You’ve reached the end of the week and, for your reward, we’ve collected a superlative handful of brand new videos, visualizers, and songs from roots music spheres.
Kicking us off, actor and indie-folk singer-songwriter Katie Boeck puts yearning “almost-love” in the spotlight with “Dust.” It’s a lovely, contemplative track that showcases that Boeck is equally at home in indie-tinged Americana as she is on a Broadway stage. Continuing in a similar context, with tender harmonies and fingerpicking as a sound bed Canadian folk duo Ocie Elliott also consider the messy, uncertain, shifting sands of loving someone and the circular nature of giving of yourself to another in that most intimate way.
Guitarist and composer Ben Garnett announced his upcoming sophomore album earlier this week. Kite’s Keep arrives in October, heralded here with the first single, “Look Again,” and a live performance video of the bustling, prismatic track featuring Brittany Haas on fiddle and Ethan Jodziewicz on bass. It demonstrates the consistently thoughtful and outside-the-box approach Garnett takes in crafting solo acoustic guitar music that bridges jazz, bluegrass, new acoustic, and more.
The Far West, Los Angeles-based country strutters, tapped Dave Alvin as a guest for their brand new track, “Hope I Don’t Bleed.” Dropping next week on August 22, you can get a sneak preview of the vibing, psychedelic LA-canyons-via-swampy-bottoms tune below. And, wrapping us up, singer-songwriter Jon LaDeau draws inspiration from a long New York City to Bristol, Tennessee, drive with “East Tennessee Wrecker.” He’s joined by Emily Jackson on the new single and performance video, which features a lovely stripped down version of the track, unadorned and shining.
Whatever your favorite flavor of country, folk, and roots music, there’s something for you to enjoy herein. You Gotta Hear This!
Katie Boeck, “Dust”
Artist:Katie Boeck Hometown: San Luis Obispo, California Song: “Dust” Release Date: August 15, 2025
In Their Words: “‘Dust’ came out of the ache of almost-love – the kind where someone lingers near your heart, but never fully arrives. I was thinking of the tortoise and the hare, but as a metaphor for emotional pacing between two people. It began as an ultimatum, but ended as an acceptance of what is – without clinging to what could’ve been. I recorded it with Shane Leonard (Anna Tivel, Humbird), a producer I’ve long admired, at his studio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, live to tape, which was my first experience in that setting. Creatively, it was also an exercise in letting something be what it was in that moment, without all the modern temptations and expectations of perfection.” – Katie Boeck
Track Credits: Katie Boeck – Vocals, guitars, songwriter Joe Westerlund – Drums Pat Keen – Bass Paul Brandt – Keys Shane Leonard – Drums, producer, mixing, mastering
Video Credit: Bella Mazzola, Twin Lantern Productions
Ocie Elliott, “By The Way”
Artist:Ocie Elliott Hometown: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Song: “By The Way” Album:Bungalow Release Date: August 15, 2025 (single); October 24, 2025 (album) Label: Nettwerk Music Group
In Their Words: “‘By The Way’ is a song about the beautiful mess of loving someone – choosing love not just in spite of challenging dynamics, but because of them. It’s a recognition that no matter how fleeting and uncertain the unfolding of a story may be, love is the constant that it always circles back to. The song was written after many months away on tour and it was one of the first melodies and chord progressions that came to me once I delved back into writing. Sometimes songs take a while to come into being, but this was one of those tunes that arrived almost fully formed.” – Jon Middleton
The Far West, “Hope I Don’t Bleed”
Artist:The Far West Hometown: Los Angeles, California Song: “Hope I Don’t Bleed” featuring Dave Alvin Album:Everything We Thought We Wanted Release Date: August 22, 2025 (single); September 26, 2025 (album) Label: Blackbird Record Label
In Their Words: “I’d been kicking this one around for years, but could never find the arrangement I wanted to suit the lyrics. Aaron, Robert, and Brian really found the swampy vibe I couldn’t seem to. The bass puts this right in the pocket it needed to be, and having Dave Alvin tear a white-hot solo through it made it complete.
“Dave played this solo though my amp, which is a special little factoid for me. The amp is now blessed. My little Fender only has a volume and tone knob, and I used to tape the volume knob down at shows because the vibration of the amp would cause it to turn itself up as it rattled. I took the tape off in the studio. Dave likes things loud and either the amp turned itself up to 10 or he did, either way each take got louder.
“You can hear the amp being pressed to its absolute limit. I know he’s blown some bigger amps on stage, I was surprised my little amp survived. A few months after he laid down this solo, I saw him at the Astro Diner and mentioned we were listening back and ‘we think the amp turned itself up on you during the session’… he just looked at me and said, ‘No it didn’t.’ Anyway, this one is simply about being afraid of experiencing pain at death.” – Lee Briante
Ben Garnett, “Look Again”
Artist:Ben Garnett Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Look Again” Album:Kite’s Keep Release Date: August 12, 2025 (single); October 10, 2025 (album) Label: Padiddle Records
In Their Words: “‘Look Again’ is the first track on my sophomore studio album, Kite’s Keep. The album title loosely refers to this idea of a child’s inner world – a dreamscape where each song represents a different vignette of imagination.
“With ‘Look Again,’ I wanted the music to feel prismatic. As if to suggest an imaginative universe emerging from an ordinary one. I was interested in exploring, in musical terms, the idea that perception is never fixed. Like the old saying goes, ‘You never step in the same river twice’ – one also never sees the same thing twice. Any time we return to anything, it’s always different, with all things constantly in motion.
“On top of this, I had the immense joy of working with two musicians I deeply adore: Brittany Haas on fiddle and Ethan Jodziewicz on bass. Their performances brought the track to life in ways I couldn’t have imagined.” – Ben Garnett
Video Credits: Tessa Cokkinias – Cinematography Ben Garnett – Video
Jon LaDeau, “East Tennessee Wrecker”
Artist:Jon LaDeau Hometown: Brooklyn, New York Song: “East Tennessee Wrecker” featuring Emily Jackson Album:Chateau LaDeau Release Date: August 22, 2025 Label: Adhyâropa Records
In Their Words: “‘East Tennessee Wrecker’ is a song that has been picking at me for a long time. Several years ago, I was traveling with my band from Brooklyn, NY to Bristol, TN to play at the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion. It’s about a 10-hour drive and for some reason our navigation system was counting down the hours until we arrived at East Tennessee Wrecker. We didn’t know what that was, but discovered upon arriving in the area that it was a towing service that I believe has since changed names. For some reason that title got imprinted in my mind and as time went by the structure of a song began to reveal itself.
“I recorded the guitars, bass, and drums in my studio in Brooklyn and when the music felt right, I was lucky to have Emily Jackson come by and sing a duet with me to tie it all together. We sang together live into one mic and that’s what you hear on the album. I brought this version of the song to David Butler and he fleshed out the arrangement by adding a second drum set, a drum machine, and some sparse keyboard stuff. I’m really happy with how this one came out and I feel lucky that D. James Goodwin was available to really bring the performances we captured to their full sonic potential by mixing and mastering.
“At the heart of the song it’s really just acoustic guitar and vocals, so I wanted to capture a stripped down version as well. Aaron Cassara filmed Emily and I singing it at The Scratcher here in the East Village, NYC. I’ve been very fortunate to work out a lot of my songs here over the years during their Sunday night music series so it felt natural to capture a version of the song in the same way you would hear it live in a room that means so much to me. This song seems to reinforce the feelings of connection I have to my community. I hope that it lifts up anyone who gives it a listen.” – Jon LaDeau
Photo Credit: Katie Boeck by New Norm Studios; Ben Garnett by Natia Cinco.
Featuring Harry Clark on mandolin, James Kee on guitar, fiddler Maddie Denton, bassist/Dobro player Jeff Partin, and Cory Walker on banjo, East Nash Grass began as ragtag group of pickers blowing off steam at a honky-tonk in Madison, Tennessee, just northeast of Nashville proper. It has always been a band open to both unusual ideas and committed to the classic form. Still, their new album, All God’s Children, takes the metaphorical cake.
After winning the 2024 IBMA Award for New Artist of the Year, touring internationally, and even making their co-headline debut at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, All God’s Children feels like a joyful tribute to the many ways life gets good – and to bluegrass’s many salt-of-the-earth styles. With skillful traditional picking and a focus on diversity (both thematically and in the band’s tendency to share the spotlight at center stage), East Nash Grass deliver a truly spirit-satisfying album. Just don’t let its name fool you – this ain’t gospel.
“I enjoyed that it’s a little bit of a misnomer,” says Kee, with a touch of mischief in his voice. “We are a fairly traditional bluegrass band and we do some gospel music, but … anybody who knows us would know pretty immediately, it’s not a gospel album. I kind of liked that it would make somebody who doesn’t know our music take a second look.”
Out August 22 and featuring everything from good-old fashioned traveling songs to a reimagined West African folk tune, All God’s Children celebrates the coming together of worlds. James, Harry, and Maddie spoke with BGS from a Montana tour stop and explained how they reached their universally minded creative crossroads.
What’s the vibe with you guys these days? The last few years have been a bit of a Cinderella story and you’ve done so well. How are you feeling creatively?
Harry Clark: We’re in road mode right now. I feel like we were in a real creative mode around December when we were finishing the album and you kind of have to go into a different mode for … “Alright, let’s get through three weeks on the road in a van.” That’s a different kind of mindset.
But going into the album process, was there no pressure to change the way you’ve been doing things in the past – just because now there’s been a little more success?
HC: I feel like there are just ideas and things that seem to exist that we want to bring into life. That’s how the creative process has been for us. I wouldn’t call it aimless, but we kind of just let it happen on its own in terms – what songs people are bringing in and what the mood of those are. It’s just recording a record. It’s kind of like seasons of your life.
This one has a little bit of everything. You’ve got some new songs, a couple covers, and even a [modified] Liberian chant. Was this just kind of a cross section of everything the band is into right now?
Maddie Denton: I think everybody’s been getting into different stuff on their own. And everybody’s writing with other people, while we’re writing together. So I guess “cross section” is a good word for it. We just wanted to put together some songs that we liked.
How about thematically? It’s called All God’s Children and you guys say very clearly this is not a gospel record, but it does have a spiritual element, right? What do you mean by that?
James Kee: We debated a couple different titles. I was afraid that this traditional bluegrass crowd would hear that [title] and assume it was gospel, which would be an issue. And then once I kind of sunk my teeth in, I actually thought that [song, “All God’s Children,”] was the heart of the album, and it just seemed like the right title.
All the songs on it are a good showing of different walks of life. It’s not just one thought for each song. It’s not about the same person throughout each song. It’s different short stories throughout the album. It kind of goes hand in hand with “all of God’s children,” because it’s a bunch of different things. Not just one.
MD: It also came about after we had done some international travel as a band. Some of us had been to other countries, but not with the band, and then in February of last year we went to Ireland and Switzerland with East Nash Grass and this record started falling into place after that. And then later in the year we went to France. I think we got inspired by seeing some different folks and ways of life than what we were used to. There’s a small element of world music inspiration behind the record, too. So I think that comes from just traveling more.
You have always been a very inclusive-minded band, while also sticking pretty close to traditional bluegrass roots. When you started at Dee’s [Country Cocktail Lounge], was that kind of the goal?
HC: I feel like that’s where we all came from individually. Each and every one of us grew up going to these lawn chair snapping festivals where you go up and they have the same bands every year and there’s people out watching the show in their lawn chairs – sometimes sleeping [like] they’re dead. But there’s also this killer community of jamming that happens at these festivals, and you go and you jam with people and you just learn the repertoire. You get together with people you haven’t even met before, but who’ve been in the same places, and you can just all kind of speak the same language.
We were able to take it from there. We all have that same background from our childhoods of going to these places and these shared experiences. So when we got together, it was like we had been doing it for a long time. But everyone’s got new ideas, new energy coming from other places musically as well. … I think we all pull from that individually and it comes out sounding like traditional bluegrass, but at the same time, not really at all.
After winning the IBMA New Artist of the Year award, do you feel like that is more accepted in the bluegrass community nowadays?
HC: It’s art and it has to move … so it just seemed like the time to do our own thing. The most important part is always the music. I hope it stands the test of time and somebody else listening can look back 20 years from now and say it was a good guidepost throughout the evolution of bluegrass music. That is most important to us, as opposed to trying to fit into a certain box that has just been built many, many times.
You all do a really good job of sharing the spotlight. Different singers, different featured instruments. From a friendship perspective, what’s it like watching your bandmates do their thing every night?
MD: Man, it’s pretty cool. Everybody is such a good musician and such a good singer. I mean, even Cory can sing a little bit – he just doesn’t like to do it and play banjo at the same time. Everyone has a little special unique thing that makes them stand out.
HC: For me personally, everyone has something they do really well that I just can’t do. And when I get to see ‘em do that, I’m in awe. It’s inspiring when someone crushes something right in front of your face and you’re like, “Man, I dunno how they do that every time.”
JK: Also anything that’s a win for one person in the band is a win for the whole band, and that’s kind of how we’ve looked at it. It’s like it’s the sum of all parts.
The reason I ask is because you made your headline debut at the Ryman Auditorium a couple of weeks ago. What was that night like?
HC: It’s hard to describe. It’s the Mother Church. It’s truly my favorite venue to see a show, and now play a show. There’s no time like the first time … and it’s just such an honor to be up there, have our name up there, and have our own little night there.
There’s only a few places where once I get on stage, it hits me where I’m at and what I’m doing, and then I focus in on everything so close, and that never helps me out. To touch on the question you asked prior to this, one of the best parts about this band is there’s been times where I felt like I didn’t play a great show personally, but the band probably played one of its best shows, because everyone can step up and pick up weight. It really pays off when that team spirit comes out, because I do feel like that night at the Ryman I got up there and was in my head – because of this place. But as a band, the band crushed it. Once again. It was a great feeling.
Tell me a little bit about the story behind “All God’s Children.” It’s got this warm and fuzzy bluegrass feeling and then you’ve got some joyful children noises in there too. Where’s all this coming from?
MD: Well, that’s our buddy David Grier’s son Nash Grier. Nash helped us out with those joyful children noises.
JK: Yeah, Nash is seven and he’s fluent in Japanese and English.
MD: And he can play – I mean, probably any instrument, but I’ve seen him play fiddle. He’s crazy good, so everybody keep their eye open for old Nash Grier. He’s coming for everybody’s jobs in Nashville.
HC: That was a song that me and Christian Ward and Cory Walker wrote and I kind of had that phrase in mind. The idea behind the song was loosely based on real life, but at the same time, it kind of has that old-time limerick thing where you can take whatever the words are and use your imagination to make ‘em what you want it to mean.
How about “Jump Through the Window.” Is this one the Liberian chant? I think it speaks to the way you made all these songs your own that I can’t necessarily tell.
MD: Yeah! Our tour manager and my best pal, Brenna MacMillan, she grew up with some siblings adopted from Liberia, and they knew this song, this chant. It was like a thing that the Liberian kids over there knew. … Brenna came to me with this idea of like, “Hey, there’s this chant that I grew up hearing with my siblings and I think it would be cool bluegrass. Can you help me with it?”
Everybody spent time learning it because it’s kind of a weird thing, but we arranged it and everybody had really nice ideas. I think Jeff had some ideas at the end for those chord substitutions, and it just came together really nicely. Then we brought Brenna in to sing some harmony on it. There’s the part where we all are singing unison together, so Brenna is on that. The engineer of the record, Jake Stargel, also hopped on a mic and joined us in the little chant part. And James was the town elder singing the bass part.
That speaks to the inclusive nature of a set called All God’s Children, which you have done a few times here. I just wonder, what do you hope listeners take away from this batch of music?
HC: A bunch of merch. [Laughs]
MD: There’s a peacefulness to me about this record, and that comes from having seen some of the world and singing about those experiences and connectedness. For me, this record, it’s like we had to pull together to make it, and I want it to reach different types of folks and everybody feel connected.
HC: I remember when I was a teenager, I’d played bluegrass for eight years and it was becoming more and more the forefront of my life. And when I would hear something that hit me as new or fresh, it inspired me to want to do something new and fresh, and get out of the box a little bit. I hope we can do that for other young musicians. It feels good when you see a young musician that you see a little bit of yourself in, who is inspired by what you’re doing. It kind of gives it a little more gravity, and you realize, “Oh, there is reason and purpose behind this just other than fulfilling that weird urge to create art.”
JK: And to that end, with all of us being lifelong bluegrassers, we know there’s a big contingent of folks that know all these same songs that we know and won’t get outside of that box, and that is okay. There’s no problem if that’s what you want to do as a musician, is to play those same songs for the rest of your life. But I feel like this is a statement that you don’t necessarily have to do that. You can use the same traditional instrument lineup and be a bluegrass band by all norms, and create something new and do some new music, and this is kind of our offering.
This feature ought to start with a laundry list of our subject’s accomplishments, but rootsy country hitmaker Dierks Bentley’s résumé and inventory of accolades, awards, and trophies would be far too long to include. After 30+ years in Nashville, Bentley has more than made it and his particular brand of country – down-to-earth approachability, bro-ey (while remarkably non-toxic) good-time vibes, honeyed crackling vocals, an unwavering sense of humor, and fierce love for bluegrass virtuosity – has now gained such a strong gravitational pull, it continues to shift Music Row. (For the better, of course.)
In June, Bentley released his eleventh studio album, Broken Branches, and launched an eponymous continent-spanning tour with everybody’s favorite, fellow trad country lover Zach Top, and swampgrass North Georgia duo the Band Loula in tow. Broken Branches features guests like Miranda Lambert, Riley Green, John Anderson, and more and – like all of the albums in his expansive Dierkscography – quite a few string band- and bluegrass-inspired moments, as well.
The Broken Branches Tour, which has been clipped and shared thousands and thousands of times on social media over the past several weeks, includes many hits, striking sets and theatrical tech, cameos from the infamous Hot Country Knights, and, yes, plenty of bluegrass. On the set list, Bentley and Top duet on an incredible “Freeborn Man” – we’re leaving out spoilers here so you can catch the tour’s scant remaining dates yourself and still be delighted. Bentley also performs the title track from his hit bluegrass album, 2010’s Up On The Ridge, and Logan Simmons and Malachi Mills of The Band Loula join him elsewhere in the set for a delicious bit of church.
Singing a Bill Monroe bluegrass gospel number in tight, intricate three-part harmony may seem like an odd choice for a big mainstream country arena show, but longtime fans and listeners of Bentley will know this is no aberration. This is the norm. Whatever the sonics of his music, from the most poppy and radio-ready country to the more Americana-coded to straight-ahead bluegrass, classic rock, and New Orleans grooves (and back again), Bentley brings bluegrass with him everywhere he goes. He brings its pickers, legends, and unsung heroes, too, uplifting them for all to enjoy.
When Mills, Simmons, and Bentley step to the center stage of an enormous auditorium or amphitheater to sing “Get Down On Your Knees and Pray,” depicted behind them on towering LED screens is a little log cabin dive bar with a neon cross steeple and a flickering “open” sign. As they lead the audience in the stark, convicting, hair-raising number – with grit and heart and endless spirit – you realize, yes, this is church. This is gospel. This is country and bluegrass, front porch music and arena music. This is Saturday night and this is Sunday morning.
It’s hard to imagine all of these intricate roots music details not only being palpable in a show of this scale, but they’re also measured, vulnerable, and intimate – traits not known as hallmarks of either country or bluegrass. It’s here that we find exactly the conglomeration of reasons why Bentley retains such widespread appeal and adoration from fans of all entry points. While neither he nor any other artist is universally loved, Dierks Bentley accomplishes being the modern country “everyman” not by diluting himself and his personality beyond recognition, but by purposefully, creatively, hilariously – and spiritually! – putting all of himself on the line in his music.
Before the Broken Branches tour launched earlier this summer, Good Country sat down backstage with Dierks Bentley and the Band Loula during a break from tour rehearsals, after the trio had just run through “Get Down On Your Knees and Pray.” We spoke about what bluegrass means in a country context, the appeal of gospel to folks of any (or no) faith, tent revivals and camp meetings, the joys and vulnerabilities of singing harmony, and much more.
Obviously, Dierks, across your entire career you’ve had a relationship with bluegrass. And not just Up On The Ridge, which we just heard you rehearse a bit of for the Broken Branches Tour. You’ve got records and posters on the wall at the Station Inn here in Nashville, you namecheck Keith Whitley on the new album. You’ve worked with the McCourys over and over, Charlie Worsham, an excellent bluegrass picker, is in your band. There are so many more bluegrass touchpoints. Your bluegrassy CMA Awards show appearance last year was very popular with our audience.
And for y’all, the Band Loula, you call yourself “swampgrass.” The harmonies clearly have the grit and the gospel of bluegrass and the timbre of how your voices blend together reminds me of bluegrass.
It might be an obvious question to ask, but I figured we could go around the circle here and get each of your takes on what does the genre mean to you? What’s your relationship with bluegrass? What does bluegrass mean to you in the constellation of country music that you make now?
Dierks Bentley: When I think about bluegrass, obviously it’s the music and all that, but really it’s just people with acoustic instruments gathering to play and sing together. I never really did a lot of stints on my own, solo. Probably I’m not good enough, but bar gigs where I was just doing cover songs never really interested me. I always liked being in a band. I love the way this instrument talks to that instrument, this voice talks to that voice, and this voice gets added and– “Whoa!”
Like the Osborne Brothers, they’re switching harmonies. Sonny is singing the high tenor, then the next thing you know, he is on like a low baritone part. The voices, the way they move around. That’s the main thing, that’s what drew me in when I walked into the Station. And there were guys my age. I always thought bluegrass was kinda like Hee Haw stuff. I walked in and I was like, “Oh my God, there’s guys my age.”
It was about just playing songs together. And they were doing a lot of Merle Haggard songs, George Jones songs mixed in. Johnny Cash songs mixed in with Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, and all that too. So it was just, “Wow.”
It’s more about the community of people congregating through and with their instruments. And using those to have fun – and drinks as well. [Laughs] Lotsa drinks, a lot of moonshine back then. The real stuff! No label on it.
Not 30 proof. [Laughs]
DB: That’s what it means to me and that’s what I hear in [The Band Loula’s] music, a lot of, if you want to call it, “front porch” picking music. Picking their roots – you know, deep, Southern gospel-y kind of roots, the mixing of that, and those voices together.
That’s what bluegrass has always been to me. It’s about the community as much as it is about the instrumentation and the bands. It’s the great community of people.
(L to R): Logan Simmons and Malachi Mills (of the Band Loula) confer with Dierks Bentley during rehearsals for the Broken Branches Tour. Photo by Zach Belcher.
Logan Simmons: I’ll say something that comes top of mind for me. I spent my whole life going to tent revivals. It’s not just, “I go and it’s summer camp, ’cause somebody made me.” It’s like the pinnacle of who I am.
I really believe that it’s the pillar of my family. We go for about 10 to 15 days every year. It’s beside my nanny’s house, and all it is, red-back hymns and bluegrass. The service happens every night and you go for about an hour and a half before service starts, before preaching starts, to hear bluegrass, gospel bands.
That’s how I learned harmonies, hearing all my godmothers and aunts sing the wrong ones around me. [Laughs] And you’ll hear somebody over there, Linda’s like [sings operatically and off-tune] and she’s not on it at all. But I was at least learning something and I feel like with my roots in general, it already infused that bluegrass sound into my life.
Then when Malachi and I became friends and started making music together. He has a lot of Motown roots. I think, blended together, the blues and bluegrass just made something beautiful. And, on top of that, the family harmony we have together. We’ve been friends forever, half our lives.
Malachi Mills: It all comes back to blues, yeah. And just like you said, that cross-pollination of the different genres. North Georgia is like the southern point of Appalachia. Like she said, it really influences the music we make by our harmonies. That’s the biggest thing we take from it. I love bluegrass music, but I’m not like a bluegrass buff. I would lose at bluegrass trivia. [Laughs] But it’s just in our bones and in the harmonies that she was talking about. Growing up in church and everything influences the way that we sing together and the notes that we pick whenever we’re singing harmonies. One of the biggest things that I love about bluegrass is the rhythm and pocket. And the intonation of the instruments. Bluegrass players choose to be intentional about [all of] it, the pocket, the timing, the tuning. It’s all so dead on. The details matter when you’re making records.
Dierks Bentley and band give Good Country and members of the media an exclusive sneak peek at their Broken Branches Tour set at rehearsals in May 2025 in Nashville. Photo by Zach Belcher.
I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s striking that y’all have this bluegrass song as part of this big, arena-sized stage show. Because for me, translating those details in such a big space and in such a broad format could be really hard.
Then I hear and see y’all singing in three parts with a neon cross behind you and suddenly yes, this is church. This is what it is. Any close-singing harmony vocals are great, but when it really sounds like bluegrass to me is when you can hear the reeds of your voices match up when you’re harmonizing. That was a really beautiful moment.
Could you talk a little bit about capturing those details for a big audience in big rooms like this – or even outside, in amphitheaters. How do you take a Bill Monroe gospel song and translate it to that space?
DB: Well, there’s “Bluegrass” Ben Helson out there walking the hallways. Ben and a couple other guys in the band have played with Ricky Skaggs. Ben played with Ricky and Tim [Sergent] still plays with Ricky. I always say, if you can graduate from the Ricky Skaggs school of bluegrass and country music, you’re probably a pretty good musician. He also played with Rhonda Vincent.
I’m a big Del McCoury fan. They did [“Get Down on Your Knees and Pray”] and Del has such a cool version of it. We were just kinda thinking of songs to do with these guys that would be great using their voices. Like [they] said, they’re the blues and bluegrass. I’m still trying to figure out their sound. It’s such a unique mixture; it’s so Americana in the way that in this country we have this melting pot of stuff. We thought it would be cool to do a little three-part thing, so that one came up.
Marty Stuart also did a really cool version of that song. But Ben [Helson], our guitar player really came up with that [arrangement], leaning into the swampy stuff they do. Gave it that feel, a little Southern – I don’t know what the vibe is there, but that telecaster is playing and it just has a cool kind of dirty, bluesy vibe to it. Then working up the harmonies, there’s just something about hearing a cappella bands.
I remember seeing Billy Strings at a bluegrass festival years ago and the band all stopped – no one knew who he was back then. Bryan Sutton had told me who he was, so I was where he was. He played like a Thursday set in the middle of the day. They had just done three songs and then they stopped and did a four-part harmony thing. There’s just something about it that’s so powerful. It goes straight to your soul.
The oldest version of entertainment there was was probably harmonizing. Finding people, seeing how your voices sound together, it’s a weird, cool thing. Singers talk about it all the time, in any genre of music about how seeing how we sound together is an intimate thing.
It’s vulnerable and it’s immediately establishing that community that you’re talking about. “We may not be a band, but now we’re a thing.”
DB: I feel like I blend well with anybody, because I’m like the condition. I sing it pretty straight here and allow the people around me to really do their stuff. I’m just gonna hold the line. There’s like nothing special about my voice, but it’s good to blend with ’cause other people have these amazing voices. They can do a lot of movement and a lot of great vibrato. I’m like the dumbest Del McCoury School of Bluegrass [student], just find that note and put everything into it. [Laughs]
Not to mention, introducing people to bluegrass as well – I love that. You have a chance to be a bridge to your heroes and that is always fun. People have been that to me, Marty Stuart probably the biggest. You get into Marty Stuart’s music and you find out who he likes, and then, whoa! He brings you back there. So [I hope] this turns somebody onto Bill Monroe. That’s pretty cool.
Dierks Bentley has a quiet moment on stage during rehearsals for the Broken Branches Tour. Photo by Zach Belcher.
Country – a lot like blues, R&B, and the early days of rock and roll – it has this often tempestuous and inspiring relationship between the fun of Saturday night and the conviction of Sunday morning. So seeing y’all sing that song in front of the depiction of a church as a dive bar, complete with a neon cross and a flickering “open” sign – to me that’s “a little bit holy water, a little bit Burning Man” epitomized. You guys are embodying that relationship between the sacred and the secular here. And that duality is all over your new album, too, Dierks.
MM: I’ll say, I think that one of the biggest things that contributes to that is the goosebump, hair-standing-up-on-your-arm feeling. It’s knowing that you have a part in something and whenever you sing and play bluegrass music together, you have to give way to one another on stage. So it’s the whole stage saying we’re doing this very intentionally in unity, in harmony.
And everybody in the crowd, whether they know that or not, they feel it. That’s what I think people feel. Even if you’re not a believer and maybe the message that’s being said [doesn’t apply], but you still resonate with serving each other. With being present, which is a strong energy. I think that’s what makes me excited about playing this song. I don’t know what’s gonna happen emotionally for me whenever that moment happens, ’cause it’s gonna be so much of that unified energy.
DB: Unified energy is a good way of putting it. It’s unified and it really is energy.
We’re pretty involved with the church. I have an older daughter who’s involved in the church and another middle daughter who doesn’t believe it like I did. But there’s something divine that you just can’t ignore, whether you believe it or not – just look at a sunset, look at a flower, look at a fish, look at so much unnecessary beauty in the world. There’s just some energy that exists and you can’t deny it when you sing a song like this. It just taps [something] on anybody. Recognizing how small you are in this world and the power of whatever version of prayer you do.
LS: I liked how you said it joins secular and holy together and that actually made me think of the tent revival, as well. I think growing up in Appalachia, like Malachi said – I wish I could just teleport you there so you could experience!
DB: That would be cool, a tent revival – I can’t even imagine.
I haven’t been to a camp meeting or revival in so long!
LS: Everybody’s invited to camp meeting. I don’t know if you’d love it. Our tent – I say tent, it’s like a shack on a square, it’s like a big square, four sides. So we’ll say, “Are you on the upper line or the lower line?” We’re on the upper line, which is not a good thing. It’s like you think upper line is like uppity people or something, but it’s not. Our shack is the oldest and [most] untouched of the whole campground. It was built in 1846.
DB: Wow!
LS: So there’s holes in the roof and like, my bunk bed, I get water drops on my head if it rains. There’s hay floors, there’s no air, and there’s a lot of us, so it’s all packed in there. But camp meeting is where I learned my first Bible verses and where I smoked my first joint. [Laughs] So it all marries together how you said, like holy and secular at the same time. I think of that picture of going to the gospel tent revival, going to camp meeting, singing those red-back hymns, doing all those things – but then also learning the grit of growing up.
I just loved when you said joining those things together, because that was such a representation of my upbringing. Yeah, it’s a little bit holy water, a little bit Burning Man. It’s definitely Saturday nights and Sunday mornings – and the tent revival is where I feel like those two worlds are so evident.
Dierks, in all you’ve done across your career there are all these bluegrass moments. The country that you “grow,” it’s mainstream, it’s radio-ready, but it’s like there’s bluegrass in the “soil” you grow it in, so you can always taste bluegrass in everything you do. Like on the new record, “Never You” with Miranda Lambert feels that way and “For As Long As I Can Remember”–
DB: There’s a little “Circles Around Me” by Sam Bush [reference] there at the top of that song.
Oh my gosh, yeah! Exactly what I’m talking about.
You said a little bit earlier turning people onto your heroes always feels great, but for you, from your own perspective being that guy that used to just hang out at the Station Inn and now being the Dierks Bentley and going on tour in sheds and arenas and amphitheaters… Why do you keep bluegrass with you?
Dierks Bentley: It is selfish in a lot of ways. I have such a great band and I just take so much joy watching them do cool stuff that I can’t do. It’s like our guitar player, Ben, he’s just an unbelievable flat picker. Charlie Worsham’s in our band and Charlie won the CMA Musician of the Year. He is just an incredible musician. Dan [Hochhalter] is an incredible fiddle player. Tim is so underutilized. Our steel guitar player – who plays banjo and everything else – he’s one of the best singers to me. Hearing him is like hearing Merle Haggard. He sings like nobody else, but he’s also so underutilized. And Steve’s been playing with me since 1999.
It’s just a great group and we love bluegrass music, featuring that, and having the music part of the show. I like being in a band setting, so just getting to be around it and hear these instruments swirling around me playing, I think it’s just cool.
I got a chance to play ROMP Festival last year and I feel lucky to be friends with guys like Jerry Douglas and Sierra Hull and have them come up on stage and play with us. I still think bluegrass music is the punk rock of country. It’s just the coolest genre of music there is.
It’s gotta be centering or grounding to a certain degree just to have that as something you can go back to, to feed yourself and fill yourself back up even while you’re touring.
DB: Absolutely. In the show we go from playing Tony Rice to John Michael Montgomery. We play bluegrass with the Hot Country Knights with costumes on. It’s just it’s all very selfish! It’s like, “How can I have a lot of fun in the next 90 minutes?”
I wanna do our radio country. I want people singing songs back, because that’s a great feeling. I want to get a little bluegrass in there. Just see if we get away with that. Then, can we try to get canceled on the way out? [Laughs] I dunno. It’s really fun for me. And having these guys [out with us] and getting to harmonize with them, it’s gonna be really fun. Check back in a few months, see how it turned out.
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In 1994, a not yet 20-year-old Dierks Bentley threw all caution to the wind when he packed up his dorm room at the University of Vermont with hopes to never return. Bentley’s relocation would not only forever change the course of his life – it would go on to catalyze his tremendous impact on roots music at large.
After a trip with his father to Nashville made quite the impression, Bentley decided to complete his college degree at Vanderbilt, dedicating his studies to English (the major most proximal to songwriting). After graduating, Bentley continued to foster both his musical education and career; his day job entailed archiving old country performances at The Nashville Network (in fact, his diligent field work even got him banned temporarily from the Grand Ole Opry), while his evenings were filled with bar gigs and songwriting sessions. After five years of grunt work, 2003 saw Bentley release a self-titled album with Capitol Records. His first single, “What Was I Thinkin’,” made waves on the country charts. Since then, Bentley has been responsible for the release of 20 No. 1 country singles and 10 additional studio albums, the latest of which, Broken Branches, arrived in June.
While Bentley’s career has seen major commercial country success, his deep respect for expansion and immersion has made him a beloved fixture within bluegrass, as well.
Of his instrumental move to Nashville, Bentley has shared, “I moved to Nashville in 1994 – I was trying to find that seed of truth, that authenticity, that thing ‘country music’ that I had in my head. And I got here and it was definitely different than I expected it to be. It’s big business, a lot of money.
“Luckily, for me, I found a little bar called the Station Inn where bluegrass music existed – and I found what I was looking for. Just the sound of a five-piece bluegrass band blew my mind. And they’re not trying to take meetings all the time and meet producers, and get their foot in the door. It’s funny, I moved to Nashville looking for country music, but I found bluegrass.”
Whether it’s his proclivity for cross-genre conversation, songwriting prowess, or patinaed tenor delivery, Dierks has proved himself a mainstay favorite for country, Americana, and bluegrass fans – here at Good Country and BGS, and beyond. In honor of his recent album release and his huge Broken Branches tour with Zach Top and the Band Loula concluding this month, we present you with our Dierkscography, a non-comprehensive compilation of more than 15 songs meant to show off some of our favorite Dierks gems from across genres sampled from the many years of his remarkable career.
“Never You” featuring Miranda Lambert, Broken Branches (2025)
Dierks’s new album, Broken Branches, arrived fresh off the press with a slew of impressive collaborators, from Riley Green to Stephen Wilson Jr. Dierks fondly calls the record a “special” display of “making music in the studio with our buddies.” Country giant and longtime collaborator Miranda Lambert joins Bentley on this banjo-driven track, with the pair’s velvety duet vocals imbuing tenderness and warmth into one of the album’s only love songs.
“High Note” featuring Billy Strings, Gravel & Gold (2023)
This rip-roaring tune off of Bentley’s tenth studio album features a whole handful of bluegrass greats. Not only does Billy’s high tenor soar above Dierks gravelly tones during choruses, his famous flatpicking joins the likes of Sam Bush, Bryan Sutton, and Jerry Douglas for a superjam ending.
Of the collaboration, Dierks recalls, “Bryan Sutton first tipped me off to Billy Strings about seven years ago, mentioning that the future of bluegrass was in good hands. I was totally blown away the first time I saw him. I’ve cut songs like these since my first record, and I knew I wanted to have him on this one, I’m such a huge fan. It was a lot of fun to have him, Jerry, Sam, and Bryan all passing licks around – having them all on this record means a lot to me personally.”
“American Girl” (2024)
Who doesn’t love an Americana “American Girl”? Bentley delivers this country-fied Tom Petty classic alongside some BGS favorites, including Chris Eldridge on guitar and Noam Pikelny on banjo. Dierks reprised the hit single joined by Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Sierra Hull, and Molly Tuttle on stage at the 2024 CMA Awards, bringing down the house.
“For As Long As I Can Remember,” Broken Branches (2025)
The country canon has seen its fair share of heartache, murder, trains, and drinking. Also on his latest release, “For As Long As I Can Remember” shirks these motifs in favor of something a little more wholesome – a warm and adoring ballad dedicated to the strength of enduring familial bond. An ode to his brother and father, Dierks reminds that respect and love can be country, too.
“Train Travelin’,” Dierks Bentley (2003)
With many of his nascent Nashville days edified by nights at the Station Inn and in the surrounding bluegrass scene, iconic bluegrass family the McCourys quickly became repeat collaborators for Dierks. Their features pepper many of his earlier albums, dating all the way back to his debut self-titled release in 2003. “Train Travelin’” would become the first of many, with other gems such as Good Man Like Me (Modern Day Drifter, 2005) and Last Call featuring Ronnie McCoury (Feel That Fire, 2009) dotting the road to Bentley’s eventual bluegrass-centric album, Up On The Ridge.
“Up On The Ridge,” Up On The Ridge (2010)
The titular track off of Bentley’s bluegrass-inspired album is thrumming with energy, both quickly-paced and haunting with its descending melodic hook. Up On The Ridge was Bentley’s fifth studio album, featuring a star-studded list of bluegrass collaborators including Alison Krauss, Punch Brothers, Chris Stapleton, Tim O’Brien, Sam Bush, and beyond. Del McCoury even joins forces with Bentley and Punch Brothers to deliver a deliciously grassified cover of U2’s “Pride (in the Name of Love)” further evidencing the album as a culmination of both tradition and innovation.
“Freeborn Man,” (Live, 2025)
Another of our favorite timeless covers, Dierks has been adorning his Broken Branches Tour this summer with his vigorous take on “Freeborn Man.” This rendition includes a fiery feature by Zach Top, nearly toppling the stage with talent.
“Hoedown for My Lowdown Rowdy Ways” featuring Dierks Bentley, Lowdown Hoedown (Jason Carter, 2022)
With Jason Carter fiddling his heart out on Dierks’ records since 2003, it’s of course a polite roots custom for Dierks to return the favor. Released as part of Carter’s second solo album, Lowdown Hoedown, “Hoedown for My Lowdown Rowdy Ways” has Dierks singing harmony and strumming away on the bluesy breakdown. Lowdown Hoedown also features a tender Jamie Hartford number, “Good Things Happen,” that Dierks Bentley covered on his 2005 album Modern Day Drifter, yet another frame of conversation between the two artists.
“Prodigal Son’s Prayer” featuring The Grascals, Long Trip Alone (2006)
This acoustic tune features the bluegrass sensibilities of the Grascals, a long-running group lauded for their instrumental prowess. The song loosely follows the parable of the prodigal son, ultimately centering themes of repair and reconciliation. The song also features the stomps and hums of incarcerated individuals from Charles Bass Correctional Complex, who had been in Bentley’s producer’s Bible studies course at the time.
“Free and Easy (Down The Road I Go),” Long Trip Alone (2006)
From the same release, this breezy banger remains a hallmark of Bentley’s career, even after nearly two decades since it dropped. The fifth of his singles to top Billboard’s Hot Country charts, “Free and Easy (Down The Road I Go)” lures in listeners with its fast-paced country twang and life-affirming sentiment.
“Beautiful World” featuring Patty Griffin, Feel That Fire (2009)
No stranger to incredible collaborators, Dierks Bentley asked iconic folk and country singer-songwriter Patty Griffin to accompany him on this track, gushing, “Her voice is one of a kind and she’s such an important figure in the American music scene… She’s just amazing. And so I asked her.”
The result is a tender homage to the beauties of the world, largely inspired by his wife, who was pregnant with their daughter at the time of the song’s conception. “You hear people sometimes say, ‘Man, I can’t imagine bringing a child into this world. It’s so bad.’ That’s just such a negative outlook,” Dierks says. “You cannot live your life with that viewpoint of the world. Yes, there are a lot of things that are wrong, but it is a beautiful world, and you need to find the positive in it.”
“Heart of a Lonely Girl,” Home (2012)
From Bentley’s sixth studio album, Home, comes this spirited, emotionally deep number. The narrative song was penned by the infinitely talented Charlie Worsham, who would go on to join Bentley’s touring band a decade later – and you can currently see him on stage each night during the Broken Branches tour.
“Trip Around the Sun,” featuring Dierks Bentley, I Built a World (Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, 2024)
Fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes first connected with Bentley through Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, the popular bluegrass group that opened for him several times on tour. She’s also married to Jason Carter, so Dierks wasn’t just a professional collaborator, but a member of her personal Nashville network, as well. It’s no surprise, then, that she’d end up on stage with him at the CMA Awards and, in the same year, he would guest on her acclaimed and GRAMMY Award-nominated album, I Built a World.
“Mardi Gras” featuring Trombone Shorty, Black (2016)
Soaked in Louisiana charm, this tune was inspired by Dierk’s 2015 galavant on a Mardi Gras parade float. Featuring the indelible hornsmanship of Trombone Shorty, the track grooves along with bluesy undertones. “Getting Trombone Shorty to do his thing on it, what a great guy. I love working with him. He is so laid-back and so good at what he does,” Bentley boasts of his collaborator.
“Travelin’ Light” featuring Brandi Carlile, The Mountain (2018)
Featuring the powerhouse vocals of Americana giant Brandi Carlile, this tune appears on Bentley’s 2018 album, The Mountain. The collaboration between the two icons came to fruition after Bentley saw Brandi perform at Telluride Bluegrass Festival, inspiring him to approach her about dueting on the track.
“Sun Sets in Colorado,” Gravel & Gold (2023)
Written reflecting his pandemic move to Colorado (though he has since returned to Nashville), Bentley released this tune on Gravel & Gold. The song shouts out New Grass Revival and Telluride in a verse: “Sing an old new grass song with me/ Telluride along with me,” while also featuring New Grass Revival founding member Sam Bush on mandolin. Bryan Sutton also joins in on the studio recording, yet another sparkling collab with bluegrass greats.
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Editor’s Note: Each issue of Good Country, our co-founder Ed Helms will share a handful of good country artists, albums, and songs direct from his own earphones in Ed’s Picks.
Gospel-infused, blues-inspired “swampgrass” from North Georgia, this Americana duo reminds of the Civil Wars, the SteelDrivers, and the Secret Sisters. Even so, they certainly have a sound all their own. Their new EP, Sweet Southern Summer, arrives August 22.
Read more about the Band Loula in conversation with Dierks Bentley here.
Our old favorite Timmy Ty has done it again! Snipe Hunter is a masterpiece of traditional postmodern Appalachian music. It’s hilarious and heartfelt, entirely unserious and devastating, too. No matter the textures and genres he references in his work, Tyler has always been Good Country (and very bluegrass, too).
Bluegrass and jamgrass fans rejoiced in late July when our longtime pals in Greensky announced their upcoming album, XXV, marking 25 years of this incredibly impactful string band. With the announcement they released “Reverend,” featuring their Michigan compatriot Billy Strings. Here’s to the new album – and to the next 25 years! We can’t wait.
The Texas Hill Country floods devastated fertile territory for roots music and Good Country in west Texas in early July. The artistic community has responded en force, quickly assembling quite a few star-studded benefit shows, concerts, and on-the-ground relief efforts.
Robert Earl Keen – together with a host of partners and sponsors – has convened a superlative lineup for just such an event, Applause for the Cause, to be held August 28 in New Braunfels, Texas. Featuring appearances by luminaries such as Tyler Childers, Miranda Lambert, Cody Jinks, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Kelsey Waldon, Jamey Johnson, and many more, the show almost immediately sold out. The good news is you can watch the performances via streaming (Amazon Music, DIRECTV, Veeps) and REK’s YouTube channel. The even better news is you can still donate directly to the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, beneficiaries of the evening, to support the cause.
Yes, Trisha Yearwood is a country legend of stage and screen, but did you know she’s a stellar songwriter as well? Her brand new album, The Mirror, reflects this fact with 15 tracks all co-written by the Grand Ole Opry member. Plus, the collection features guests like Jim Lauderdale, Charles Kelley, and Hailey Whitters. THIS is Good Country!
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Photo Credits: The Band Loula by Sara Katherine Mills; Tyler Childers by Sam Waxman; Greensky Bluegrass by Dylan Langille; Robert Earl Keen by Emma Delevante; Trisha Yearwood by Russ Harrington.
Joe K. Walsh grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, and became enthralled with the mandolin (his primary focus, currently) after hearing the first David Grisman Quintet record. His dad got the young Joe his own mando. He ended up getting very serious about the instrument and found himself studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston (where he is now on faculty in the string department). Joe, in fact, was the first mandolin student at Berklee in a town that is now flooded with amazing mandolin players. His already strong sense of community and collaboration led him to becoming a main player in the Boston scene with his string band Joy Kills Sorrow, and with the Gibson Brothers. He now resides in Portland, Maine, and plays solo as well as with Mr. Sun, a group led by fiddler Darol Anger.
In our Basic Folk conversation, we talk about taking over at Berklee after the death of professor John McGann, a beloved trad player who recorded with David Grisman, Mark O’Connor, Tim O’Brien, and the Boston Pops, among others. Joe addresses the question of whether bringing folk music into a college setting is “academizing” it or perhaps “folking” music academia. He also gets into hot button issues like improv, simplicity, and restraint. And, of course, he finally reveals his true feelings about the “other” Joe Walsh. Joe’s new instrumental album, Trust and Love, is a peaceful listen in these wild times. I’m happy to know Joe and have already benefited from his friendship! He and his wife gave my family a ton of baby hand-me-downs that have proved so useful. Everyone has a friend in Joe. K Walsh.
At times frowned upon or occasionally slandered, covers are as deep-rooted as the songs and the emerald valleys that have produced them.
Indeed, covers stir discussion, spark research, and add another patch to the great heart-sewn embroidery of music. Fashioned in a similar vein to the original – that’s flattery. When a song circles across genre divides, well, that’s an enriching voyage.
The members of Kissing Other ppl – Rachel Baiman and folk duo Viv & Riley – see their endeavor not just as an individual artistic sojourn but as a larger opportunity to establish a collective conversation. Here, they’ve taken a handful of mostly rock and pop songs and blended, marinated, and sautéed them in unfamiliar flavors. The end results turned out nearer to their own identities.
“I grew up playing traditional Appalachian style,” said Riley. “This is not that!”
Baiman is a sincere and dogged lyricist, with a harmonious ear and a top contender’s punch. She grew up in Chicago, with a factory-made violin in her hands and an insatiable curiosity for why and how music could conform and contort to her swiftly evolving moods. Somewhere along the line, she started getting serious about music and purchased a John Silakowski five-string fiddle on a lengthy installment plan. She arrived in Nashville at age 18, riding fragile finances. Slogging on foot, lugging her fiddle in a hard, cumbersome case, she lacked the extra dollars to hail a taxi. Her odd jobs were many: dog walking; catering; reading novels and writing summaries for a sociology professor; she once even held a job organizing a comedy contest. But a fearless, tenacious sense of purpose compelled her to stick with music.
Pondering all of these circumstances in her heart, Baiman released several persuasive projects, including Shame (2017) and Common Nation of Sorrow (2023). Riley Calcagno, one half of the contemplative folk duo Viv & Riley, added stringed support and pre-production assets to one of Rachel’s albums.
Subsequently, Baiman asked Riley and Vivian Leva (the other half of the duo) if they’d be willing to join her on tour, where long hours on the road were spent in between gigs consuming, swapping, and contemplating music. Baiman’s traditional background taught her how to fully perceive a recording – whether an old fiddle tune or multi-generational, passed down ballad, or even a contemporary pop song – to not only hear it superficially, but to visualize its promise. Through prolonged stretches of asphalt and expressway, she’d oftentimes wonder what she, if given the opportunity, could bring to a certain song.
“The idea stems from Rachel’s musical generosity and curiosity and the extended times in those van rides,” said Riley. “Eventually, the songs included were the ones that we’d all individually had been listening to and were moved by. Songs that had stopped us in our tracks at different realms of our lives. Songs that hit us emotionally or otherwise… spontaneously contributed in the week that we recorded them.”
Some of Riley’s earliest memories are of his father’s fondness of traditional music. His father played the guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo. At age 3, the younger Calcagno expressed interest in the fiddle. Though he was raised in an unrelentingly urban environment in the heart of Seattle he was never far from the folksy hospitality of music: square dances, jams, and potlucks. At the Wintergrass Music Festival in Bellevue, Washington, he formed connections with musicians originating from the sparsest, most countrified swaths of the state.
“I discovered an authentic-feeling bluegrass scene in the state and an old-time rural music scene on the West Coast that was kept going by people living in cities,” he explained, “and I don’t see that at all as contradictory.”
Like many other kids his age who grew up in Seattle, beginning in middle school, Riley burned liberal hours listening to local indie rock, though the attachment he had made with traditional music would override all else. He met Vivian Leva at a music camp in the Seattle area which emphasized the cultural importance of preserving long-standing traditions.
“I was a fan of Viv’s parents’ music,” said Riley. “We started playing music right away. Viv is a gifted songwriter. We started passing ideas back and forth. That was eight years ago.”
Vivian Leva was born and raised in Lexington, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley close to the abounding cultural and geographical influences of Charlottesville, Roanoke, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s a small town with a deep worship of bluegrass and old-time narratives.
“Before I was born, it was a big hub of old-time traditional music,” said Viv. “Young people moved here for the rich, blossoming scene. My dad came here at 18 and stayed forever.”
Viv’s father, too, took a particular interest in the fiddle, traveling to neighboring counties and states to observe and jam. Her mother sang and guitar-picked, emulating and scrutinizing the local and regional ballads she had fallen in love with. They attended old-time fiddler’s conventions as a family. And when her parents formed a duo and headed out on the highway, sometimes she would share in such jaunts first-hand.
“When I was little I went on tour with them for a bit,” said Viv. “As a teenager, I was playing in my dad’s bands. As a kid he would bring me up to sing a song on stage.”
Certainly, music has long filled the souls of Rachel, Viv, and Riley with good things – and Kissing Other ppl is a remembrance of affection as much as it is a representation of impression. Indeed, Baiman said that Kissing Other ppl is a natural extension of her – and her counterparts’ – inquisitiveness, their attempt to understand the mysterious processes of expression, meaning, and memory.
“In reality,” said Rachel, “I don’t think any band or musical project should attempt monogamy, because you miss out on so many opportunities to learn and grow and bring new inspiration back to your main role.”
Similar to Rachel, Viv finds original songwriting to be a sacred, mysterious place to dwell. But she also believes that covers are a part of the whole process of an artist’s maturity, the recognition of the music of one’s friends, mentors, neighbors, and across-the-board community.
“There can be a stigma about covers,” she said. “You can’t make it your own. You are not creative enough to make your own music. It’s a shortcut. It’s a cop out. But as someone who has written a lot of songs and released a lot of records of original music, and plans to do so in the future, I don’t see it that way. It is an acknowledgment of how being inspired by other people’s music is such an important part of creating your own music. You can’t make your own music in a vacuum.”
“Anytime that you are playing a song, you are creating it again in the moment, and re-interpreting in your own way,” added Riley. “Whether it is a cover or an old traditional song, you still have the power to sing it and do it in a way that really moves someone.”
Baiman said the intuitive, empathetic nature of the type of music she plays requires that she be an attentive observer as well as a cordial, broad-minded learner – prerequisites for a collaboration of this sort.
“I think that having a background in old-time and fiddle music in general really prepares you to be a musician who listens,” said Rachel. “If you approach any musical situation with the mindset of, ‘Can I do something to help support the group musically here?’, that goes a long way.
“Old-time really prepares you for the idea that your best contribution might be not to play at all. The bar is really high for joining in, you have to make sure you’re adding something that isn’t already there, and you’re not dragging down the groove. That’s part of the etiquette of informal jamming and it translates to professional playing.”
A fine cover such as the group’s rendition of Wilco’s “Ashes of American Flags” not only illuminates a previous desire, elevating or enriching it with brand new urgency, but in some fashion it obliges the total re-evaluation of the original.
“There are people who are not able to handle ‘Ashes of American Flags’ because of the context, or they come from a different generation, or they don’t like Jeff Tweedy singing it,” said Riley. “Why not give a song like that another chance or give it another life? If you have a song that’s fun, or one that hits hard, emotionally, lyrically, or harmonically, maybe you can add to it, instead of just burying it on a playlist.”
Riley notes that many of the greatest records and biggest chart sellers are in fact cover-centric productions, though they might not have been advertised or promoted as such at the time. Many great albums are rife with songs written by others, sometimes entire roomfuls of songwriters on Music Row. Many memorable albums, such as Bob Dylan’s 1962 self-titled debut, only have a small number of originals; among the traditional folk and blues arrangements, Dylan’s had but two.
Indeed, Kissing Other ppl simply builds on a long tradition of artists rearranging songs that they like and then reinserting them back into the public sphere of approval.
“We seem to be obsessed with originality in our current moment and society,” said Riley. “But we are also at a time when art and – the pursuit of it – is less funded and less valued monetarily than ever. So many of the great records that we love are cover records. Ours isn’t heavy-handed.”
Perhaps one sterling example of a cover album that marvelously nudged old material into fresh fields was Tim O’Brien’s Red on Blonde, on which O’Brien grabbed a handful of Dylan songs, tinkered with their framework, and dragged them into bluegrass brightness. Many of these songs have stuck around since the album’s release in 1996 and bluegrass buffs routinely call out titles such as “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” and “Farewell Angelina.”
One of the record’s most memorable tracks is a rendition of Jason Molina’s “Hold On Magnolia,” which draws out the spookily and eerily beautiful essence of the inscrutable artist’s mystifying original. Rachel’s fiddle punctuates the abstract stylishness with characteristic splendor and aplomb.
“Jason Molina [1973-2013] was one of the greatest songwriters,” said Riley. “He grew up in Lorain, Ohio, and he went to Oberlin College, where I went. He had a rough life and died of alcohol-related complications. He left so much amazing music behind… if even one person hears our version and goes and listens to his records then it is a job well done.”
Alluding to Molina, Viv noted the deferential nature of covers and their special reward.
“That’s the cool element of doing a record of covers,” she said. “You can inspire people with that special song that resonates and if they haven’t heard of that artist, they can go back and listen to their work.”
On both “Hold On Magnolia” and “Ashes of American Flags,” Viv found herself in the new position of playing the drums. She sensed the two songs required the presence of drums and their inclusion was inspired by her simple desire to test the unfamiliar.
“One of the incentives I had to go to guitar lessons when I was younger was that my teacher would let me play drums for the last ten minutes of the lesson,” said Viv. “During COVID, Riley surprised me with a drum kit. He got an electric guitar. We were having fun during the lockdown in our basement. We were doing less folk music, and experimenting with instruments outside of the immediate folk genre. So, I took a crack at it.”
“I think it is a testament to the spirit of making the record that we felt comfortable putting her on the drums,” added Riley. “[Producer] Greg D. Griffith made the snare drums sound huge and awesome, adding a big element to the tracks.”
One song that Viv introduced to the project was “Born to Lose” by Waylon Payne, and the diversity in these respective arrangements is startling: Payne’s original was supported by a complete country band; the new offering is sagaciously stripped down, extracting every syllable of bitterness, sorrow, self-loathing, and private turmoil from the lyrics.
“I had been particularly into this artist, Waylon Payne,” said Viv. “His vocals are really fascinating to me. His ornamentation is really incredible. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what he was doing. I was definitely interested in trying to get his vocal ornaments similar, because I think that they are really beautiful.”
The spacey, moody “Where’d All the Time Go?” by Doctor Dog was another one of Rachel’s proposals.
“That is a fun song to do as a trio, because of its echoing harmony parts,” said Viv. “I would have never picked that song for myself to learn. That’s what made it challenging. It took me outside of my vocal comfort zone, and that was a fun challenge for me.”
The name of the band, Kissing Other ppl, is a teasing affirmation of one of the pop songs covered on the album, a soft, mischievous Lennon Stella song released in 2020.
“It has a fun and flirty vibe,” said Riley, “but it also gets to something funny and true about relationships. It captures the lightness of the experience of playing music and hanging out, and not taking yourself too seriously. It was Rachel’s idea and she stuck with it. It is awkward and funny, and why not? Life is short.”
Baiman said the namesake reveals a good-natured admittance of the diversionary quality of art.
“Coming from two different projects that are based in original music and collaborating on cover songs,” said Rachel, “we chose the band name as a playful nod to the idea that we were cheating on our own projects by trying something different and new.”
The trio intends to take their reincarnated versions on the road. Beyond that they have no fixed plans to continue – or, for that matter, discontinue – sewing and hemming their skills and interests together.
Indeed, sustained in its own special love and humility, kissing other ppl expresses not just innovative lyricism and beautiful buzzes, but a powerful sense of understanding. What Rachel, Viv, and Riley all agree on is that the genre or style of its communication is less important than the nourishing energy and want that necessitated its assembly.
“In the end, a lot of the songs are ambiguous,” said Viv. “It is hard to say exactly what some of the songs are about. We are not spelling out what you should be thinking or feeling. It’s just cool to see how other people are able to communicate things in totally different ways than how you would communicate them. But somehow it still hits you.”
Tyler Childers has taken an unlikely path to the top via live performance, not radio singles. He’s become an improbable arena-level star by ignoring typical Nashville bromides – equal parts Patterson Hood’s working-class Southern blues, Chris Stapleton’s bluegrass bonafides, and Woody Guthrie’s progressive populism. After all, you’re not gonna call your touring band The Food Stamps unless you lean left, at least a little.
Like Billy Strings, Childers has become enough of a sensation for his appeal to extend beyond the Americana-adjacent world, too. Last year, he even turned up onstage for a live cameo with pop star Olivia Rodrigo in his Kentucky stomping grounds to do his song “All Your’n.” It went over like a house on fire.
Since country radio is finally, belatedly catching on with “Nose On The Grindstone,” lead single to Childers’ fine new Rick Rubin-produced LP Snipe Hunter, let’s take a look back to where he came from.
How’d this happen, anyway? Like this.
“Hard Times,” Bottles and Bibles (2011)
Going back to the beginning, “Hard Times” was the song that opened Childers’ full-length debut Bottles and Bibles. It’s an actual hillbilly elegy that definitely sets a tone, with finely detailed lyrics that unfold like a short story. Simultaneously stoic and emotional, Childers’ quavering vocal about a holdup gone wrong makes him sound like a protagonist who somehow regrets both everything and nothing at all: “And if the Lord wants to take me, I’m here for the taking/ ‘Cause Hell’s probably better than tryin’ to get by.”
“Long Violent History,” Long Violent History (2020)
Bluegrass roots and of-the-moment progressive activism makes for an unusual combination, but here we are. “Long Violent History” is the title track to a bluegrass album and it’s the only original and non-instrumental track on the record. Evoking “Faded Love” at the outset and “My Old Kentucky Home” on the outro, it’s a rural Southern score for the Black Lives Matter protests that swept America in 2020.
“It’s the worst that it’s been since the last time it happened,” Childers sighs at the outset, resigned to the inevitability of violence happening again. For good measure, Childers made a supplemental spoken-word video (below) explaining the necessity of BLM: “If we didn’t need to be reminded, there would be justice for Breonna Taylor, a Kentuckian like me, and countless others.”
“Jersey Giant” – Elle King (2022)
If Childers ever records his own version of “Jersey Giant,” he’ll have to hustle to top Elle King’s cover. As with the similarly themed “Me and Bobby McGee” (written by Kris Kristofferson, but owned for the ages by Janis Joplin), King just completely inhabits the song’s bittersweet, longing anguish. “I left town when we were over… Just didn’t feel the same” – the way she pauses a beat between lines is just chef’s-kiss perfection. There are numerous cover versions of “Jersey Giant” out there, but this is the one that’s going to linger.
“Luke 2:8-10,” Rustin’ In The Rain (2023)
Remember the big pivot-point moment of truth in the classic holiday cartoon A Charlie Brown Christmas – the “Lights, please” speech that his friend Linus makes? Childers must have grown up with that, too. Linus spoke these Bible verses, Luke 2:8-10, which Childers transposes to the key of honky-tonk in this song with his drawl in full effect. You can almost imagine the “Peanuts” dancers doing a two-step to it.
“Purgatory,” Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? (2022)
Childers’ ambitiously wide-ranging 2022 album Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? featured eight gospel songs, each done in three different versions dubbed Hallelujah, Jubilee, and Joyful Noise. The latter category tricked each tune up with samples and remixes, which might be the closest Childers has ever come to hip-hop electronica (at least so far!). In this guise, the title track from his 2017 project Purgatory cuts the sort of groove you’d expect to hear in New Orleans.
“The Heart You’ve Been Tending,” Harlan Road – NewTown (2016)
What does it mean that so many of the best covers of Childers’ songs are by women? Who’s to say, but here’s another great one, from the Kentucky band NewTown’s Harlan Road album. “The Heart You’ve Been Tending” is in waltz time, with fiddler/singer Kati Penn’s vocal shining bright as a lighthouse cutting through a foggy mountain breakdown.
“In Your Love,” Rustin’ in the Rain (2023)
Another multimedia project of sorts, this song from Childers’ Rustin’ in the Rain started out as a relatively conventional devotional love song. Then he enlisted collaborators including his fellow Kentuckian, author Silas House, to make a video that casts “In Your Love” as a sort of country music version of Brokeback Mountain set in coal-mining country. As beautiful as it is heartbreaking.
“Matthew,” Country Squire (2019)
Childers has always been wildly eclectic and this song from his Country Squire LP is a prime example. “Matthew” is yet another working-class waltz, with enough bluegrass savvy to drop bluegrass legend Clarence White’s name in the lyrics – plus an actual sitar as oddball sound-effect mood-setter at the beginning of the song. Somehow it makes perfect sense.
“Bottles and Bibles (Live),” Live on Red Barn Radio I & II (2018)
With or without a band, Childers has always been a riveting performer. This live version of the title track to his 2011 studio debut closed out 2018’s Live on Red Barn Radio I & II and it’s just voice and guitar. All the better to focus on the tale of a preacher as wayfaring stranger pondering the difficulties of keeping to the straight and narrow: “But they ain’t had to walk with the weight that you’ve hauled/ They don’t know you at all, but they think that they do.”
“Coal,” Bottles and Bibles (2011)
What might Bruce Springsteen have been like if he’d grown up in a Kentucky coal-mining family? You can imagine him turning out like the narrator of this song, which sounds way too timeless to have originated in this century. It’s pure working-class desperation: “We coulda made something of ourselves out there, if we’d listened to the folks/ That coal is gonna bury you.”
“Oneida,” Snipe Hunter (2025)
To be a Childers fan is to accept that he does have some idiosyncratic boundaries. There are songs from his live shows he’s never recorded, like the previously mentioned “Jersey Giant”; or popular recorded songs he has sworn off playing live, including the now-widely-seen-as-problematic “Feathered Indians.” For the better part of a decade, one of his unrecorded orphans was “Oneida,” a longtime fan favorite that’s like a Harold and Maude for the country set. Lo and behold, a recorded version finally surfaced as one of the best songs on Snipe Hunter. Dreams do come true.
Bluegrass and folk, Americana and country – it’s another excellent serving of new music in our weekly roundup!
Beloved long-running bluegrass group Lonesome River Band have a new single out today, “Square Dance Friday Night,” which you can hear below. Written by LRB member and artist-songwriter Jesse Smathers, it’s the perfect track for New Music Friday whether or not a square dance is in your future – and of course, one should be. You’ll also find a preview of an upcoming track from singer-songwriter Elexa Dawson, “Roots Grow,” in our collection. Drawing on connections to land and ecology, it’s a string-Americana examination of the cycles of life; it readily shows how and why Dawson can often be found on the folk charts.
Don’t miss Kentucky’s Nicholas Jamerson joined by Rachel Baiman on his new song, which drops today. “How Sunday Feels” is more than apt in its vibey, grooving observations of toxicity and duplicity in religion and belief systems. Impeccable guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jack Schneider, who’s a delightful collapser and combiner of genres and eras, also debuted a new single this week as well. Check out”Stone’s Throw Away,” a Barbara Keith cover that fits Schneider – and his upcoming album, Streets Of September –downright perfectly, shining with an indie-folk gilt.
We also have a special video treat this week, as we’re picking up and sharing a few performance videos from singer-songwriter Rachel McIntyre Smith from her Honeysuckle Friend Sessions series, which has been running on her social media and YouTube channel since October. Starting today and continuing over the next several weeks, we’ll share a series of three Honeysuckle Friend Sessions by McIntyre Smith and her musical friends and collaborators celebrating her recent EP. This edition features Smith in duet with Rebecca Lee Daniels offering a lovely rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors.”
Wherever you like your roots music to grow, there’s always a superb song just a stone’s throw away in our weekly roundup. You Gotta Hear This!
Elexa Dawson, “Roots Grow”
(Click to listen)
Artist:Elexa Dawson Hometown: Emporia, Kansas Song: “Roots Grow” Album:Stay Put Release Date: August 15, 2025 (single); September 12, 2025 (album) Label: Turns Out Records
In Their Words: “‘Roots Grow’ is a celebration of the cycles of life. It can’t be all ‘love and light’ all the time. When times get hard, I look to the world around me, to the trees and animals, and I see lots of things that thrive in darkness. I think we can channel that energy and get through the dark times facing us with the help of the tree folk, who are a lot older and smarter than we are.” – Elexa Dawson
Nicholas Jamerson, “How Sunday Feels” featuring Rachel Baiman
Artist:Nicholas Jamerson Hometown: Prestonsburg, Kentucky Song: “How Sunday Feels” featuring Rachel Baiman Album:The Narrow Way Release Date: August 8, 2025 (single); September 12, 2025 (album) Label: Cloverdale
In Their Words: “This song was inspired by some keyboard warriors who use religion as a weapon of condemnation, rather than a tool of liberation from their own ego. Universally, I hope anyone who’s using their beliefs, whether religious, political, or philosophical, as a shield to judge and harm others will hear this song and maybe stop and think before speaking so critically about others.” – Nicholas Jamerson
Track Credits: Nicholas Jamerson – Vocals, acoustic guitar, songwriter Rachel Baiman – Fiddle, vocals, songwriter Josh Oliver – Electric guitar, organ Steve Haan – Bass Mark Raudabaugh – Drums
Lonesome River Band, “Square Dance Friday Night”
Artist:Lonesome River Band Hometown: Floyd, Virginia Song: “Square Dance Friday Night” Release Date: August 8, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “‘Square Dance Friday Night,’ written by our bandmate Jesse Smathers, is a story of years gone by in rural America. Growing up in the 1970s, I played so many square dances and gatherings attended by the unique characters described in this song. So many friendships were built in the VFW halls and community centers that lasted forever. Music and dancing was the main source of entertainment for working class folks and it was the way to end the week with celebration!” – Sammy Shelor
“The tie between playing music and dancing is a huge part of the culture along the Appalachian mountains. Growing up, I remember cutting my teeth playing music for dancers at local venues along the North Carolina/Virginia line. It has always been a beautiful community event. ‘Square Dance Friday Night’ is your invitation to a night full of fun and tells of some of the interesting characters you may meet while there.” – Jesse Smathers
Track Credits: Sammy Shelor – Banjo Jesse Smathers – Acoustic guitar, lead vocal, songwriter Mike Hartgrove – Fiddle Adam Miller – Mandolin, harmony vocal Kameron Keller – Upright bass Rod Riley – Electric guitar
Rachel McIntyre Smith, “Coat of Many Colors” featuring Rebecca Lee Daniels (Honeysuckle Friend Sessions)
Artist:Rachel McIntyre Smith with Rebecca Lee Daniels Hometown: Oliver Springs, Tennessee Song: “Coat of Many Colors” Latest Album: Honeysuckle Friend (Deluxe) Release Date: August 13, 2025 (video); June 27, 2025 (deluxe EP)
In Their Words: “Rebecca Lee Daniels is one of my favorite singer-songwriters, so I was thrilled when she agreed to be part of my series, the Honeysuckle Friend Sessions. Since moving to Nashville, she has become one of my closest friends in the music scene. We chose this song because we are both East Tennessee girls who love Dolly Parton. I think we recorded this in just one or two takes, because it’s such a go-to song for both of us. I’m so excited for BGS to partner with me on three sessions in this series. Keep an eye out in two weeks for another Honeysuckle Friend Session right here on BGS as part of ‘You Gotta Hear This.'” – Rachel McIntyre Smith
“It’s so meaningful to sing with one of my closest friends and collaborators – on my favorite Dolly Parton song, no less! Rachel and I share a common thread with Dolly in that we’re all three Appalachian women raised in the foothills of East Tennessee. As an artist who writes and releases Appalachian- and bluegrass-centric music, being featured in BGS is more meaningful than I can put into words and I’m so grateful to Rachel for the opportunity!” – Rebecca Lee Daniels
Track Credits: Rebecca Lee Daniels – Guitar, vocals Rachel McIntyre Smith – Vocals
Video Credit: Filmed and edited by Rachel McIntyre Smith.
Jack Schneider, “Stone’s Throw Away”
Artist:Jack Schneider Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia Song: “Stone’s Throw Away” Album:Streets Of September Release Date: August 6, 2025 (single); September 19, 2025 (album)
In Their Words: “My mission as a singer-songwriter is not to just perform my own compositions, but to preserve the music that inspires me, especially the hidden gems that deserve to find their way out into the world.
“Discovering Barbara Keith, who wrote and originally performed ‘Stone’s Throw Away,’ was serendipitous. I was in New York record-shopping with guitar historian Maple Byrne and it was he who stumbled upon a copy of Barbara Keith’s self-titled record. He insisted that I check it out, so I bought it at his recommendation. When I listened, it was almost spiritual how deeply Barbara’s songs moved me, specifically ‘Stone’s Throw Away,’ because of the line, ‘Georgia never looked so good as it does in Tennessee.’ Every now and then someone else’s words align with your own lived experience and this song is a perfect example of that for me.
“Recording it on my new record was also serendipitous. I had made a 4-track cassette demo of this song at one point, purely for my own amusement, and when my producer Matt Andrews (Gillian Welch, Dawes) came across the demo in a folder, we put it in the mix. Matt, never having heard the original version, liked how well it connected to the narrative theme of the other songs we’d selected. I am thrilled with how it turned out. Above all I am just hopeful to be able to draw more people’s attention to the music of Barbara Keith. She is incredible and I hope this version of her song does it the justice that it deserves.” – Jack Schneider
Track Credits: Jack Schneider – Electric guitar, lead vocal Camille Thornton – Electric guitar, vocal harmony Wendy Moten – Vocal harmony Dominic Billett – Drums Jared Manzo – Bass Matt Andrews – Organ
Photo Credit: Jack Schneider by Annie Loughead; Elexa Dawson by Lifeleak Visuals.
Eli West first rose to prominence in the acoustic music world as part of a duo with fellow singer-songwriter Cahalen Morrison. After creating three highly regarded albums together in the 2010s, West set off on his own. In 2016, he released The Both, featuring appearances by folks like Dori Freeman and Bill Frissell and on 2021’s well-received Tapered Point of Stone, West led a band that included Watchhouse’s Andrew Marlin and Clint Mullican and fiddler Christian Sedelmyer (Jerry Douglas Band).
This summer, the Seattle-based musician delivered his third solo album, The Shape of a Sway, where he is backed by his current sidemen, fiddler Patrick M’Gonigle and bassist Forest Marowitz, along with longtime collaborator Matt Flinner (mandolin, banjo) and an old college buddy, Peter Hatch (harmonium, piano).
West didn’t take a straight line to becoming a professional musician. Although he played violin and guitar growing up in the Pacific Northwest, he studied visual arts and political science in college. Then he headed east, where he went to timber framing schools in Vermont and Maine. Returning to Seattle, he got a job as a graphic designer.
Dissatisfied with his 9-to-5 existence, he quit his desk job after several years and went to Seattle’s Bainbridge Graduate Institute to study business. About halfway through, he realized business school wasn’t for him. It was around this time that West, who was getting more interested in bluegrass, met Morrison. He quickly decided to take a big leap and start playing and touring with Morrison. “My 30s were my 20s and it was awesome,” he shares with BGS. “And music was the means for that.”
West took some time to talk about his new album and his life while loading up a rental truck with timber frame kit to take to Orcas Island off the coast of Washington, where he and his wife own the Victorian Valley wedding chapel.
The Shape of a Sway is your third solo album. What type of a musical evolution do you see with this album?
Eli West: [With] each sequential record since my project with Cahalen, I’ve just been kind of establishing myself as a solo artist and singing my own music.
Tapered Point of Stone occurred right after my dad died and then this [album] occurred right after I became a dad. And making it halfway through life, turning 40, thinking about the second half. So, there’s kind of a transition theme. Looking up to someone and then all of a sudden looking down to my kids. Kind of switching teachers. My parents were my teachers and now my kids are my teachers. That’s a really abrupt shift.
I was writing for my last two records, but with this record I’m finally singing my songs that matter to me in a way that if they fall on other ears and feel good, I’m stoked. But I’m mostly happy with them as my own journal entries.
You have said you had something of a late start as a songwriter. How did your recent significant life events – your father dying, you getting married, and having children – influence your songwriting?
It took me so long to start songwriting, because I felt like I was cocky if I was putting my songs out if I hadn’t lived life. So, I needed to experience death. I needed to experience life on the other end, being a dad. I just didn’t have enough to say until then. It felt arrogant to do that without those experiences.
I have more certainty in whatever I’m doing. And I honestly needed a few years to think about my dad dying before I became a dad. And that certitude I feel in my music now, too.
I’m not writing to anything. I’m writing for myself. I have a lot of friends in Nashville, but I hate Nashville, because everyone’s writing to something. Not everybody, but there’s a big trend of writing to something to get awards or get someone to cover it – you know, that kind of thing.
How did you select the ten songs – did you pick them because they felt like a piece or because they were the ones ready to record?
It’s half matchmaking and half just the dam breaking because it was time. Making sense of getting half of your life, getting married, settling down, not road-dogging anymore, and ultimately deciding to have kids. So the matchmaking was finding the songs that spoke truth to being a new parent, I guess.
Are there tunes that you feel especially stand out to you from a songwriter’s perspective?
Well, “Ever Lovin Need To Know” doesn’t have a lot of meaning and it’s kind of filling syllables and it just feels good. It had meaning, but it was more about the feeling of the song than the content. “Spite and Love” is maybe the other end, where I had read this article in the New York Times about crows holding grudges and that just kind of launched it. I’m really proud of the lyrical content of that song.
And what songs served as the impetus for the album?
“Ever Lovin Need To Know” kind of felt like the tipping point where I could start assembling songs… And then “Rocks and Trees” is the most pertinent to my current situation. I have a nine-month-old daughter and that is speaking to that reality of who she is in my life.
“Rocks and Trees” also contains the line that you used for the album’s title.
Yeah, I don’t like naming a record after a song title. I think picking a lyric is way more interesting. I think there’s more satisfaction in finding that as a listener, than having a song title be the album title. So, “the shape of a sway” was kind of a secondary line that ended up meaning a lot to me. I have this newborn daughter, and I feel like I really know her not in a cognitive sense, but in a feeling sense. And “the shape of a sway” is this kind of different way to know somebody.
It feels like your lyrics often concern people exploring, examining, and searching for answers, but you don’t necessarily provide answers or explanations. Also, several songs (“All The Saints,” and the cover of Jean Ritchie’s “Cool of the Day”) have spiritual or religious imagery. Is this intentional or coincidental?
I’m glad you brought that up. I grew up in the church but then realized there’s just such a bigger common denominator than religion to get to know the world and people. So, I’ve happily delivered myself from that. But I think I ask better questions of myself because I acknowledge that human experience is bigger than any one religion.
I’m kind of looking back on those religious questions with a humanist empirical perspective, and I think that’s pretty fascinating to look back at the same questions but have a deeper well of experience and knowledge.
Was it difficult to quit the more structured world of graphic design and later business grad school for a life of a musician?
I think we’re all trying to reclaim this word “freedom” in this time and the definition of freedom for me was choosing a creative pursuit. There was some privilege and luxury in that, but it just felt like freedom. And I am grateful.
Has your background in design influenced the way you make music, similar to the connection that people have drawn between music and math?
Yes, spatial thinking – relative understanding based on space – what it feels like to be in one room and look into another room. I think of music and arrangements like that. The flow of walking through space and anticipation and memory, that’s really how I navigate music. That sounds kind of cocky, but I think you know what I mean.
You have talked about how collaborations are important to you. And this album features performers who you are familiar with (Patrick M’Gonigle, Forest Marowitz, Peter Hatch, and Matt Flinner). So, I was wondering how you walked the line with the arrangements and the collaborating, when it’s your name on the cover.
Yeah, I think any relationship [involves] grabbing onto the things that are important. The first line of this “Rocks and Trees” song is “a heavy rock that’s lightly held.” So, how to grab on to important things, but not white-knuckle them. I mean, I had this a few times, mostly in relationships, but also in musical collaborations that you seize the moment, but you don’t pretend it’s eternal.
And there’s a kind of like healthy promiscuity in music that just feeds the creative side. That said, this band that I play with right now – I feel so lucky. They’re just some of my favorite musicians. Besides Matt, we’re all in the Northwest now. And I think beyond anything, that’s why I do this – it’s just to play music with pals that I appreciate.
I had tried to record this a year previous, [and] it was basically too lightly held. I went in with a framework, but not enough rehearsing or structure around mostly [the] arrangements. And it was a great session. Those songs sound great. But it just didn’t have that kind of cohesive thing. So, I think my ideal process is leaving like 20% to be determined the day of recording. And then like that shit is always so great. But I need the 80% structure there.
You play a rather impressive variety of instruments. Guitar is your main instrument, but you play mandolin on this album’s two original instrumentals (“Gentleman’s Bulldog” and “Thanks and Sorry”). And you also play banjo and pedal steel. Do you feel like you have a particular facility with playing instruments?
I did Suzuki violin as a kid, which focuses mostly on ear training and that really helps to be fluid on instruments later in life. So, I’m really grateful for this Suzuki method!
This album has a little less bluegrass sound to it. Songs like “Spite and Love” and your reworking of Paul Simon’s “Hearts and Bones,” in particular, have real adventurous arrangements. Listening to it, the album sounds more genre-less – in a good way.
Yes, I am without genre. I just am drawn to good music, and I don’t like bad music. That’s how I define genre. There’s a lot of whim and not feeling bound to anything. So, that’s a freedom, and I kind of don’t care.
The Shape of a Sway also contains fewer instrumentals than your prior albums, was that by design?
I also love instrumental music…But the lyrical content of this record is important enough that I think that the instrumentals are just kind of supplemental.
You end the album with a real lively version of “I’d Rather Be A Train.” Was that on purpose?
[Chuckles] That Larry Sparks song was mostly just to make sure I still love bluegrass or to show that I love bluegrass.
Photo Credit: Jenny Jimenez
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