickoff.
The timbre of the song is so nostalgic of an early Union Station or Sierra Hull record, but Ingardia’s performance sets herself apart as something completely fresh and original. The writing, delivery, and production are all impeccable and her voice is like honey. And if all that wasn’t enough for ya, Ingardia just dropped her debut record, entitled Getaway. Some of my favorite tracks are “Lost Love” and “Talk to Me.” Y’all keep an eye on this gal as she continues to blossom into her career so we can all say we were here at the beginning. – Bluegrass Barbie
Cris Jacobs, One of These Days
Within the rock and jam realms, the name Cris Jacobs has been well-regarded and sought-out for many years, especially with his early project The Bridge, a vastly popular Baltimore-based rock ‘n’ soul ensemble up and down the Eastern Seaboard in the early 2000s, only to disband in 2011.
But, for the guitar wizard himself, it was Jacobs’ 2024 release, One of These Days, that really catapulted him into the national scene, especially in the Americana, bluegrass, and folk arenas. Produced by Jerry Douglas and featuring the Infamous Stringdusters as its backing band, the album includes appearances by Billy Strings, Lee Ann Womack, Sam Bush, and Lindsay Lou. At its core, One of These Days circles back to Jacobs’ early bluegrass, folk, and blues influences. But, more so, the record finally tells the rest of the world what a lot of us have already known for some time now – Cris Jacobs is one hell of a talented singer, songwriter, and musician. – Garret K. Woodward
Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, I Built A World
The longtime fiddler for Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway shows off captivating songwriting alongside her impeccable playing skills and impressive vocals on I Built A World, her first album in nearly four years. Featuring the likes of Tuttle, Sam Bush, Dierks Bentley, Brit Taylor, and her husband Jason Carter, the 11-song adventure from Keith-Hynes – up for Best Bluegrass Album at the 67th Annual GRAMMYs – follows her journey from being homeschooled to making a living as an independent musician on her own terms.
Standouts range from the frenetic, longing “Will You Ever Be Mine” to the waltz-like, Dobro-heavy “The Last Whippoorwill,” proving that Keith-Hynes is poised to be a power player in bluegrass and country music for years to come. – Matt Wickstrom
Amythyst Kiah, Still + Bright
The sparkling singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah sought a different direction this year for her third solo LP. She’d previously shown her ability to deliver emotionally powerful, socially relevant, and poignant material. But she wanted her music to reflect other aspects of her personality in her latest work, both her warm and humorous side, plus her interest in Eastern philosophy and spirituality. All these things are nicely balanced in Still + Bright, with Butch Walker’s production touches incorporating unexpected musical contributions like nifty pedal steel licks or fuzztone guitar riffs, plus Kiah’s own supportive and inspired banjo colorations and edgy lead vocals.
It was a tour de force that was even more impressive in live performance, and Kiah got rave reviews throughout her tour that included highly appreciative responses from the crowds who saw her performances during Americanafest in Nashville. In addition, Kiah’s been part of Our Native Daughters (an all-women-of-color supergroup also featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell). She extended her collaborative outreach on Still + Bright, working with such co-writers and features as punk legend Tim Armstrong, Sadler Vaden (a guitarist-vocalist for Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit), former Pentatonix member Avi Kaplan, and Sean McConnell (a singer-songwriter who’s also written with Brittney Spencer and Bethany Cosentino). All this reveals a dynamic artist willing to continue exploring new areas, while making some of the year’s most intriguing and exciting music. – Ron Wynn
AJ Lee & Blue Summit, City of Glass
In case you have any doubts about the absolute magnitude of AJ Lee & Blue Summit, I will personally fund your one-way ticket to this transparent metropolis. City of Glass presents precisely what its title suggests – an entire ecosphere generated from its contents. The 12 tracks on this album cultivate a moving array of sensibilities, from tender love ballads to humorous narratives to honeyed poetics to grade-A yodeling. Brimming with multi-hyphenate talents, AJ Lee, Sullivan Tuttle, and Scott Gates all contribute lead vocals and songwriting credits to the compilation. Jan Purat’s fiddling serves as a raconteur, always perfectly delivering each narrative. Tuttle’s sister, Molly, even makes the trip from her City of Gold to join in for a tune. All in all, this album is a wondrous sonic journey that anyone would be remiss not to make! – Oriana Mack
MJ Lenderman, Manning Fireworks
From Hurricane Helene-ravaged Asheville, North Carolina, singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman has always been more than solid in the field of twangy indie-rock. Nevertheless, he took a quantum leap forward this year with the spectacular Manning Fireworks album, especially the song that falls in the exact middle of the track list. “She’s Leaving You” is the heart of Manning Fireworks, with verses that sketch out a tawdry Las Vegas hookup. But the part that resonates is the chorus, sung by Lenderman in a raw voice that falls somewhere between deadpan and shellshocked: “It falls apart, we all got work to do/ It gets dark, we all got work to do…” Lenderman repeats the line a half-dozen times and you would, too. If ever a chorus summed up the exhausted anguish of a moment in time, it’s this one. – David Menconi
Brenna MacMillan, Dear Life
Bluegrass, as an industry, operates about a decade behind the curve. As such, it feels more than remarkable when you find a straight-ahead bluegrass artist who’s not only on the cutting edge, but may be the actual blade. Brenna MacMillan’s debut solo album, Dear Life, displays all of the ways this picker, songwriter, singer, content creator, and online personality is pushing the trad envelope and establishing new models for success in the genre. Bluegrass has always felt like a direct-to-consumer business, but never with this level of intention – or with such ease on new media and social media.
Dear Life is a gorgeous collection, filled with MacMillan’s Nashville community and several legends, too – like Ronnie McCoury, Peter Rowan, and Sarah Jarosz. It’s down-the-middle bluegrass, but it’s entirely fresh and unique, with engaging songwriting and often surprising contours and melodies. There are many exciting things about MacMillan’s artistry, but the music is the most entrancing of all. – Justin Hiltner
Andrew Marlin, Phthalo Blue
This quietly-released full-length instrumental album from Watchhouse’s Andrew Marlin was far and away the record I found myself returning to over and over again in 2024.
The name Phthalo Blue refers to the family of blue and green pigments most often used in painting (I had to look this up). At first I wondered why Andrew might choose a title so obscure and hard to pronounce, but the more time I spent digging into both the music and the color family, the more they took me to the same calming, centered place.
I have loved all of Andrew’s non-Watchhouse endeavors over the last few years – from his multiple 2021 releases to Mighty Poplar to his recent release, Wild Rose of Morning with Jordan Tice and Christian Sedelmyer. Hopefully he continues to deliver more of this prolific, purely creative output, seemingly unfettered by commercial expectations; simultaneously reverential to the instrumental traditions it pulls from and inherently perfect for our modern age. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs
Middle Sattre, Tendencies
Middle Sattre are part of a movement of queer artists brewing down in Austin. Their brand of indie folk is as devastating as it is finely crafted. Tendencies is a painful autobiographical work, presenting vignettes of growing up queer and Mormon. The collective navigate these stories with care and delicate musicianship, building a portrait of sorrow – and a determination to survive. This kind of documentation, of people who stay true to themselves no matter the cost, are essential now more than ever. There is a deep and serious artistry in Tendencies, haunting, beautiful, and impossible to forget. – Rachel Cholst
Aoife O’Donovan, All My Friends
It was difficult to imagine what would follow Aoife O’Donovan’s Age of Apathy, her reflection on living through the pandemic. However, with All My Friends, O’Donovan shows how well her creativity and artistic style can thrive in new musical and lyrical territory. I love how this album includes guest artist, orchestral, and choral collaboration, making the music itself feel as grand and complex as the album’s themes: the women’s suffrage movement and one of its leading figures, Carrie Chapman Catt. O’Donovan’s wordplay is as sharp as ever and she doesn’t shy away from historical details or present-day truths, whether celebratory or sobering. The production and arrangements do everything possible to complement and enhance the impact of the songs, even if that means turning everything down to let the implications of O’Donovan’s words sink in. Be prepared to feel so much, but then want to start it all over again. – Kira Grunenberg
Katie Pruitt, Mantras
Katie Pruitt possesses a voice for the ages. In 2020, the powerhouse made an incredible splash with her debut album, Expectations, a raw and cosmic set that drowned out all others. Her songwriting pen proved to be as potent and razor-sharp as her vocal cords. Four years later, Pruitt still defines the soul-crushing Americana genre on her own terms. With Mantras, she expands her musical sensibilities and stretches her creative muscles in impressive ways. Such moments as “Jealous of the Boys” and “Blood Related” serve as needle-prick moments of sheer vulnerability, woven together with her signature mountain-rattling peaks (“All My Friends”). Pruitt pieces together a tattered photo book, one that gives a glimpse into her very soul. – Bee Delores
Photo Credit: Amythyst Kiah by Photography by Kevin & King; Katie Gavin by Alexa Viscius; Bronwyn Keith-Hynes by Alexa King Stone.
It’s hard to imagine Billy Strings as anything other than the glass-shattering guitar virtuoso he’s become. Over a decade, he’s flipped, rearranged, and altogether transformed bluegrass music. He leads with instinct, allowing the music to speak on a much deeper level than many of his contemporaries. Four albums deep into his career, in addition to a live album and several collaborative projects, Strings immerses himself in the tradition of string music while bringing a fresh, exciting perspective to the classic structures of flatpickin’.
Our November 2024 Artist of the Month, Strings continues cementing his legacy by stretching boundaries and pushing progressively forward. With a foot firmly rooted in the past, always feeling ripped from another era, the musician remains intently focused on breathing life into the genre for modern audiences. As much as he’s built upon his growing solo catalog, he’s also known to frequent other artists’ work and inject his unique charms into their shared musical performances.
Strings has remained committed to bluegrass and jamgrass through the last 10 years and more, while often stepping outside these tight genre boxes for some playful excursions. From appearing on a Dierks Bentley song to teaming up with a rap juggernaut-turned-country-star Post Malone, the Michigan native keeps an open musical mind and heart. He’s an unstoppable force, always willing to try something new.
Below, we’ve put together nine of Billy Strings’ best features, both on his own projects and on others’ releases, too.
“Things to Do” with Zach Top
Zach Top recently released a three-track collaborative EP with Billy Strings as an Apple Music exclusive. “Things to Do” sees the duo injecting the track with a healthy helping of pep. The pair swaps off verses, each bringing their strengths to the performance.
“Girl, it just ain’t right / You’re burning up my daylight,” they sing. On a wide stretch of musical canvas, Top and Strings paint with vitality and urgency. The special release also includes a cover of Ricky Skaggs’ 1983 classic “Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown” and “Bad Luck,” another Top original, which appeared on his 2024 studio album Cold Beer and Country Music.
“California Sober” featuring Willie Nelson
On the eve of Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday, the country legend hopped aboard “California Sober” with Billy Strings. The rollicking track celebrates weed in moderation, finding the pair giving up late-night parties and weekend binges for a chiller sort of high.
In classic Nelson fashion, dusty strings give an air of a traveling tune and barreling down the highway at 100 miles an hour. The one-off collab single (written by Strings, Aaron Allen, and Jon Weisberger) demonstrates someone maturing and realizing that some vices should be left in the past. But regardless, the duo still cheekily admits: “the devil on my shoulder always wins.”
“M-E-X-I-C-O” with Post Malone
Post Malone dove head first into country music with the release of 2024’s F-1 Trillion. Featuring everyone from Dolly Parton and Tim McGraw to Luke Combs and Lainey Wilson, the collaborative set made quite a splash – seeing the rapper swerve into modern country with his own special twist. “M-E-X-I-C-O” is a certified barn-burner, among the project’s standout moments. Credit should be given generously to Billy Strings, who infuses his twangy, finger-pickin’ bluegrass style into the explosive, toe-tapping experience.
“The Great Divide” with Luke Combs
“The Great Divide” arrived in 2021 as a cautionary tale during troubling sociopolitical times.
“We’re striking matches on the TV / Setting fires on our phones,” warns Combs in the opening line. The singer fuels those flames throughout the song, sending smoke signals as things methodically escalate. “We’re all so far, far apart now / It’s as deep as it is wide / We’re about to fall apart now,” the lyrics burst like dynamite.
The song isn’t all doom and gloom, though. Later on, the lyrics detail how many strangers love one another despite glaring differences. Several years later, the song rings even more eerily poignant than ever before.
“Dooley’s Farm” with Molly Tuttle
A long-time fan of The Dillards’ classic, “Dooley,” Molly Tuttle updates the story to reflect an elderly man’s penchant for growing weed. “Dooley’s Farm” is a slower ditty, unlike the giddy-up pace of the Dillards’ song, and darker in tone and feel.
Strings lends his voice for spooky backing vocals, poking through the track like a ghost in the night. Their performance is found on Tuttle’s 2022 album, Crooked Tree.
“You can hide by day, but the night will find you / They caught Dooley in the moonlight,” whispers Tuttle over the gentle cry of a fiddle.
“Too Stoned to Cry” with Margo Price
Margo Price had been wanting to record “Too Stoned to Cry” for years, ever since hearing its writer Andrew Combs perform the lonesome ballad. Working with Beau Bedford, she convinced the producer to put his magical touch on the song. When it came to enlisting a duet partner, Price turned to Billy Strings, who turns in a sinewy and evocative lead performance.
“There’s whiskey and wine and pills for the pain / Fast, easy women and a little cocaine,” they sing, their voices tangling like barbed wire. With its frayed, tired edges, the song proves to be an ample showcase for both singers’ talents. It’s as classic as you can possibly get these days.
“I Will Not Go Down” with Amythyst Kiah
On her 2024 album Still + Bright, Amythyst Kiah reaches into the depths of her songcraft for a cinematic stunner. With Billy Strings in tow, “I Will Not Go Down” pounds with alarming emotional urgency. Taking cues from such film staples as Avatar: The Last Airbender and Lord of the Rings, Kiah mounts an expedition across space and time, metaphorically speaking, as she slays dragons and seeks life’s simple truths. Strings supplies a startlingly resonant knit of guitar work that punctuates Kiah’s flame-throwing vocals.
“Muscle Car” with Andy Hall
Two musical forces collide for a bedeviling five-minute epic on “Muscle Car.” With no vocal line, the composition here sizzles and pops, as it transmits its very own story through the power of instruments.
Andy Hall’s 2023 album, Squareneck Soul, delivers a torrential downpour of raw storytelling. Hall (of the Infamous Stringdusters) expertly offers up rip-roaring string work, matched with his companions’ equally engaging performances. The track also features Sierra Hull (mandolin), Wes Corbett (banjo), and Travis Book (bass), who all band together for one of the decade’s finest bluegrass moments.
“Bells of Every Chapel” with Sierra Ferrell
Sierra Ferrell pulls Billy Strings along for a charming lovesick gallop with “Bells of Every Chapel.” Found on her 2021 album, Long Time Coming, the mid-tempo track sees Ferrell peering through rose-tinted glass, examining unrequited love that squeezes your heart.
“They were ringing so clear/ But you couldn’t hear/ And your heart could never be mine,” she sings. Old-timey in spirit, the song soars higher and higher with Strings’ choo-choo train flatpicking.
Singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah enjoys ignoring conventional wisdom and challenging notions she considers at best outdated and at worse reactionary and restrictive, regarding what music she should choose or what subjects she should address as an artist. But at the same time, she has never wanted anyone to label or pigeonhole her approach. Since 2010, Kiah has been steadily touring and recording, both solo and with other artists whose music also cuts across multiple thematic and idiomatic boundaries.
Kiah has a prominent, robust voice and is an outstanding guitarist and banjo player. A Chattanooga native and East Tennessee State University graduate, family and community ties are a major part of her life. Kiah’s father used to be her tour manager and she credits his influence (he also was a percussionist in a touring band during the ’70s) as well as that of her late mother (a vocalist in her hometown church choir) in shaping a performance style that is equal parts edgy and disciplined, adventurous but never chaotic or unruly.
After teaching herself to play guitar while attending a creative arts high school, Kiah would subsequently complete the Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies program at ETSU and join the school’s marquee old-time band. Her array of activities since 2010 have included releasing the LP Dig In (cut at the ETSU Recording lab in 2013); the five-song EP Chest of Glass (recorded in Johnson City in 2016); and the critically praised Wary + Strange. Wary + Strange was done in Nashville for Rounder and was finally released in 2021 after going through three different producers over a three-year period before finally settling on Tony Berg. It addressed a lot of things in Kiah’s life that were difficult, notably the loss of her mother to suicide.
Conceptually, Kiah’s growth as a vocalist and songwriter is evident from the opening moments of her brand new album, Still + Bright, to its concluding refrain. Whether it’s the extensive lyrical quest for spiritual and personal growth unveiled with vigor in “Play God and Destroy The World,” or the search for peace of mind discussed in “S P A C E,” Kiah’s powerful vocals and insightful lyrics reveal a portrait of an artist willing to acknowledge uncertainty, yet able to find a sense of belonging and salvation through taking the journey.
Musically, the production incorporates a host of sounds, everything from mandolins and fiddles to crisp, crackling guitar lines – plus memorable guest vocals like S.G. Goodman on “Play God” and Kiah’s consistently poignant, stirring lead vocals. The new album, her third solo project, was already generating lavish praise before its release. It will no doubt continue to garner critical support as well as possible mentions on numerous best-of-the-year lists for Americana, folk, and country releases.
Kiah also has her share of high profile covers and collaborations. The most notable among them include being featured vocalist on Moby’s 2021 single “Natural Blues” and doing a cover of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” in 2022. But perhaps the most celebrated was appearing along with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell in the supergroup, Our Native Daughters. Sadly, despite being a pioneering all-Black women’s group, Our Native Daughters’ music hasn’t found its way onto the airwaves at urban contemporary radio. But their LP, Songs of Our Native Daughters, was a critical and commercial hit within the Americana and roots music community. Kiah’s composition on the album, “Black Myself,” earned a 2020 GRAMMY nomination for Best American Roots Song.
All this set the stage for Still + Bright. Kiah performed some of its songs during a visit to Nashville for Americanafest 2024; she will be returning to Music City for a highly anticipated appearance on the Grand Ole Opry on December 10. She spoke at length with BGS about her new LP, the recording process, touring, and her love for science fiction, among other things.
Congratulations on the response to Still + Bright.
Amythyst Kiah: Thanks so much. I really wanted to do some different things on this album, show another side in terms of my personality. It was very important for me to say and express certain emotions on Wary + Strange and say some things that needed to be said. I did some of that with Still + Bright, but I also wanted to do some lighter things, some fun things, present other aspects of my life, and reflect more humor, more joy. I’m very happy with how it turned out and the mix of things that we covered and presented.
How was the experience recording in Nashville and how much did having Butch Walker aboard as a producer affect the recording?
Butch was and is so wonderful. Whenever I’d suggest something to him he’d just say, “OK, let’s try it and see what happens.” He was so open to everything and at the same time he knew when to step in and say, “Why don’t you try it this way?” or “Why not add this element to it?” He was so much more like a good friend and buddy than just a hired gun-type producer. When I came to town for this most recent date and asked him about playing, he not only said sure, he showed up and joined right in. It’s been such a treat working with him, a great personal and professional experience.
You describe your sound as “Southern Gothic.” Have you found that the Americana format works for you in terms of getting the necessary promotion and exposure for your music?
It’s really the ideal format, because it does fit so many different styles and types of music. One of the real problems with radio now, especially commercial radio, is that everything is rigidly categorized. If you aren’t doing a very specific thing production-wise, the content and quality don’t matter. With Americana I’ve been welcome to do and try whatever I think fits and whatever I think I want to do musically. I can’t tell you how much creative freedom that gives you as a performer. You’re not writing to fit what someone else thinks might work. You’re free to have your music unfold and develop organically, the way that you hear it.
One thing that really annoys me is that there’s a sizable audience segment out there that very well might relate to your music if they got to hear it, but for a variety of reasons they won’t. Does the restrictiveness of marketing sometimes bother you?
I want to credit the people at Rounder with doing the best job that they can in terms of getting my music out to different and diverse audiences. All I’ll say about that issue is I’ve found that when people get a chance to hear my music and songs, they’ve been universally positive. That’s all that I can do as a performer is present them to the best of my ability. Certainly I’d love to get all types of listeners; I think Rounder works on that as well.
You’ve chosen to remain in Johnson City. How would you describe the music scene there and are there any thoughts about possibly making a move to Nashville?
There’s a lot more of a music scene here than you might think and a lot of that is due to the presence of the university. But there’s an active singer-songwriter scene here. There’s a jazz and blues scene. Certainly it’s not as large as some other places, but it works well for me. I’ve been able to do a lot of playing in clubs when I’m home and also do some songwriting and collaborations with other artists around town. I’m quite satisfied with being here. That doesn’t mean at some time down the line I might not think about coming to Nashville. I really enjoy recording and playing there. Of course from what I hear about the cost of living, that’s a concern. Right now I have no plans to make that move.
One of your non-musical passions is science fiction. Who are some of your favorites?
Interesting that you bring that up. I’m a fan of H.P. Lovecraft from the standpoint of his creativity in depicting horror and fantasy. Now I’ve certainly also become aware of the problematic areas and that gets into the whole discussion of, can you effectively separate the artist and their work from things in their character that are less than desirable, to put it mildly. Clearly, there are things in the Lovecraft legacy that are totally anathema to me, in terms of my identity and all the things I espouse and believe. Do I find some value and get some joy from his writing from a technical perspective? Yes.
Octavia Butler is someone I’m just now beginning to really do a serious examination of and I’m very intrigued and delighted by what I’m seeing so far, especially in regards to how she sees the future and issues of race, class and gender. The Matrix series remains a favorite of mine as well.
You’re about to get back on the road. Does touring still remain something that’s exciting or has the thrill faded with time?
No, as a performer the interaction with the live audience is what drives you and keeps you going. Now I won’t deny that there’s a grind aspect, when you’ve been on the road for several days in a row or for months. But the chance to see new places and play your music for fresh faces and new audiences is an invigorating challenge. It’s really what you get into songwriting and singing to do, much more so than the dollars and cents of it. While no one would deny that you’ve also got to take care of business, it’s the exhilaration of performing that’s the ultimate reason for writing songs and making music. You get a reaction from audiences that you can’t get in the studio.
The last Friday of July came up fast, didn’t it? To close out the month, we’ve got another excellent round up of bluegrass, country, and Americana premieres that you won’t want to miss.
In the bluegrass department, we’ve got a brand new track from bluegrass hitmaker Ashby Frank featuring his labelmate Jaelee Roberts, Dallas Moore gives an intimate solo performance of “Up On That Mountain,” and we close our DelFest Sessions series with IBMA Award nominees Sister Sadie.
Coming from Americana and country camps, don’t miss a hilarious video from Jordie Lane paying homage to an East Nashville favorite, Nashville Biscuit House, Cole Gallagher shares a track that dropped earlier this week entitled “Traveling Man’s Blues,” and Mike Montrey Band serve up a quintessentially country love song, “Holdin’ on to Nothin’.”
Plus, Amythyst Kiah has just announced her upcoming Butch Walker-produced album, Still + Bright, with a lead single that features S.G. Goodman entitled, “Play God and Destroy the World.”
It’s all right here on BGS and you know what we think – You Gotta Hear This!
Ashby Frank, “God Gave Me Horses”
Artist:Ashby Frank Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “God Gave Me Horses” Release Date: July 26, 2024 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “‘God Gave Me Horses’ was co-written by one of my favorite Nashville songwriters, the great Connie Harrington, along with Leigh Nash, who is well-known for her solo recording career as well as being the lead singer for the band Sixpence None The Richer. A mutual friend of mine and Leigh’s played me her original cut of this song when she released it and I was blown away by the lyrics and instantly knew I wanted to record it with a rootsy bluegrass treatment. There are a lot of classic ‘prison songs’ that are considered bluegrass standards that talk about despair, hopelessness, and regret, but this composition has a more contemporary and positive message that I think will resonate with listeners of every generation. I’m so pleased with how this track turned out, and especially grateful for my great friend and Mountain Home Music labelmate Jaelee Roberts for lending her voice to this track. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it.” – Ashby Frank
Track Credits: Ashby Frank – Mandolin, vocals Seth Taylor – Acoustic guitar Travis Anderson – Bass Matt Menefee – Banjo Jaelee Roberts – Harmony vocals
In Their Words: “In order to really understand what ‘Traveling Man’s Blues’ is about, you’ve got to understand that I spent almost two years on the road with my father a few years back. Earlier this year, I moved from LA to Nashville, so when I got back out on the road to shoot a video for this song, I had nothing but nostalgia shooting through every frame of this video. I wasn’t much older at the time than I was driving across with my dad. But it was enough time to have forgotten how beautiful the sun looks setting in Arizona or an amazing bright blue sky over the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. I felt like I was both discovering and re-discovering myself at the same time.” – Cole Gallagher
Track Credits: Barry Billings – Guitar Chad Gamble – Drums Cole Gallagher – Guitar, vocals Jimbo Hart – Bass Jon Eldridge – Keys Sadler Vaden – Guitar
Video Credits: Shot by Cole Gallagher. Produced by Cole Gallagher. Edited by Abe Barrington.
Amythyst Kiah, “Play God and Destroy the World” (Featuring S.G. Goodman)
Artist:Amythyst Kiah Hometown: East Brainerd, Tennessee Song: “Play God and Destroy the World” (Featuring S.G. Goodman) Album:Still + Bright Release Date: July 26, 2024 (single); October 25, 2024 (album) Label: Rounder Records
In Their Words: “This song is about coming of age as a misfit in suburbia. At home, I was encouraged to be curious to and express myself, and pursue whatever interests I wanted to regardless of gender, race, sexuality, or beliefs. However, I was not always met with this same attitude out in the community I lived in and it was frustrating to feel like I couldn’t really be myself. Being a naive kid, I would sometimes fantasize about being all-powerful and changing things the way I saw fit, but it is not up to me, or anyone, to tell everyone else how to live their life. We are all from this green and blue dot in space and will return to it all the same. There’s enough suffering in life as it is, why make it worse by policing each other’s way of life?” – Amythyst Kiah
Track Credits: Written by Amythyst Kiah, Sadler Vaden. Produced by Butch Walker. Amythyst Kiah – Vocals, background vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar S.G. Goodman – Vocals, background vocals Butch Walker – Bass guitar Ellen Angelico – Electric guitar, baritone guitar, mandolin Matty Alger – Drums, percussion
Jordie Lane, “Biscuit House”
Artist:Jordie Lane Hometown: Thornbury, Australia (Based in Nashville, Tennessee) Song: “Biscuit House” Album:Tropical Depression Release Date: July 25, 2024 (single); August 16, 2024 (album) Label: Blood Thinner Records, under exclusive license to ABC Music/The Orchard
In Their Words: “As with so many of my songs, I started out writing ‘Biscuit House’ with co-writer Clare ‘Lollies’ Reynolds about something external… somebody else. It’s a way to trick yourself into feeling less vulnerable. And it’s a way to observe the character in a more realistic and less biased way. But long story short, ‘Biscuit House’ is about imposter syndrome. Something so many people feel at some point in their lives, but especially creatives in the arts. And so the idea to dress up as this weatherman character, Tom Willing, to play in the video felt very fitting to explore being an imposter in a literal sense and get completely ridiculous and over the top.” – Jordie Lane
Track Credits: Jon Radford –Drums, percussion Jon Estes – Bass, pedal steel, keys Jeremy Fetzer – Electric guitar Clare ‘Lollies’ Reynolds – Backing vocals Jordie Lane – Acoustic, tenor, piano, vocals
Video Credits: Directed by Mackenzie Brassfield & Jordie Lane. Camera, editing & color by Mackenzie Brassfield. Assistant Director of Photography, Mikey Haydon.
Mike Montrey Band, “Holdin’ on to Nothin'”
Artist:Mike Montrey Band Hometown: Spotswood, New Jersey Song: “Holdin’ on to Nothin'” Album: Love, Time & Mortality Release Date: August 2, 2024
In Their Words:“‘Holdin’ on to Nothin’ is about the process of love. It seems, more often than not, the story of love in songs is about the beautiful beginning, the tragic end, or the celebration of sustained love. However, it is often what we choose to hold on to or let go of in the most critical moments of a relationship that allows us to move forward or move on. Sometimes we just hold on to hope and sometimes we’re holdin’ on to nothin’.” – Mike Montrey
Dallas Moore, “Up On That Mountain”
Artist:Dallas Moore Hometown: San Antonio, Texas Song: “Up On That Mountain” Album:Gems & Jams Release Date: August 9, 2024 Label: Sol Records
In Their Words: “I’ve always loved bluegrass and really cut my teeth and learned guitar sitting in on countless bluegrass jam sessions back in Kentucky and southern Ohio when I was kid first starting out. My mama Madgelee played mountain dulcimer and she turned me on to a lot of bluegrass, Appalachian, and gospel music. Jimmy Martin, The Carter Family, John Hartford, The Osborne Brothers, and Flatt & Scruggs were some of my favorites to jam on and definitely influenced my style of playing and songwriting.
“‘Up On That Mountain’ is a song that I had written several years ago and that I have always called ‘a little bit of heathen preachin’.’ I even had a version of it that was recorded live in the Bullitt county jail but it’s been out of print for a while now. This song has been a staple of my live shows for many years and I’m always excited and proud that my 7 year-old daughter Victory Lee Moore joins us on stage for this one. I had a lot of fun with this solo acoustic arrangement and it felt like a perfect fit for the closing of this Gems & Jams album. Wherever I am this song always takes me back home.” – Dallas Moore
Track Credits: Dallas Moore – Vocals, guitar Brian DeBruler – Producer, engineer
DelFest Sessions: Sister Sadie
We are so excited to unveil the final installment of our DelFest Sessions, featuring Grammy-nominated bluegrass supergroup Sister Sadie. Over the course of the Memorial Day festival in Cumberland, Maryland, BGS contributors and videographers I Know We Should shot a half dozen superlative live performances on the gorgeous banks of the Potomac River. From festival hosts the Travelin’ McCourys, Big Richard, and Wood Belly to East Nash Grass, Mountain Grass Unit, and now the Sadies, each edition of our DelFest Sessions has been an audio swatch of the incredible national string band scene we all adore.
With a raucous “WOO!” shouted to the festival-goers floating by in their inner tubes and kayaks on the river, Sister Sadie stepped up to the mics to deliver two gentle, burning, emotive tracks pulled from their critically-acclaimed album, No Fear, which was released earlier this year. The first, “Blue As My Broken Heart,” was written by Dani Flowers – who sings lead on the number – with co-writers Victoria Banks and Rachel Proctor. Evocative imagery and detailed text painting here feel more than appropriate for the setting, in the verdant foothills of Appalachia on the cusp of spring and summer. You can almost feel the blue sky above and you can certainly grasp, immediately, why this group is up for eight IBMA Awards this year – including Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year…
No matter where you look in the history of country music, you’ll find some common themes – working-class stories, banjos, an appreciation for the simple life. But there’s something else fans of country music then and now all seem to love, and that’s a deep, rich singing voice.
In this roundup, we’ve gathered just 10 of the all-time best deep voices in country music, from smooth baritones to booming basses. Whether you’re a fan of outlaw country, pop country, or something a bit more classic, there’s a voice for you on this list.
Amythyst Kiah
Combining elements of Americana, old-time, folk, and country, Amythyst Kiah has spent the past decade proving she has one of the most powerful deep voices in roots music. Whether she’s sharing an arrangement of a traditional ballad or innovating Americana, Kiah brings her unique, rich, and haunting voice to everything she does. Her song “Black Myself” even earned her a Grammy nomination in 2020 for “Best American Roots Song.”
Accompanied only by banjo, Kiah’s take on the traditional ballad “Darlin’ Cory” highlights the literal and emotional depth of her one-of-a-kind voice.
Waylon Jennings
Known as a pioneer of outlaw country, Waylon Jennings got his start in country music when he was just a 14-year-old kid in Texas. He then spent six decades gracing the world with his soothing baritone voice, earning himself a permanent place in country music history – and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Alongside frequent collaborators Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash, Jennings recorded some of the most legendary songs in the modern country canon, including “Highwayman” and “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” Jennings passed away in 2002, but his deep and powerful voice remains one of the most recognizable sounds in country music.
Scotty McCreery
Newer to the scene, North Carolina-born Scotty McCreery got his industry start in 2011 after winning the 10th season of American Idol. Since then, he’s enjoyed a successful career as a country singer-songwriter – he even became a Grand Ole Opry member earlier this year – thanks largely to his smooth, deep vocals. Fitting in perfectly with the modern Nashville sound, McCreery’s most recent single, “Cab in a Solo,” showcases this young country star’s keen skill as a baritone crooner.
Orville Peck
A mysterious character in the alt-country realm, Orville Peck has one of the most stunning deep voices in country music, genre-wide. Boasting an impressive vocal range (baritone to falsetto), Peck is best known for his resounding lower register. Teaming up with country stars like Midland and Sheryl Crow, Peck has quickly made a name for himself since the release of his debut album, Pony, just five years ago. Inspired by ’60s- and ’70s country (à la Jennings and his collaborator, Willie Nelson), Peck’s brooding, emotive, and theatrical voice is a must-hear for appreciators of high-quality baritone country singers.
Trace Adkins
First rising to fame in the mid-’90s, Trace Adkins continues to reign as a big name in pop country. His gruff-yet-soothing voice sounds like a day on the farm in the hot sun — and that’s exactly why he’s on this list. A songwriter, singer, and dynamic performer, Adkins wields an unmistakable baritone voice that helped shape the sound and direction of Nashville in recent decades. If you’re looking for a chance to relive the glory days of early pop country, Adkins has the voice you’re looking for.
Randy Travis
One of the most popular country singers of all time, Randy Travis is known for his earnest songwriting style and velvet-smooth baritone voice. After getting his start in the 1980s, Travis recorded over 20 albums and charted on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart over 50 times. In 2013, he experienced a tragic, life-altering stroke, affecting his ability to sing and perform. With the help of AI, producers recently teamed up with Travis to record and release his first new single in over a decade, “Where That Came From.” Using AI to combine past existing recordings of Travis’s vocals with contributions from another singer, James Dupre, the new single captures the singer’s spirit and depth, giving listeners a newfound opportunity to appreciate a living legend.
Johnny Cash
Let’s be real: This list would not be complete without Johnny Cash. Arguably the most famous country music star to ever live, Johnny Cash is known near and far for his deep, rich voice that straddled the border between baritone and bass. Cash had a storyteller’s voice, and he used it proudly to tell the stories others weren’t telling. As time went on, Cash’s voice settled into its lower register, which can be heard on his final non-posthumous album American IV: The Man Comes Around. But there’s no better way to showcase the rumbling voice of Johnny Cash than through his infamous recording of “Folsom Prison Blues,” recorded live at Folsom State Prison in 1968.
Jim Reeves
One of the forefathers of country music, Jim Reeves wielded one of the most beautiful baritone voices in the genre. A true crooner and country & western artist, Jim Reeves’s voice is smooth, deep, and unforgettable. Arguably the most technically accomplished singer on this list, Reeves topped the country charts throughout the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. A dynamic and masterful baritone with a gentle stage presence, Reeves played a huge role in shaping the sound of Nashville and his influence is still felt today.
Colter Wall
Canadian singer-songwriter Colter Wall released his first single, “The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie,” in 2015 when he was just 20 years old. Showcasing Wall’s impossibly deep and weathered voice, the single swiftly launched the young artist into the limelight, mostly via a live performance video on YouTube. Treading the country and Americana borderlands, Wall has one of those voices that makes you think, “How is that sound coming out of that person?”
Since his debut, Wall has released five full-length albums, including his 2023 release, Little Songs. Throughout his catalogue, Wall never misses a beat or fails to remind us that he has one of the deepest and richest bass voices in country.
Josh Turner
For Josh Turner, bass singing is old hat. He grew up singing bass parts in church choirs and gospel quartets, then debuting at the Grand Ole Opry when he was just 24. Now in his 40s, Turner has spent over half his life making waves in the industry as one of the only true bass singers in the genre — and a top-notch one at that. In May 2024, Turner released a brand-new single, “Heatin’ Things Up,” proving he still deserves the title of the man with the most satisfying deep voice in country.
Photo Credit: Johnny Cash courtesy of JohnnyCash.com.
Since her solo debut in 2014, Vari-Colored Songs: a Tribute to Langston Hughes, multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, and thought leader Leyla McCalla has routinely and consistently expanded her own sonic universe. But these have not been gratuitous or ambitious artistic reinventions. Instead, the cellist and multi-instrumentalist intentionally and organically brings in new and exciting textures, influences, stories, cultural touch points, and text paintings into her work. On April 12, she’ll continue in a similar vein, once again broadening her own endless musical horizons with a brand new record, Sun Without the Heat, available via ANTI-.
After Vari-Colored Songs, a collection of thoughtful, dense, and engaging adapted Hughes poems, Haitian folk, and originals, the critically acclaimed and “fan favorite” collection, A day for the hunter, a day for the prey (2016), brought in still more French, Haitian Creole, and bilingual material, underpinned by string band sounds that recalled her days performing and recording with the Carolina Chocolate Drops – but with many iconoclastic wrinkles and touches uniquely her own. At no point has there seemed to be any floundering or self doubt, musically and otherwise, in McCalla’s releases, but still their progression points to a growing confidence, an indelible sense of self, and an unwavering commitment to telling often untold stories. Time and again, she plumbs the depths of her own soul, her family, her lineage to discover and honor narratives regularly left in the shadows.
Sun Without the Heat certainly finds McCalla – who is based in New Orleans – covering exciting, tantalizing new ground that neither feels entirely new or, again, like any sort of attempt at frivolous reinvention. Instead, this album is a re-distillation of the personal journey – whether inward or outward – that McCalla has invited us to join her on since Vari-Colored Songs. Over 10 tracks, Sun Without the Heat is fiery while inviting, with limitless sparks and an intractable gravity. Building on her Haitian roots, which remained front-and-center in 2019’s incredible TheCapitalist Blues and also anchored her theatrical sort-of-concept album, Breaking the Thermometer (2022), on Sun Without the Heat McCalla again subverts antiquated ideas around “world music” and global folk by grounding Afrobeat, Ethiopian music theory, Brazilian Tropicalismo, and more in her American folk and string band expertise.
The result, like on TheCapitalist Blues and Breaking the Thermometer, is as charming as it is dense, crave-able and nutritious, entirely one-of-a-kind while obviously interconnected with so many constituent musical traditions. There are clearly lessons learned and perspectives gained from her time collaborating with supergroup Our Native Daughters – with Amythyst Kiah, Allison Russell, and Rhiannon Giddens – here, too. On the new album, with her arm-length resumé at her disposal, McCalla remains the industrial-strength adhesive holding together all of these seemingly disparate parts. Sun Without the Heat’s current singles, “Scaled to Survive” (listen above), “Tree,” and “Love We Had” are a perfect aural triptych to demonstrate McCalla’s deft combination of inputs to create a singular output.
It’s nearly impossible to overstate the impact the Carolina Chocolate Drops and its now legendary alumni have had on American roots music and global folk. Giddens, Dom Flemons, Rowan Corbett, Justin Robinson, and more each continue to increase their audiences’ scope of understanding well after their time in the Grammy Award-winning group. But the niche McCalla has carved out and built a home for herself within since branching out from the band is truly her own.
Sun Without the Heat is timeless while Afrofuturist, essential but never essentialist. This is folk music crafted in the spirit of folk musician activists the world over since time immemorial. When you listen to McCalla, whether Sun Without the Heat or Capitalist Blues, or any of her five studio albums, you can rest assured what you’re hearing is truly idiosyncratic, while she never lets her listeners mistakenly assume she and she alone is the sole arbiter of these sounds, genres, and traditions. It’s a deft balancing act that perhaps only she can execute with such ease and such entrancing music.
All month long, we’ll be celebrating Sun Without the Heat and Leyla McCalla as our Artist of the Month. Enjoy our Essential Leyla McCalla Playlist below and stay tuned for our AOTM interview to come later in April.
In country and roots music, authenticity is treated like the most valuable currency of all. Maybe that’s because the genre has always been caught between the fiction that this music is frozen in amber and the reality that it has always borrowed liberally from current musical trends in order to have commercial value. The earliest popular country music was an amalgamation of regional music from rural white artists, music stolen wholesale from Black and Indigenous artists, and plenty of nods to prevailing pop (i.e., urban or non-rural) trends – looking back at the places young laborers and listeners that had been drawn to cities came from, and the exciting present and future they found themselves in once they arrived.
Can anyone or anything truly be considered “authentic” in America, a country whose identity is built on masking fundamental historical truths?
While artists like Zach Bryan are hailed for their “authenticity,” the vast majority of the current class of mainstream country and Americana artists grew up in suburbs, in postmodern America, in the internet age, and are graduates of major colleges – like Nashville’s Belmont University or Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Their experiences are also authentic, of course, to each individual artist – just as Bryan’s initial motel room demos are electrifying for the soul he brought to them. But these origins bring up questions around how country and Americana construct “authentic” narratives, especially to market roots music.
Still, it’s noticeable that certain types of creators are automatically considered “authentic” country artists – and they often match the complexion of the first generations of country singers, when “race records” and “hillbilly music” were originally split and whose most famous individuals wore cowboy cosplay on stage.
We want to tip you off to some real Good Country music: Music that portrays life in its complexity and a deep appreciation for one’s roots, whether they lie in the Bronx, rural Arkansas, or anywhere else on this rich blue marble we live on. Because authenticity in country doesn’t necessarily equate to rurality, to back roads and red dirt and farm trucks; real country music is real not because it’s built to be “authentic,” but because it’s honest.
Hurray For the Riff Raff
Hurray For the Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra is from a little bit of everywhere, but the Bronx is where they grew up and the punk houses of the Lower East Side raised them. Between their jazz artist father and picking up a guitar as they rode the rails, Segarra’s approach to folk music began with a traditional bent and has since exhaled into an expansive approach, as with their astonishing 2022 album Life on Earth. Their upcoming album The Past Is Still Alive finds Segarra focusing more on twang, but their philosophical core has always remained the same: breathing life into unspoken pain and empowering people that society would like us to forget.
Amythyst Kiah
Amythyst Kiah’s music is a powerful force. Inspired by the blues and old time music, Kiah uses her art to prop the furnace doors open to make way for blasts of grief and abandonment. Kiah grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee and picked up the guitar while attending an arts magnet school. She fell in love with old time music at East Tennessee State University and never looked back.
I first saw Kiah in 2016 at Karen Pittelman’s Queer Country Quarterly, her first show in NYC. Karen introduced her by remarking, “trust me, she’s going to be famous.” When Kiah belted her powerful alto, we all knew we were in the midst of greatness. Kiah’s most recent work on Wary + Strange (2021) takes us in a more experimental direction, but her exploration of alienation – like a toy in her hands – informs her music no matter what she’s plugging into her pedalboard. Kiah’s “Black Myself,” originally recorded with supergroup Our Native Daughters, fiercely proclaims her love for herself and her ancestors.
Willi Carlisle
Willi Carlisle has seen a thing or two in his travels across the lower 48. Carlisle cut his teeth musically in DIY and punk rock, but his search for queer role models and love for poetry drew him to New York City. With disgust for the elitism of the poetry scene there – and their mockery of his roots in the Midwest – Carlisle went searching for a life of words in folk music.
Carlisle has a knack for painting complex portraits of down-and-out characters, refusing to be drawn into simple narratives of left and right, red and blue. His stunning “When the Pills Wear Off” from the upcoming Critterland demonstrates Carlisle’s ability to turn the personal into the political – and back into the personal again. This is not the blind invective of JD Vance, but the realization that only empathy can build bridges between people who think they have nothing in common.
ISMAY (née Avery Hellman) has spent their whole life around folk and bluegrass music – their grandfather is one of the founders of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. As a contestant on Apple TV+’s short-lived My Kind of Country competition series, ISMAY is very much a representative of roots music’s vanguard. With their sparse arrangements and winsome vocals, ISMAY’s music feels like deconstructed folk music. They understand the core elements of the sound thanks to a lifetime immersed in it, and they create something wholly unique from its constituent parts, as we hear on “Point Reyes.” There, ISMAY’s contemplative vocals are orbited by a gauzy cloud of pedal steel and gentle finger-picking. ISMAY’s upcoming album Desert Pavement speaks to their sense of place: all of their music is enamored by nature. “Golden Palomino” illustrates ISMAY’s love for their rural California upbringing, guiding us to realize how much our natural and inner worlds inform each other.
Buffalo Nichols
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more devastating songwriter or guitar player than Buffalo Nichols. Nichols, like many teenagers before him, picked up a guitar and played his way through the hip-hop and hardcore scenes in his Milwaukee hometown. He found himself drawn to blues music as he began to dig into his mother’s collection and connect with Cream City’s West African community. Nichols and musical partner Joanna Rose made a mark on the Americana scene with their duo Nickel and Rose, shining a harsh light on the ignorance on full display in the community’s supposedly liberal refuge on the song “Americana.”
With his most recent solo album The Fatalist, Nichols brings all of his experience to bear on a remarkable collection of songs that combine elements of all of his musical loves. On his rendition of the classic “You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond,” Nichols’ guitar becomes an extension of his own body with lightning-fast licks. Buttressed by electronic drum samples and a haze of synths, Nichols shows that music is at its most vital when it is rooted in the past and embraces the future.
Ally Free
Ally Free is one to keep your eye on in 2024. They write in their bio that they see music as the universal language that can bring people together, and that’s clear on their versatile 2019 album Rise. From the nu metal-inspired chugging of “Fool’s Gold” to the craftsman’s approach to “Fast Train,” Free isn’t embarrassed to draw from any inspiration to make a damn good song. Free’s rich alto gives their music depth: from their performances, it’s clear that this is someone who has lived a lot of life. Free is one of the newest members of the Black Opry and has taken a few steps out of their Huntsville, AL hometown to playing more shows around Nashville. Here’s hoping that means the rest of us get to hear more from this remarkable performer soon.
William Prince
William Prince’s voice carries a warm, earthy timbre that is wholly unique. Prince grew up on Peguis First Nation (in what is now Canada) and is well-versed in the travails of people living under oppression. But that experience is translated into patience and warmth, a gentle perseverance that can only come from a keen observer. Prince’s stark breakout album Reliever (2020) has given way to the warm Stand in the Joy (2023), which details the travails and victories we most often find in daily life. “Tanqueray” is a gorgeous example of Prince’s dynamic, a story of two improbable lovers finally coming together to make it work.
Sabine McCalla
Sabine McCalla is readying for a breakout 2024. McCalla’s music is steeped in the sounds of New Orleans, which she has made her home. McCalla has performed with others, but her performance on Offbeat Magazine’s OnBeat Session from September 2023 shows us she’s ready to step out on her own. For now, we have her 2018 EP Folk, which sports arresting songs that feel timeless. Maybe it’s the gentle groove in her music that feels like the stately flow of the Mississippi River – discordant with the immediacy of her lyrics that protest violence and oppression, as demonstrated by “I Went to the Levee.”
Margo Cilker
Look – Margo Cilker is literally a cowboy, okay?? Isn’t that what you imagine when someone mentions “country music” and “authenticity” in the same breath? But Cilker’s music glorifies a life of searching, not a mythologized America of white picket fences, so you can also picture the quintessential Nashville executive saying, “We like cowboys, but no, not like that.”
Cilker’s latest album, critical darling Valley of Heart’s Delight, is nostalgic for her family orchard in California’s Santa Clara Valley – but not without a heavy dose of reality. “Mother Told Her Mother Told Me” caution the listener not to become too attached to any one place – and the cost of leaving it behind. Cilker’s impassioned “With The Middle” cuts to the core of her work – a weighing of the contrasts between pleasure and pain and yearning to find common ground between the two.
Brittany Howard
Brittany Howard transcends pretty much everything – except the act of exploration with wild abandon. Having gained notoriety as the lead singer of the retro soul band the Alabama Shakes, Howard seemingly will not rest until she’s drawn with every musical crayon in the box. In her recent interview with NPR’s Jewly Hight, Howard cracks that she grew up in a trailer and would still be perfectly content to be working the land somewhere. But her music has led her elsewhere, perhaps everywhere. Howard has teased a few songs off her upcoming album, What Now, with the title track featuring hooky grooves and propulsive energy, but it’s “Red Flags” that astounds with its jarring drum loop, woozy vocals, and disorienting production that demonstrates how much mastery Howard has gained in her craft as an artist and storyteller.
Samantha Crain
Few artists in the last decade have shown the same growth and versatility as Samantha Crain. A part of the rich Tulsa music scene that has given us John Moreland, John Calvin Abney, and M Lockwood Porter, Crain follows a road all her own. Under Branch & Thorn & Tree (2015) found Crain exploring the pride and trauma of her Choctaw heritage through folk-inspired music. In 2017, Crain broke her own mold with the quirky indie-pop album You Had Me at Goodbye (2017.) Since her 2020 album, A Small Death, Crain has been playing in the spaces in between, utilizing woodwinds, pedal steel, pianos, and guitar to create a woozy soundscape as her spacious, gravelly voice helps us stay anchored in the real.
Nick Shoulders
Nick Shoulders rounds up the list with his commanding All Bad. While Shoulders’ music leans traditional sonically, it’s anything but. The Fayetteville, Arkansas singer begins his album with phaser blasts and a menacing invitation to a “conversation,” and that conversation is explicitly about all the “country” stylings that deserve to be thrown in the trash heap – and the many, many qualities we need to hold on to and claim for ourselves: grit, honesty, love, and togetherness. “Won’t Fence Us In” and “Appreciate’cha” speak to this theme most clearly, but the way Shoulders approaches the classic country canon with loving irreverence reminds us that we never have to be weighed down by tradition.
This weekend, September 21, 22, and 23, at the West Virginia State Fairgrounds in Lewisburg, West Virginia, ascendant, down home country star Tyler Childers and his cohort will gather for an event begun in 2018 called Healing Appalachia. The benefit festival, put on by West Virginia based non-profit Hope in the Hills, will include performances by some of the biggest and buzziest names in American roots music: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Trey Anastasio Band, Marcus King, Umphrey’s McGee, Amythyst Kiah and many more.
Healing Appalachia is just one of many such community-led, collective efforts born from within the region in recent years that is working towards effecting positive change while offering local, ground-up solutions to big, systemic problems. Their social media and website put it elegantly and succinctly: Their vision is a prosperous Appalachia, free from addiction. The opioid crisis has hit Appalachia, especially West Virginia and Childers’ home state of Kentucky, incredibly hard. When 26 people overdosed on one day in Huntington, West Virginia, in 2016, the mission for Hope in the Hills and Healing Appalachia was born.
At the time, Childers and his hardscrabble team were still climbing the music-industry ladder, building connections and community that would eventually grow and blossom into the multi-day event Healing Appalachia has become today. Childers’ friend and manager, Ian Thornton – who founded WhizzbangBAM, the booking and management company that represents Childers – together with festival program director Charlie Hatcher, Hope in the Hills board president Dave Lavender, and others took that tragic day in Huntington and turned it into an accretion point, around which they gathered and took action. Now, the festival has a local, annual economic impact approaching $3 million while raising thousands of dollars to be distributed to local, on-the-ground organizations and non-profits that specialize in addiction programs, recovery, support and healing for this long-oppressed region of the world.
We spoke to Ian Thornton and Dave Lavender for a two-part interview preview of Healing Appalachia, that dives into the work of Hope in the Hills and explores this grassroots music event’s community-first mission, that hopes to heal these music-steeped, underestimated communities in Appalachia from the inside out. Read our conversation with Ian Thornton below, read our conversation with Dave Lavender here.
Could you tell me a little bit about the background, the impetus, or the inspiration when you all were putting your heads together to make an event called Healing Appalachia. What was that like?
Ian Thornton: I’m very close friends with a fellow named Charlie Hatcher, who’s actually the festival producer for the event. The idea came to him first – you know, he tells the story better than I do – but he was on a fishing trip and got a call that yet another one of his friends had passed away from an opioid overdose. You know, we’ve all lost countless friends who we grew up with, went to school with, and I guess you’d say this one was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Charlie just kind of wanted to do something about it. He reached out to me and we got our heads working.
We’re not a recovery organization ourselves, right? But what we’re good at is the music side of things, producing events, working with musicians, playing music, inspiring people, bringing people together. That’s kind of how it was born. I talked to Charlie, who is friends with Tyler [Childers], too, and obviously this is something Tyler is very passionate about.
Tyler is also from Appalachia and he’s lost friends and family members, himself. The idea kind of spawned from thinking, “What if we do essentially a Farm Aid type of event?” The thought process was to have Tyler be the face of it and have all the efforts go towards recovery and the battle against the opioid epidemic here in Appalachia.
What I love about a cause like this is that the music itself is generative and restorative, and isn’t just a tool to generate interest or awareness. How do music and the arts play a role in a mission like this, in healing Appalachia, where the music can do the work as well as spotlighting the work? Do you agree or disagree?
IT: I certainly agree, and I think music is one of those things that ties everyone together, right? On a base level.
This one I think is in particular, it’s special because substance use and music are pretty closely tied together. A lot of musicians suffer from [substance abuse], and it’s part of the lifestyle, right? It’s part of what you see as “the rock and roll lifestyle” or whatever you call it. They kind of go hand in hand. We’re all more aware of it now, too, and we all know folks who have taken things to the extreme, then they’ve had to kind of pull back and get sober after feeling like they lost their way. We wanna show that sobriety and rock and roll – or whatever you want to call it – can live together harmoniously, just as easy as the party side of things.
A very good friend of mine, who’s no longer with us, Tom Morgan, he battled with sobriety for a long time. He was one of the guys that taught me my first chords on a guitar, right? And it got to the point, for him, where he couldn’t even go to shows locally, because they’re always at bars, right? Venues and bars are so closely associated that it can be difficult for someone who is in recovery.
I think that’s why the music side of Healing Appalachia, using music to bring awareness to this epidemic, really goes hand-in-hand. Even some of our performers – Trey Anastasio is performing this year and I think he’s over 15 years sober, now. Obviously with Phish, which is, you know, the jam band, you would assume, drug culture and everything else is associated with that. But, Trey’s only gotten greater in what he’s done with his musicianship. And, you know, Tyler even comments too that his artistry has improved and he’s been able to focus more on it since becoming sober and quitting drinking.
What is the importance of community and mutual aid to this mission, and how important is it that you all are not just people coming in from the outside, that you all have a stake in this – regionally and locally. Do you think that building community as you’re doing this is just as important as doing the work as well?
IT: Yeah. And, you know, to be honest, I think that’s where it has to start. You can look at things on these big levels and you can just get overcome or overwhelmed with how large the changes you’re trying to make are. At that point you get discouraged and you’re not going to do it.
Living inside Appalachia, we have heard all of the stereotypes. That we’re, you know, “Shoeless, toothless, drug-addled, fat…” We’ve dealt with these things and we’ve dealt with the oppression of the coal industry, of big money, of big pharma. All of this built on the backs of Appalachians.
I’ve always been someone who believes that you have to start locally. You have to have something that’s attainable. Something you can put your hands on and something that’s meaningful – it’s more meaningful to us because we’re in the fucking thick of it, right? I mean, Huntington, West Virginia, was almost the nucleus of the opioid crisis, and that’s the city I was born and raised in. We watched [everything] happen, the day there were 26 overdoses in one day due to a bad batch of heroin coming in. If you create something locally and have local people that are invested, what that does is it will not only grow the mission in and of itself, to help people become more aware. But one of my ultimate goals was always for someone else to see what we’re doing and it inspires them to do something in their region. Sometimes that’s all people need. They just need to be pushed over the hump to get the inspiration.
Do you have an idea of the scale of the economic impact of the festival, not only for your mission, but also for the area in general?
Yeah, so I’m going to refer to my fact sheet here. [Laughs] We’ve estimated $2.4 million in local economy spending in southern West Virginia and the Lewisburg area. That’s like hotels, gas stations, shops, restaurants, everything. On top of that, we donate money directly, too, and we pull a lot of volunteers from the region.
Like, the local high school basketball team will come and clean up trash. We’ve given more than $50,000 to local youth organizations in Greenbrier County alone. I think we had over 30 states and 6 countries represented last year in concertgoers. It does make the point for you: You can have all of the apparatus and all the infrastructure, but if you don’t have the community, how do you take those numbers and turn them into something that means something to the people who are on the ground there in West Virginia? And involving them, too, right? Everything from the car lots to catering to cooking burgers out back.
To date, we have donated over $400,000 to recovery wellness organizations. That goes to over two dozen different organizations. We’re not a recovery organization ourselves, right? We’re facilitators. What we’re trying to do is give people that want to do that side of the work the means to do it. We don’t have this crazy application process for grantees. You don’t have to have a degree in grant writing to come to us. Tell us what it is you’re doing, tell us what you need. It could be needle exchange programs or money going towards Jacob’s Ladder, which is an organization for children that were born addicted. We try to hit all sides of it that we can, relying on donations as well as funds raised from the concert itself.
What bands, acts, or artists are you particularly excited about this year when you look at the lineup? It’s a pretty stout lineup!
To be quite honest, I’m pretty excited about the whole thing! When this started it was a small, one day event. I think we only had around 7,500 people show up to it. Last year, we had 16,000+ plus.
I’m personally pretty excited about Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB. I’m such a Phish fan, obviously, and can’t believe we’re having Trey play right before Tyler. I’m just really stoked about that! Also excited for Gov’t Mule, Isbell, 49 Winchester, who are cruising right now. And then, you know, keeping some local folks involved, too, your Kelsey Waldon, Charles Wesley Godwin. And Mr. Tommy Prime, who is fantastic and obviously, his father was an inspiration to a lot of these folks.
It’s really special to see some of these folks actually coming to us now. At first, you know how it is, you have to go beg people, “Hey… I’m doing this charity thing… You want to go play for free? We’ll get you in the local paper…” The “exposure” gigs, right? And now the pitch writes itself! The work that’s been done speaks for itself and people get behind it.
It goes back to the tie with substance abuse and music. You know, they go hand in hand. … I drink, right? It’s nothing that I’m personally [abusing], thankfully. But substance abuse is a thing that can get out of hand in the music industry.
Tommy Prine performs at Healing Appalachia 2022.
Let’s close with two questions and they feel very big, but don’t be alarmed: What does a healed Appalachia look like to you, personally? And what’s one thing that you’d like people to know about Appalachia?
IT: I mean in healing Appalachia, we just have to make it so that folks don’t feel trapped or alone. And to let them know, if it’s a battle they’re going up against, they’re not the first one to do it, even if it’s not an easy battle. It’s not going to be a mound to climb, it’s a goddamn mountain, right? So, having the availability and the resources in place so that when someone is ready to take this on, whether it be the first time or the 10th time, that they don’t feel ashamed or guilty about it. That they feel loved and like a human being.
Question 2, I think wherever you come from, rural, urban, or whatever, it’s the stigmas, right? I want people to know how those stigmas make an impact. The stereotypes of, “They’re fat, uneducated. They live in hills and don’t wear shoes, right?” The whole reason I do what I do, with Whizzbang in particular, I only work with acts from our region. And I do that specifically. When I started getting into all this, even before Tyler, just seeing the music that’s created here. We are not just one thing, right? Nobody is just one thing. You cannot judge a whole people by the bit of the iceberg that floats on top.
The stuff on top that’s the most visual, but you can’t judge a whole people by that. Appalachia is the most beautiful place in the country. Granted, I’m biased. I grew up there.
(Editor’s Note: Read part two, our conversation with Hope in the Hills board president Dave Lavender, here.)
Traditional country phenom and Kentuckian Tyler Childers has announced his upcoming album, Rustin’ In The Rain (available September 8, 2023), with a brand new single and music video, “In Your Love.” Written and creative directed by New York Times bestselling author Silas House, the video tells a gay love story between two working class, Appalachian men – played by queer A-list actors and celebrities Colton Haynes and James Scully. The visuals for “In Your Love” tell one of country music’s most prominent and visible LGBTQ+ narratives to date, entering an industry landscape that has become more and more (openly) queer over the past decade.
“In Your Love” reminds of songs and albums released not just by left-leaning, more mainstream artists like Childers and Parker Millsap, but also by queer artists themselves, telling working-class stories and histories just like that constructed and depicted by House and director Bryan Schlam. In 2015, gay banjo player, singer-songwriter, and fellow Kentucky-resident Sam Gleaves released a landmark album, Ain’t We Brothers, which dripped with the exact same lived experiences and soot-tinged patina that inform Childers’ new video. In the past couple of years, releases by LGBTQ+ identified music makers like Amanda Fields, Willi Carlisle, Adeem the Artist, Amythyst Kiah, Jaimee Harris, and more trod similar ground. It’s notable still that an artist – however outlaw- or fringe-identified – as mainstream as Tyler Childers and with as broad a fanbase as his would choose to not only highlight queer, working-class storytelling, but to do so in a way that normalizes and re-centers these ways of being in Kentucky, the South, and Appalachia.
Rustin’ In The Rain will be released via RCA Records on Childers’ own imprint, Hickman Holler Records, on September 8. Via press release, Childers describes the inspiration that birthed Rustin’: “This is a collection of songs I playfully pieced together as if I was pitching a group of songs to Elvis. Some covers, one co-write, and some I even wrote in my best (terrible) Elvis impersonation, as I worked around the farm and kicked around the house. I hope you enjoy listening to this album as much as I enjoyed creating it. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Clearly, the legacy of “The King” is merely one way drama, mystique, nuance, entertainment, and Southern-ness coalesce within this new project from one of the most exciting voices and perspectives in country.
Photo Credit: Sam Waxman
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
