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.
Rolling Stone describes young country phenom Carter Faith as “a bright light for the future of country” – but she’s definitely illuminating the genre in the present! Her debut full length album, Cherry Valley, released earlier this month, displaying in full her gritty, fun, down-to-earth, and modern brand of Good Country.
Something special is happening with Ghost Hounds, a Pittsburgh Americana outfit combining blues, rock and roll, alt-country, soul, and much more. Their latest album, Almost Home, features the group’s new lead singer and frontman, SAVNT; a lineup change isn’t foiling this dynamic band, it’s building their momentum. They just made their Grand Ole Opry debut this week!
Perhaps our first repeat Ed’s Pick, but Vince Gill is always Good Country, right? The singer-picker-Country Hall of Famer-Eagles vocalist just announced a new series of EPs celebrating his lifelong career in music. The series, titled 50 Years From Home, begins with its first EP, I Gave You Everything I Had, today. We’re so grateful for all the years, all the music, and all you’ve given all of us, Vince!
Singer-songwriter-artist and Gar Hole Records co-proprietor Nick Shoulders is the real deal. He’s part of a broad movement of country musicians recentering the industry, its stakeholders, and its fans so the music better reflects all of the kinds of folks who love it. If you like Good Country that sticks it to the man, seeks justice, imagines a better world, and still sounds like “Grampa Music,” look out for his upcoming album, Refugia Blues (out October 31).
From Broadway in NYC to Lower Broadway in Nashville, MORGXN has done it all, but we find the singer-songwriter-performer thriving as he “reclaims his Nashville roots,” subverts expectations of musical and cultural stereotypes of country, and unabashedly celebrates queerness – especially so on his new twangy EP, Heartland: Part II. More MORGXNs like this in country, please and thank you.
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Photo Credits: Carter Faith by Bree Marie Fish; Ghost Hounds courtesy of the artist; Vince Gill by David McClister; Nick Shoulders by Shelby Merry; MORGXN by Gabriel Starner.
While every country star knows how to tell a good story, it takes a particular strain of excellence to also be able to write one.
Songwriting is the gravitational center around which Good Country orbits. Lyrics that strike at the oceanic spread of human existence, chords that evoke its sprawling underbelly – the songwriter weaves both words and notes together, using each as a tool to explore the other.
Uniquely attuned to the value in lyrical narrative and authenticity, country music self-selects its fair share of multi-hyphenate talents who, beyond their performative prowess or instrumental skills, have a knack for setting pen to paper. From Willie Nelson to Kacey Musgraves, country carries an extensive lineage of talented songsmiths. The following collection merely scrapes the surface of the best country star songwriters. Unsurprisingly, this list is a tangled web with many superb songwriters covering, popularizing, and collaborating on one another’s songs in true communal country fashion.
Willie Nelson
With over 300 songwriting credits to his name, Willie Nelson is indubitably one of the most prolific songwriters of all time – not just in country. Having written his first poem at the age of six, Nelson has nearly nine decades of steadfast dedication to the craft under his belt. Patsy Cline’s 1961 recording of “Crazy” lifted his songwriting further into the limelight. His pen went on to produce such potency that it helped define an entire new subgenre in the ‘70s— “outlaw country.”
Prized for his rebellious and forthright lyrical attitude, Nelson values raw emotion over placative commercial appeal, ironically earning him one of the most successful careers in country history. Over the years, Nelson has delivered a seemingly endless stream of hits performed by both himself and countless other musical giants, including Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, and Dolly Parton, just to name a few.
Bobbie Gentry
Bobbie Gentry is the keeper of a robust legacy of composing and performing. Having written her first song at age 7, Gentry taught herself to play a slew of instruments throughout her youth. When she attended college at UCLA, she began performing her songs out at the occasional nightclub, signing to Capitol Records some years later as an aspiring songwriter. In 1967, Capitol Records released “Ode to Billie Joe,” a song that Gentry had written and recorded herself. Gentry told The Washington Post that despite wanting to write songs for other artists, she only sang “Ode to Billie Joe” herself because it was cheaper than hiring another singer.
Despite her previous obscurity and the song’s dark tenor, “Ode” crept up the charts, surpassing the likes of Aretha Franklin and The Doors until it eventually pushed “All You Need is Love” out of the No. 1 spot. This astronomical success marked only the beginning of an industrious career for Gentry; she would go on to write and perform several other smash hits in addition to becoming the first woman to host a variety show on the BBC. She would later produce, choreograph, and write the music for her own nightclub revue in Las Vegas prior to retiring from show business.
Roger Miller
The King of the Road had range! Roger Miller’s songwriting legacy entailed chart-topping hits he wrote and performed himself, such as (of course) “King of the Road,” “Dang Me,” and “England Swings,” in addition to many that he wrote for other artists, such as “Billy Bayou” for Jim Reeves and Ray Price’s “Invitation to the Blues.”
His imaginative impulse made him uniquely qualified for the projects he took on later in life, including writing the music and lyrics for several songs in the 1973 animated Disney film Robin Hood, in which he also voiced Alan-a-Dale, the film’s rooster narrator. His acting career was even furthered by another musical project – Miller wrote the entire score for Big River, a Broadway musical based on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The musical premiered in 1985 and earned a total of seven Tony Awards, including Best Score. Miller even played the part of Pap (Huck Finn’s father) onstage for three months following the original cast member’s departure for Hollywood.
Kacey Musgraves
One of the most influential women in today’s country sphere, Kacey Musgraves has sculpted a name for herself for both her instrumental/vocal prowess and her impactful songwriting capabilities. Her solo catalog is chock-full of compelling songs that explore the “nuances of being a human, alive and experiencing consciousness,” as she told The Cut. The thoughtful universality of her songwriting has attracted a distinguished array of performers, with Musgraves contributing her skills to songs performed and recorded by Martina McBride, Miranda Lambert, and Deana Carter, among others.
Kris Kristofferson
This September marked a year since his passing, but Kris Kristofferson’s legacy continues to burn bright. His songs maintain a rugged, raw quality without sacrificing any of their vibrance. Though Kristofferson only landed one No. 1 hit on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart performing his own original material, his songs were platformed by many others featured on this list, including “Help Me Through the Night,” which Sammi Smith, Loretta Lynn and Willie Nelson recorded, and “For the Good Times,” a tune made famous by Ray Price that was later recorded by Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and more. Kristofferson also penned a fair number of tunes for The Highwaymen, the country supergroup composed of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kristofferson himself, including their titular hit, “Highwayman.”
Trisha Yearwood
Author, singer, chef, Food Network television show host – just when we thought Trisha Yearwood had done it all, her 16th studio album, The Mirror, arrived this past July to showcase yet another talent you may not know that she held all along: songwriting. In an interview with Billboard, Yearwood recounts that discouragement during her college years largely held her back from incorporating songwriting into her career over the past three-plus decades. “It made me think I wasn’t a songwriter and I just always downplayed it,” she says.
The Mirror boasts powerful co-writes with many songwriters who’ve contributed to Yearwood’s earlier albums, including Rebecca Lynn Howard (“I Don’t Paint Myself into Corners”) and Maia Sharp (“Standing Out in a Crowd”). Of homing in on her songwriting craft, Yearwood shares, “It was really something that clicked a couple of years ago. I started writing and it was really kind of therapeutic and really evolved naturally out of something I felt like I needed to do and I’m so happy with how it came out.”
Merle Haggard
Widely recognized as one of the most legendary singer-songwriters of the country canon, Merle Haggard was a staunch believer in writing from his own experiences – of which he had many worth writing about. After losing his father at age nine, Haggard wound up in all sorts of trouble, from several stints in juvenile detention to developing a strong hitchhiking and train hopping habit. His rambunctious tendencies followed him into adulthood and eventually landed him in prison after an attempted robbery and subsequent failed jailbreak.
In 1960, Haggard’s life changed forever upon attending a Johnny Cash concert while incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, which deeply inspired him. Upon his release later that year, Haggard set out to forge his own country career, garnering unspeakable success. From “Workin’ Man’s Blues” (co-written with Roy Edward Burris) to “The Bottle Let Me Down,” many of Haggard’s songs have become perennial classics.
Jimmy Buffett
Of all the narrative-focused songwriters, Jimmy Buffet undoubtedly took the premise of “world-building” the most literally. “Margaritaville,” the hit song which Buffett claimed took him only six minutes to write, has a transcendent legacy. From hotels to casinos to Broadway musicals, Buffett’s profoundly popular songwriting grew an empire. Of course, “Margaritaville” was certainly neither the beginning nor the end of Buffett’s extensive songwriting career; having released 30 albums (8 of which are certified gold and 9 of which are certified platinum or multi-platinum by the RIAA), Buffett was credited on upwards of 350 songs over the course of his life.
Don Gibson
Responsible for the songwriting behind some of the most famous songs in country history, Shelby, North Carolina, native Don Gibson was such a force that he, in fact, penned two of his most influential songs in the same day. “Oh Lonesome Me” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You” – which would go on to be recorded over 700 times by other artists including Ray Charles, Kitty Wells, and Loretta Lynn – were both conceived in a trailer park north of Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1957.
Bonnie Raitt
In addition to being the utter powerhouse musician that she is, Bonnie Raitt also knows her way around some lyrics. Having written most of her own music and with artists like Stevie Nicks and The Chicks covering her songs, Raitt’s songwriting has left an indelible mark on the blues, country, and Americana scenes. She’s known for her thoughtful and emotionally dynamic posture; for instance, her song “Down the Road” was inspired by a New York Times article Raitt read about a prison hospice program. Another, “Just Like That,” earned her a GRAMMY for Song of the Year and was inspired by a news segment featuring two families experiencing either end of an organ donation. Written from heartful depths, Raitt’s lyrics are both inspired and inspiring.
Cam
Best-known for her Grammy-nominated 2015 hit, “Burning House,” Cam (AKA Camaron Ochs) is one of the most prominent songwriters in the contemporary country scene. Another star and composer, in addition to her own four studio albums, Cam has writing credits featured on work from some of the largest industry giants in any genres. She has composed material for artists from Sam Smith to Miley Cyrus and 2024 saw her songwriting, backing vocals, and production lending a hand in several songs off of Beyonce’s chart-topping, culture-shifting country release, Cowboy Carter.
John Hartford
John Hartford’s talents truly knew no bounds. In addition to his multi-instrumental expertise, he was a fleet-footed clogger who could tear up a rug while he played. And he sure did know how to write a song. His most successful songwriting credit, “Gentle on My Mind,” (popularized by Glen Campbell and henceforth covered over and over again) earned him three GRAMMY awards and a listing among BMI’s Top 100 Songs of the Century. With covers from folks like Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, and many more, it’s safe to say Hartford was one of the most respected – and most recorded and most covered – roots songwriters of his time. And of our time, too, as evidenced by this I’m With Her performance of “Long Hot Summer Days,” a Hartford original fiddler Sara Watkins once recorded on her own solo project.
Chris Stapleton
A fav of Good Country and our audience alike, Chris Stapleton has had a tremendously successful performing career in both bluegrass (via The SteelDrivers) and country (as a solo artist). His guitar prowess and smoky vocals aren’t his only claims to fame; even before his rise to stardom, Stapleton had written songs for some of the most commercially successful names in country and beyond. He’s been the pen-power behind songs for industry giants such as Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Darius Rucker, George Strait, Lee Ann Womack, and more. Adele even recognized the potency of Stapleton’s powers back in 2011, having recorded a version of his smash hit SteelDrivers song “If It Hadn’t Been for Love” on a deluxe version of her album 21.
Dolly Parton
They don’t call Dolly Parton the queen of country for nothing! Illustrious and industrious, Parton estimates that she’s composed nearly 3,000 songs in her lifetime, with somewhere around 450 of them recorded. Her ability to world-build through dynamic characters and narratives has set the modern country standard for story-songs, with “Coat of Many Colors,” “9 to 5,” and, of course, “Jolene” being just some of her most chart-topping successes. She’s also written plenty for other artists – think Merle Haggard, Kenny Rodgers, Hank Williams Jr., Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, and Tina Turner, just to name a few. And of course, we’d be remiss not to mention that Parton penned the biggest hit of Whitney Houston’s career!
Darrell Scott
In 2007 Darrell Scott was named the Americana Music Association’s Songwriter of the Year, and this year, 2025, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the organization, too. In short, Darrell Scott is a songwriting powerhouse – in addition to his status as one of Nashville’s premiere session musicians.
Similarly to many other artists on this list, albeit with his own stylistic flares, Scott champions the narrative song, writing tunes full of dynamic characters and story arcs that mesmerize. Outside of his own successful solo work, songwriting for others is the bedrock of Scott’s career. Among countless other contributions, Scott wrote the Chicks’ “Long Time Gone” (later to be sampled in Beyoncé’s “Daddy Lessons”), Travis Tritt’s hit song, “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive,” and the ever-relevant “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive,” which has been covered by Patty Loveless, Brad Paisley, Chris Stapleton, Kathy Mattea, Luke Combs, and many more.
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Holding the attention of a roomful of moderately smashed bar-goers is no small feat, let alone with a traditional Irish folksong. But last May, country singer-songwriter Dylan Earl ended his set at Brooklyn’s Skinny Dennis standing on top of the bar and singing an a cappella version of “Wild Mountain Thyme.”
“Will you go, lassie go/ And we’ll all go together/ To pull wild mountain thyme/ All around the blooming heather,” Earl implored in his warm baritone, towering above the room in worn jeans, boots, and a sleeves-cut-off T-shirt from his Arkansas-based label, Gar Hole Records. In spite of all the alcohol collectively consumed by the listeners who packed the venue to its beer-tinged walls that evening, the room was just about as quiet as a divey honky-tonk can be.
By ending his set with the kind of folk song which, passed down through generations, comprises one major lineage of country music – indeed, “Wild Mountain Thyme” is based in a much older Scottish folk song – Earl invoked a deep vernacular tradition and history often left out of modern country. Earl’s music attracts labels like “old-school” and “classic country,” and his voice certainly lends itself to those comparisons, but his own compositions convey a whole lot more. Rejecting the banality of tired Southern stereotypes, Earl writes punk-hearted, poetic music rooted in a love of people and place; music which is both socially and class-conscious and captures wide-ranging cultural unease and indignation with nuance and wit.
On his fourth studio album, Level-Headed Even Smile (released September 19), Earl makes clear that his is not a return to a bygone era so much as a carrying on of a long tradition of speaking truth to power and of imbuing dimension and worth into the lives of overlooked characters and issues too easily reduced to absolutes.
“I’d rather be an outlaw than in with the law/ All this authority worship is the strangest thing I ever saw,” he sings in “Outlaw Country,” a thesis statement of sorts for the album and Earl himself. Earl wrote “Outlaw Country” out of frustration at how many people made assumptions about his beliefs and morals because of his appearance – and because he plays country music with a whole lot of Southern twang. Earl wanted to make it clear where he stands.
“I finished high school in a very rural part of Arkansas; I identify with the Deep South, but I don’t identify with its most prevalent fucking right-wing rhetoric… I still want to remain approachable to those people I completely disagree with, because I think that’s an important part of making art, is creating discourse,” he says. “I want to try to approach these people and try to have that conversation. Be like, ‘Listen here, brother, I’m just like you, but you don’t have to be a racist piece of shit. It’s way more fun in life to be happy and be inclusive. Your soul will be happier because of that.’”
Lately, outlaw country morphed from its subversive roots into a shorthand for wicked good independent country or a slightly more specific alternative to Americana. While both wicked good and independent, Earl’s version also rekindles contempt for the establishment that fueled the original outlaw country movement:
I’d rather be a bootlegger than a bootlicker A side stepper than a homewrecker And I don’t get a pick me up From putting other people down
It’s clear to see by the air I breathe Working class solidarity Is the only way We’re gonna stamp that fascist out
Sardonic and irreverent, “Outlaw Country” is an anthem for anyone who ever believed in love and community over corruption and power. But rather than a callback, Earl’s music is of and for the next generation of ne’er-do-wells and dreamers living on the fringes, hoping for something better.
Earl grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he split his time between separated parents. Chafing at the craven habits of money and influence that he witnessed from his father, a powerful local lawyer, Earl preferred the warmth and love he felt in the house his mother shared with his grandmother. (Despite a rocky childhood, Earl’s now building a relationship with his dad.)
“I was living in poverty on one side and then I was living in opulence on the other side, and the poverty side is where I wanted to be, because that’s where all the love was,” Earl says. “I’m so lucky to have that, to be able to have identified where love was at a young age and identify where my soul felt good.”
Earl’s mother showed him how to seek joy and adventure, filling life with road trips and camping weekends. When he was just five years old, Earl’s mother plopped a map in his lap and taught him to navigate. Perpetually tight on money and resources and mired in an enduring custody battle with his father, she nonetheless taught him how to get away from it all, instilling in him a curiosity about the world. On the road, they stopped to check out historical markers, explored parks and rivers and the Gulf Coast, and watched giant boats come in while picnicking along the Intracoastal Waterway.
“That developed a sense of wonder and being like, ‘I don’t fucking need money to feel this type of happiness, to feel this sense of joy and adventure and love of life, just life in its purest form,” Earl says, choking up. (He firmly believes more men should cry, and that it helps him be more humane.)
“Her sense of adventure, her true passion for living, it’s amazing to me; it still is amazing to me.”
The album’s title and thematic heart – level-headed even smile – are derived from that approach to living life fully. For Earl, it’s an essential mechanism of coping and connecting. Remain engaged in the world and aware of all its horrors and tragedies, he says, but then, when it gets to be too much, know when and how to take a break:
Some nights I’m crying on the backroads Rolling my smoke backwards Trying to keep a level-headed even smile Don’t you know I might take a while to get there Just hoping I get anywhere Trying to keep a little level-headed even smile
“At some point we’ve got to unplug from the fucking screen and just go explore things that are fucking real, like the trees around us, or the grass, or the water, or the sun or the moon, and try to get in touch with that more primal sense of ourselves,” Earl says. “That is where we can really most quickly and most efficiently achieve happiness, it’s getting in touch with the simplest form of ourselves.”
Beside the love from his mother, Earl describes himself as a depressed kid who struggled in school and wanted desperately to escape his hometown and father and stepmother. At 15, he convinced his father to send him to boarding school which, in part because of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of Louisiana, ended up being in rural Arkansas. At the Subiaco Abbey and Academy, Earl studied with monks who’d taken a vow of poverty and offered rigorous, benevolent study, kindness, and care. Though he’s an atheist, Earl counts the monks, whom he visits regularly, as mentors, connecting with them still through shared spirituality.
“We all fucking showed up pissed off as hell. And we found love and we found love amongst each other; we found love from those monks and found nature,” Earl says, reverently, of his time at Subiaco. “It saved my fucking life. The whole thing; I found joy and happiness for the first time in my life.”
Level-Headed Even Smile is dedicated to Earl’s late friend, William, who was the first to befriend him at Subiaco. “He helped me clear my heart,” Earl says. As he sings of those halcyon days on “Two Kinds of Loner,” “We were two kinds of loner/ A misfit and a wayward son…”
Armed with the sense of wonder his mom taught him, liberated by the fallow morals of youth, and subsumed by the ready escapism afforded by their surroundings, Earl and William learned every back road. They’d steal beer from the back of William’s dad’s Crossroads Tavern and drive for hours exploring the backwoods and levees along the Arkansas River.
“William was the first to show me the country air. Hanging out with him, something about getting in that truck after class, taking off down Lile Ridge Road, cracking a beer, putting on whatever weird music he was listening to at the time, that was the first sense of fucking true freedom I ever had in my life,” Earl says.
Stopping just shy of wistful, “Two Kinds of Loner” is a bittersweet, intimate portrait of the desperately important work of becoming oneself as a teenager – and of the raw beauty in forming kinship through human connection rather than blood relation:
Down where the kudzu meets the bodark And the darkness first let go of me High in a cab of a buddy I had He showed me the county air I used to not care about nothing Because no one seemed to care for me
After high school, Earl attended Hendrix College, a liberal arts school which lived up to its name situated in Conway, Arkansas. A few years earlier, Earl borrowed his father’s old guitar – a Yamaha FG 180 Red Tag, which he still plays today – and learned enough chords to make himself useful around a bonfire and impress the local girls. Encouraged by one of the monks at Subiaco, who noticed him straying from lesson plans, Earl started writing his own music.
When he got to college, he landed feet first in a robust DIY music scene. Together with a group of friends – including Gar Hole Records cofounder and label manager Kurt DeLashmet – Earl played a circuit of local house venues: White House, Blue House, Brick House, and occasionally Shit Mansion, where both also lived for a time. To this day, their two-day, 28-band Butt Ranger music festival thrown by friends at the White House remains one of Earl’s favorite shows.
“We were drunk off our fucking asses on plastic bottle whiskey and snorting Adderall and fucking ripping cigs and shit like that. It was fucked up. It was so awesome. It was just blood and piss everywhere,” Earl says. He recalls the floor at White House buckling so deeply that by the end of the night all his gear, including his oversized amp, wound up in a pile in the middle of the floor. Volume was of primary concern, tone and other nuances distinctly secondary. “What a fucking beautiful, carnal, amazing culture to be a part of,” he says.
Two songs on Even Smile come from those early days playing music first in college and, afterwards, in Little Rock, where Earl and his band Swampbird moved. (Earl lived in Little Rock for a few years then moved to Fayetteville, where he still lives.) Both songs are paeans to the chaotic moil of early adulthood rendered heady and hazy by too much booze and too little grounding: “Broken Parts,” which he first recorded with Swampbird, and “Little Rock Bottom,” about his time in Arkansas’ capital city.
“I don’t really quite realize it until I am talking about it, how much of my life and my story is wound up into that album,” Earl, who’s now in his mid-30s, admits. The album feels like a fitting way to process and close that chapter of life. “I do feel like I’ve left it on the table and I’ve left it all out on the field, so to speak.”
In total, Even Smile is a loving, layered depiction of both Arkansas specifically and the south in general. Among his many influences, Earl includes Arkansas gonzo poet Frank Stanford (who also attended Subiaco and whose burial there Lucinda Williams memorialized in her song, “Pineola”). Stanford’s realism and wild abandon creep into Earl’s songwriting sensibilities; they share a love of the South and its complexities and a reverence for and dedication to illuminating those stories.
Alongside a few cheeky disquisitions on life on the fringes – including road dog ode “Get In The Truck” – throughout the album Earl relishes the beauty of his home territory. Perhaps nowhere more so than on “High On The Ouachitas,” an extended soliloquy on the wild beauty of the mountain range, his chosen retreat for a reset and solace:
When I’m high on Ouachita High as I ever saw the Arkansas With goldenrod and reindeer lichen Twist flowers in bloom There’s just no place I’d rather waste my afternoons Than high on Ouachita
“I love it so fucking much, because I know all of the nuance and I know all the beauty that’s deep underneath all of the stereotypes. And just how fascinatingly complex our communities are,” Earl says. “It’s fucking beautiful. You have two and a half million acres of national forest. So we have the cleanest drinking water in America; we have endless amounts of outdoor recreation; the food is fucking kick ass; the people are the sweetest ever.”
Earl rounded out Level-Headed Even Smile with two very on-theme cover songs: beloved Arkansas folksinger Jimmy Driftwood’s “White River Valley,” a love letter to Arkansas’s pastoral beauty, and Utah Phillips’ peripatetic wanderer’s lament, “Rock Me to Sleep,” which concludes the album. Together they bracket the glib “Lawn Chair,” written with Cameron Duddy and Jonathan Terrell.
Earl jokes when playing the song live that it might be the worst song he’s ever written. And superficially it sounds like the kind of redneck anthem that might confirm the uneducated listener’s worst stereotypes about uncouth Arkansans: “It’s a whipass life just being me/ It don’t cost much to be the free/ I got my lawn chair/ And I’m sitting on top of the world.” Yet the song is also a sly rebuke against taking everything too seriously. Convivial in its roughness, it’s a gleeful, carefree reminder of the many ways to keep a level-headed even smile.
“If I’m feeling bogged down and feeling depressed, oftentimes it has nothing to do with the task at hand, it’s just that I’ve been absorbing how terrible the fucking world is and it makes me incapable of interacting and interfacing with my immediate world, because I’m so fucking caught up in that goddamn bullshit… and it is not allowing you to reach your full potential as a biological piece of anatomy that is somehow living on this planet,” Earl says.
“[A level-headed even smile is] an attempt to focus on your humanness and try to reattach yourself to the earth and detach from the problems of the earth; and just go out and find your smile. Go find your joy amongst all the fucking evil.”
Fall marks the beginning of “over the river and through the woods season,” whether your destination is grandma’s house, an off-season beach, a u-pick apple orchard or pumpkin patch, a spangled and harlequin forest, or an autumn music and arts festival. As you navigate the changing season and enjoy leaf-peeping, apple butter, hot cocoa, and hot dogs roasted over the fire, there’s one genre certain to accompany you through each and every picturesque context the “-ber” months give us – that’s Good Country.
Country is perfect for fall, whether you’re raising a beer, whiskey, or cider alone or among friends. From driving through tobacco country during curing season in September, to tailgating at the football stadium, to winding your way over the Smoky Mountains, to soaking in the last bit of summer sun, there’s a country song ready to soundtrack your falling back in love with cozy season.
Dripping with nostalgia, evocative text painting, a rich and deep connection to nature, and a reverence for community, folkways, and tradition, country music just may be synonymous with fall – and our playlist certainly helps make that case. We hope you enjoy listening and we wanna know: what country songs always get you in an autumnal mood? Did they make the list?
Photo Credit: Album cover, New Harvest… First Gathering, Dolly Parton.
You know what Friday means! New music, new songs, new videos – and of course, You Gotta Hear This.
Let’s begin with some Good Country from Idaho’s own Colby Acuff. His new album, Enjoy the Ride, is out today and we’re enjoying the ride ourselves with a lyric video for the title track from his excellent collection of country that’s both traditional and forward-looking born from beyond the continental divide. Singer-songwriter Kashena Sampson brings us a song from her brand new album, Ghost Of Me, that we find at the intersection of vibey Americana and contemplative indie. “Thick As Thieves” is a daydream in a song about teenage years, friendship, and holding onto – if you can – the ineffable magic of youth.
One of our longtime friends, Caitlin Canty, released her new album, Night Owl Envies the Mourning Dove, yesterday. Based in Vermont, the singer-songwriter crafts music that rests comfortably between folk, bluegrass, string band, and Americana sounds. To celebrate her new album, she’s shared a special live performance video of “Don’t Worry About Nothing,” inspired by parenthood, our frenetic day-to-day, and giving up control – and worry – whenever we can. Speaking of string band music, Damn Tall Buildings, a Brooklyn-based group playing on the fringes of bluegrass, old-time, and swing, have a brand new video for “Turkish Airlines,” a funny and all-too-relatable track they describe as portraying the haze of travel dreams, the desire to be seen, and late-night self-reflection.
And don’t miss your essential dose of bluegrass saxophone, as one of the foremost purveyors of the form, Eddie Barbash, begins a BGS mini-series sharing videos of solo performances of traditional fiddle tunes on sax. To begin, check out his rendition of “Forked Deer,” which Barbash picked up from Sierra Hull while touring with Cory Wong. If you aren’t familiar with Barbash, you may be surprised how perfect fiddle tunes can feel on saxophone. If you are already familiar, you’ll love getting to hear him offer his takes on these classic melodies. More sax-fiddle tunes are coming soon.
There’s a little something for everyone in this week’s roundup, as usual. We hope you enjoy, because You Gotta Hear This!
Colby Acuff, “Enjoy The Ride”
Artist:Colby Acuff Hometown: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho Song: “Enjoy The Ride” Album:Enjoy The Ride Release Date: October 3, 2025
In Their Words: “The title track of this project does not pull any punches. This song sets up the world where this story takes place. Like most of my songs, it takes place in the real world. In the plains of Oklahoma, the mountains of Idaho, or the heat of the desert. This record is for real people. People that we talked to on the streets and truly got a look into who they are. This song is meant to represent the people of this country for what it is. I hope people love this one as much as I do.” – Colby Acuff
Eddie Barbash, “Forked Deer”
Artist:Eddie Barbash Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Forked Deer” Album:Larkspur Release Date: November 28, 2025 (The album will be released one song at a time with the last track coming out Nov. 28.)
In Their Words: “This performance was recorded in a dry streambed at the Larkspur Conservation natural burial ground in northern Tennessee. I learned ‘Forked Deer’ from Sierra Hull while we were on tour with Cory Wong. The harmonic lift in the B part is what makes the tune for me. Modulating to the 5 is a tried-and-true move at least as old as the Baroque. In my playing I tried to capture what I love most about bluegrass – the fast and hard-driving, yet still light and bouncy, groove and the thrilling rhythmic and melodic variations. To achieve the bluegrass backbeat, I made generous use of one of my favorite bowing techniques that I learned from Alex Hargreaves called the ‘Georgia shuffle bow.'” – Eddie Barbash
Video Credits: Shot and edited by Jeremy Stanley.
Caitlin Canty, “Don’t Worry About Nothing”
Artist:Caitlin Canty Hometown: Danby, Vermont Song: “Don’t Worry About Nothing” Album:Night Owl Envies the Mourning Dove Release Date: October 2, 2025
In Their Words: “I started writing this song to my son when his Magna-Tiles castle came crashing down in a spectacular heap. It felt like what was happening at that time to my view of the wider world. This song helps me wind down from worrying about what doesn’t matter so much and focus my powers on fighting for what does matter. It’s written from my own unshakeable mom’s point of view – I love how she sees the world and walks through it with a smile, even on the darkest days. I’m so looking forward to touring Night Owl Envies the Mourning Dove and playing this song each night with my full band! ” – Caitlin Canty
Video Credits: Filmed and edited by Brian Carroll. Mixed by Dave Sinko.
Damn Tall Buildings, “Turkish Airlines”
Artist:Damn Tall Buildings Hometown: Brooklyn, New York Song: “Turkish Airlines” Album:The Universe Is Hungry Release Date: October 8, 2025 (single); October 24, 2025 (album)
In Their Words: “We are honored to share this single from our fourth upcoming studio LP with BGS! ‘Turkish Airlines’ explores the sensation of being loved, but not being sure which version of you someone is loving. We’re always evolving and changing as humans, and this song floats through the uncertainty that can be triggered by that truth. We had a blast crafting this track to portray the haze of travel dreams, the desire to be seen through the complexity, and late-night self-reflection. Through creative experimentation in the recording and production of the track, we were able to bring a bit of studio magic to this song that we hope will become a DTB classic. Hit us up on the socials to let us know what you think!. Thanks for listening, see y’all on the road.” – Damn Tall Buildings
Kashena Sampson, “Thick As Thieves”
Artist:Kashena Sampson Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Thick As Thieves” Album:Ghost Of Me Release Date: October 3, 2025
In Their Words: “I wrote this song for my best friend, Sulayla. It’s a daydream about our teenage years growing up in Las Vegas. It’s about those carefree days when the world felt full of endless possibilities. The song came to me after a conversation we had, realizing that adulthood isn’t quite what we imagined and wishing we could go back to those golden moments. Driving through the desert in my old Ford Explorer, listening to the Beatles and feeling like anything was possible.” – Kashena Sampson
Track Credits: Kashena Sampson – Vocals, songwriter Jolana Sampson – Songwriter B.L. Reed – Guitar Tom Myers – Drums Jon Estes – Bass
Photo Credit: Eddie Barbash by Jeremy Stanley; Caitlin Canty by Brian Carroll.
With a new generation boasting unapologetic traditional influence, there’s more classic-sounding country in the mainstream today than in many years before. With his second album, When I Write the Song, Jake Worthington captures one specific aspect of honky-tonk history better than the rest – its sense of humor.
That’s definitely not to say Worthington’s new album is a joke. Far from it. Over 14 songs, the Texas native sinks down into the depths of sorrow and lets his heart believe in miracles all the same. His love of the classic country form is just as authentic as his barrel-chested vocal twang, and with producers Jon Randall and Chuck Ainley joining his team, it gets highlighted with more sincerity than ever. But right from the opening track, Worthington walks in the footsteps of artists like Johnny Paycheck or Jerry Reed; his down-home demeanor is as country as it gets.
Meanwhile, the solo-written title track is almost alarmingly personal and Worthington welcomes Miranda Lambert, Marty Stuart, and Mae Estes as special guests on other tracks. When I Write the Song arrived on September 12 and by touring through the end of the year with both Jon Pardi and Zach Top, Worthington adds even more evidence of an ongoing trad renaissance.
Good Country spoke with Worthington about writing the way he lives and chasing honky-tonk inspiration farther than ever. Plus, he reveals a secret appreciation fans might not suspect.
For fans who don’t necessarily know, you have always been a proud purveyor of the classic country arts. I think that’s pretty fair to say. Are fans going to get more of that on this record or what?
Jake Worthington: Damn right. Yes, sir. I guess that whole narrative don’t ever really change for me. I don’t ever want to make any other kind of music. When somebody listens to a record that I am a part of or put together, I hope they can have a definitive direction to point to and say “That’s what country music sounds like.”
I think that comes across for sure. Now, it’s good timing because there’s kind of a little traditional renaissance going on in the mainstream. Do you agree with that?
Damn right. Absolutely. I’ve never been more inspired in terms of our genre than I am right now. I think a lot of people are writing and singing and recording great country music and I think that folks of all ages are wanting to hear it. Another thing, too, is I don’t think it’s a fad of any sort. I find it interesting – you hear terms like “traditional” or the whole “’90s” deal or whatever. To me, it’s just country music getting made in 2025. I think that’s really exciting, to know that’s the case. It wasn’t like that just a couple years ago.
So you don’t think it’s people cosplaying country?
I know it’s genuine for me. I can’t control what other people do, but hey, if they want to play dress up, that don’t bother me none. I think it’s good for country music. I’m glad that they’re wanting to dress like a grownup.
One thing that I’ve always loved about classic country itself, and something that you do well on this record, is to have a touch of humor. That’s not around as much anymore, but you do that well.
Well, I think it’s funny. I have always struggled with the idea that I never wanted to not be taken serious as a singer or songwriter, but I still like to have fun. I still cut up and it ain’t all rain and storms all the time. I think country music allows room for all of that. There’s definitely a couple songs on this record that is lighthearted, and I guess I was all right with that.
There’s definitely some hardcore heartbreak in here, but the reason I ask is because of the opening track, “It Ain’t the Whiskey.” There are not many songs about getting pulled over and accused of a DUI these days – even fewer that are fun.
Well, some of us write from the research department, I guess. Unfortunately, I was just trying to make light of what was a really shitty situation for me at one point in time in my life. I’ve made some dumb decisions in my adolescence, I guess. That was a good way to look back and laugh at it.
How about “Two First Names”? This one reminds me of a little bit of Joe Diffie and the way he was able to merge classic country and a funny line.
Well, shoot man, thanks. That’s just about a country girl. I’ve got a handful of women I know and love in my life that got two first names and I love that we got away with writing it without ever saying an actual name. … There wasn’t one of us that wrote that song who ain’t from the country, and we’ve all got women we love and know that got two first names. We all love a country girl.
Hell yeah. Now, one thing about this record, you definitely got to work with some big names. You got Jon Randall and Chuck Ainley helping out on production, along with Joey Moi. I wonder with those two guys specifically, Jon and Chuck, did they help you move your sound or your style forward?
Definitely I think. There’s four tracks that I recorded top to bottom with Chuck and Jon … there’s a lot of really awesome things that I got to do through working with Joey. But I think for me, I wasn’t ever totally happy with the way things were ending up sonically. That was my biggest change that I was after, was just kind of where it landed sonically.
Really?
Especially with the vocal. I’m a very imperfect singer. I’m not a perfect singer. I want that to be heard. I don’t want to be masked.
Joey’s amazing, but he definitely comes from a different world sonically, right?
Yeah, and I wanted to work with guys that were making country records that inspired me. But again, I tracked nine of them songs with Joey and man, I love all of it. Chuck wound up mixing the record and Jon come in when we went to track the last four songs and it’s been a dream come true. I get to work with my heroes, man.
You also got to work with Miranda Lambert [plus Marty Stuart and Mae Estes]. Tell me about doing “Hello Shitty Day” with Miranda, it’s a cool broken-hearted waltz. Did you guys get to know each other?
Sure. I mean, I know it sounds a little simple, but she had texted me the song and I asked if I could cut it. She said yes and I said, “Would you sing on it?” And she said, “Hell yes,” so by God, that’s what we did. I don’t know, man. I wasn’t trying to get on the radio with that song. I just thought it was brilliant. I love that song.
One thing I’ve got to ask you, since this is BGS. Do you have any ties to bluegrass, or was that ever a part of what you listened to?
Where I’m from, oddly enough down there in Southeast Texas, we had to go find that stuff. There’s nooks and crannies in East Texas where these cats kinda start out in bluegrass and I think they find it through gospel music and stuff like that. But I wasn’t in the church or nothing – I was baptized in beer and I’m here to testify, you hear me?
Ha!
The great words of Kevin Fowler. But a lot of the stuff I loved the most was coming out of Ohio. When I discovered Dave Evans, that shit knocked me out.
Really?
Oh gosh. There’s something called “99 Years [Is Almost for Life].” One day I’d like to record it, but I understand that bluegrass is just as sacred as country music, so if you’re going to do it, you got to do it right and I think it starts with putting your heart and soul in it.
But I always loved Ralph Stanley. I’ve always loved Flatt & Scruggs and Bill Monroe. I mean, that might sound a little standard, but I love that stuff. Harley Allen’s one of my favorite songwriters and his daddy, Red Allen, I love the records he done. Ronnie Bowman and Lonesome River Band. I like that stuff.
Short answer – yes, sir. Hell yes. I love bluegrass.
That’s amazing. It sounds like you’re deep into it. I mean, maybe it doesn’t show up too much in what you’re doing right now, but maybe one day you ought to do a bluegrass record.
Oh, man. We’ll see, but right now all I want to do is what sounds like country music to me. I think it’s a matter of if you got electrics on it or not. It’s just soul music. It’s gotta come from the heart.
That’s a good segue because I wanted to ask you about the title track, “When I Write the Song,” and writing that solo. You were able to share your pain quite a bit. Where did that come from?
I don’t always wind up writing by myself. I think a lot of us writers sit down and try, and if we could, we would write a lot by ourselves. But that one just kind of fell out. I’d been six, seven years in [to my career] and I don’t know, I think I was a little hurt and kind of angry. I got a whole lot of, “You can’t sing that kind of music. That ain’t never going to work.” Sad songs and waltzes and whatnot. I don’t know why it’s so easy to write about the hard things or the bad things. It seems to be easier than it is to write about the good things sometimes. That’s just kind of where I was at with it.
When I wrote it, I was headed home from some gig and at the time I had been staying at my parents’. They had just got one of them push button door locks to the house with a code on it and I did not remember the damn code. There wasn’t no way I was getting in the house, so I had a guitar and a six pack of beer, a back porch, and plenty of time.
You’re kidding.
That’s what come out of that. I sat on that song for a long time. I was kind of scared of it. I wasn’t sure if it was for anybody. I wasn’t sure if it was any good. But I’m a songwriter and I think that’s just my way of showing it.
That’s real country music to me, so thank you for sharing the story. It’s funny that you got locked out – almost feels meant to be.
I’ve been locked out of a lot of things, hoss.
You’re going to be out on the road with Zach Top and Jon Pardi, right? In their own way, they both definitely inject some classic country into the mainstream, too. Are those tours a good fit for you?
Damn right, man. You tell me anywhere else, you’re going to see three steel guitars and three fiddle players in one stage. … I’m a fan of both of them guys and they know it, and I revere and respect the hell out of them. I’m grateful to get to go work with ‘em. That’s going to be a lot of band, buddy.
All right, Jake, thanks for the time, man. Let me leave you with the big picture. Just tell me what you hope people get from this record.
Well, take away a little piece of my heart while I’m giving it to you. Country music’s here to stay and I don’t think it ever left. I’m just grateful to be a little spoke in the wheels and I hope that when they hear this record, it’s something that they can go to and say, “This is what country music sounds like.”
Adam Wright is a songwriter’s songwriter. An artist’s songwriter. A poet whose medium is best set to music. And not just any music, but the absolute highest echelons of bluegrass and country – radio, real, outlaw, Americana, and everything in between and beside. He writes daily from an office nestled between Music Square East and Music Square West in Nashville – the fabled Music Row.
His songs have been cut by stars like Alan Jackson, Lee Ann Womack, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Brandy Clark, and Robert Earl Keen. In bluegrass, bands like Balsam Range and Lonesome River Band have carried his originals high up the charts, and he’s co-written with many players in the genre, like Sierra Hull, for example. His songwriting and its distinct, intentional, and artistic voice has gained him award nominations from the GRAMMYs, the Americana Honors & Awards, and the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards.
Since early February of this year, Wright has been leaving a trail of musical breadcrumbs online and on streaming platforms, teasing out his brand new album, Nature of Necessity, in four parts, which he calls “sides.” Along with singles peppering the release cycle throughout the following months, the prior three sides of the project finally convene with the fourth today, September 25, as a coalesced and cohesive project of 18 songs. The novel delivery mechanism for Nature of Necessity feels like an extension of the intentionality Wright brings to each of these literary, textural, and fantastic songs. They each stand alone, certainly, but together they sing.
These are not Music Row fodder, or craven attempts at radio hits, or tracks churned out day-in-and-day-out for volume and viral potential. These are passion projects. Ideas and stories that stuck in Wright’s creative craw and demanded much more deliberate treatments. It’s not as though songs written with the bottom line in mind can’t be this successful as works of art – they often are. It’s just that it’s immediately tangible to the listener that these works by Adam Wright aren’t just some of his best, they were clearly written and produced without a single thought towards saleability. Rather, Wright and his creative partners – especially producer Frank Liddell – gave each of these songs the artistic treatment they deserved on their own merits as stories and tableaus, vignettes and pantomimes.
If you remember when Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, there was a whole lot of “discourse” on the internet as to the actual literary value of songs and lyrics. It’s a painfully on the nose, forest for the trees moment to even have to accept the premise of that debate in order to refute it. But with a writer like Adam Wright – ever so rare in country and roots music and becoming even more endangered still – it’s easy, direct, and demonstrable connecting the dots between literature and songwriting. Nature of Necessity being 18 compelling points on that trail. With this album, Wright should perhaps be offered a term as the poet laureate of Music Row. Let each of its four sides stand as a resumé.
I really love the sonics of the album, the production. I’m a bluegrass banjo player, so when I listen to records I want to hear the pick noise, I want to hear the room, I want to hear the distance between a singer’s lips and the microphone. I want it to sound like music and I want it to sound like a moment in time.
Granted, I listen to a lot of music that doesn’t check any of those boxes and I like it a lot for sure, but the first thing I noticed about this album was that it sounds not just live, but alive. Can you talk about that and can you talk about how you accomplished it? It feels like, having heard so much of Frank [Liddell’s] work as producer that he was probably a perfect partner to accomplish that production style, too.
Adam Wright: Yeah, he absolutely was. And we wanted the same thing. We wanted it to be live and to sound live. With all the flaws inherent in performance, like a full unedited, undoctored performance.
‘Cause I’m like you – I’m a pretty poor listener currently but I have, in my long life of listening, listened to an awful lot of music and studied a lot of it. I know when I’m listening to a song that was gridded and then a singer came in and sang very carefully and then they cut it up and got it right. Because I’ve made records like that, too.
You sound your best that way, you truly do. It is so flattering to have someone do that to you and then listen back and go, “Wow, I sound fantastic.” So what I’ve enjoyed, for some reason, [is] getting used to what I sound like, giving it my best effort on a play down all the way through, one whole take, and go, “That’s what I sound like.”
It’s like looking at yourself like in a hotel mirror. [They] are the worst mirrors in the world. Like you go in the bathroom in the hotel room and you look awful and can’t figure out why. Something about the lighting or the quality of the lighting or where they’re placed. Every time I’m in a hotel mirror, I’m just like, “What am I doing out in the world?”
It’s a little bit like that. You listen back to yourself, play this song, and you go, “Man… that is not perfect.” There are things I just really dislike about the way I sing certain things on this record, the way I played. I hear me failing the whole way through. ‘Cause we did track it live. Me and Matt Chamberlain and Glenn Worf tracked us a three-piece, me on acoustic and singing with bass and drums. The idea was just to keep all of that as it is, intact, which we did.
I told Glenn, I said, “You’re the lead instrument. No one’s coming to save us. If something has to happen, we just have to do it right now.” We recorded it with that philosophy. The meat of it is my playing and singing with Glenn and Matt and we didn’t fiddle with it. The caveat was, “Okay, we can add things, but this has to remain what it is.” Whatever we did has to be live as it happened.
We did it a bunch of times. We did every song like seven times. So if I didn’t get it, is it gonna get better? No. That’s how I sing that line, obviously. There was some freedom in that … I’ve just gotten to enjoy it.
These feel like songs for you and not songs to sell or to get cut or to pitch on Music Row. Like, they feel like songs that, as they came out of you, you may have been squirreling them away, caching them for yourself for the future. I wanted to see if that was true or if that resonated with you. To me, they’re poetic and they’re literary without being “pick me” or “try hard.” They’re really thoughtful. I love your lyricism because it’s not too esoteric. But, these traits aren’t exactly regarded as commercial. So how did this collection end up… collected?
That’s exactly how that went. And thank you for the kind words, too. I do write every day for a publisher. Usually that means co-writing. I co-write almost every day of the week. Whether I want to or not. I’m usually writing with younger artists that want a record deal or have a record deal and they have some ambitions about the commercial music industry – and for some reason they thought I could help them. [Laughs] As misguided as that is, that’s usually what our job is in that moment. I don’t think a lot about, “Hey kid, I got a hit for you.” My brain just doesn’t really work that way. I just try to write a really good song that I think is tailored towards that particular artist.
I do a lot of that, but I would never try to force one of these ideas like [that] are on this record on someone that is trying to do something like that. This is a different endeavor. I do categorize it differently. That co-writing with people for their records or for whatever they would like to do is almost like a day job. And these songs are my night job. So they are very different. It feels like a different writing brain altogether. The process of writing ’em is very different. It’s not two hours of looking at each other. Some took me weeks, just because I couldn’t unlock ’em, but I kept tinkering away. It’s a much different thing.
I want to find out the deepest realization of whatever the story was or the idea or the character that I decided the song was gonna be about. Just follow that rabbit through the woods as deep into it and as dark as it got, that’s what we were gonna do. It’s rewarding! It’s a lot of work and it takes a long time and I’m so busy at the moment. I don’t know if I could write some of those songs right now. If you told me to write a song that had a lot of Latin in it about watching the dawn, I’m not sure I could pull it off. [Laughs]
But you know how it is when you find these things. You get a hold of this little spark, you follow it, and then at some point it dims a little. Then you’re looking for another spark to light up. I’m currently between sparks – I’m writing every day, but I haven’t found a new thread that I just can’t wait to chase yet. But sometimes you get a little hint of it.
Let’s talk about some of the music. On “Dreamer and The Realist,” are you the dreamer? Are you the realist? Is it about you?
I never really decided if I contain enough pragmatism to be both a dreamer and a realist. Like in some ways I am. Like when my wife says, “Hey, we’re going to Disney World,” that’s what we’re doing. I would never decide to go to Disney World [on my own], because I don’t like fun. [Laughs] But once I know I’ve gotta go, then I can get pragmatic about it.
But aside from those types of things, I’m pie in the sky. If I could stare out a window 10 hours a day every day for the rest of my life and not starve to death, I would do it.
Thank you!
All I really want to do is walk around the world and roll around inside my own brain. That sounds fascinating to me forever, endlessly. And not because I have a fascinating brain, just because I think it’s fun to just go, “What if” and then, “What if” and then, “What if.”
I feel like this is a long way of trying to say, I feel like everyone is some combination of a dreamer and a realist. Or you couldn’t function. But certainly nobody’s all dreamer or all realist, I don’t think. I think we all compartmentalize our dreaming and our realism to certain areas of our life and hopefully we each find someone that compensates for, or augments, [ourselves] in ways. And that’s never perfect. There’s always like a dueling going on with all that stuff. But I love the push and pull of it; within myself and within a relationship. There’s music in all of that I’ll always find it very interesting. The song really is within the same person.
With “All the Texas,” which features Patty Griffin, one of the first things I thought when I heard it was of Lyle Lovett’s “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas).” Plus, I was thinking about this moment in time with Texas and politics and the culture wars. Country music tends to feature this thinking like, “Everyone loves Texas and you should too!” “Don’t we all agree, Texas is great??” And then you look at what’s happening in Texas and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, Texas. What the hell?” I’ve had all the Texas…
Help us help you, please! Exactly.
Can you talk to me a little bit about that song? Because I have a feeling that there’s much more going on than just the way we’re all feeling about Texas these days.
It really was written before Texas got so Texas-y, recently. I don’t remember what year it was, but it was probably four or five years ago. Texas is always pretty Texas-y, but this was before it got super Texas-y. It was just about a night opening for Patty Griffin there at the Moody [Center] in Austin. It was just a whirlwind of a trip; flew in day of show, ran around Austin for half an afternoon, and then played a show.
She’s so supernatural. There’s just something like… sorcery around her. Anytime you’re around her, she doesn’t come off that way. She doesn’t walk around like talking wizard speak or anything; she’s just such a lovely, cute, normal, funny individual. But there’s still something that swirls around her that is just supernatural.
With all of that, I was like jotting things down, like the whole 24 hours that we were there. I just kept getting like little snatches of things and they all started to have this kind of mythical quality to ’em. Some of it’s literal, the Driskill and all of that stuff was true. But it turns into a sort of dream logic, mythical stuff – which is like watching [Patty] perform. It was an exercise in playing with almost like a journal entry of that experience and then distorting it with mythical language or symbolism.
I also love “Weeds” – and not just because Lee Ann [Womack] is on it. But also because I am obsessed with wildflowers, with native gardening, and habitat restoration. Something that struck me about that line, “Heaven is a meadow with no weeds” is perhaps heaven is a place where we finally understand that a “weed” is a social construct, right? A weed is a plant that we’ve decided is in a place where it shouldn’t be, but maybe we’re the ones where we shouldn’t be–
Yeah, that’s right.
Maybe we changed so much of the environment that we look out and we see a weed, but that plant has been here all along. And [the habitat is] probably supposed to be all weeds.
Exactly.
When I heard “Weeds” I also thought of Dolly’s song “Wildflowers” and the idea of, “What is the difference between a wildflower and a weed?” So, in my own mind, I heard that line as maybe you get to heaven and you realize all these weeds were wildflowers the whole time. Maybe I’m projecting. [Laughs]
I don’t know how the farmer’s perspective developed [on that song], I just don’t remember. And I’m not trying to put any sort of romanticism on it, it just didn’t come to me. I don’t remember what the jump was, but I remember why I started the song initially. I was at the library looking for something new to read and I came across this book, it was like a catalog of late-1800s farming equipment and the techniques and things. You could order out of these catalogs in like, 1870-whatever.
It also had articles about how to fix your wagon or what to do about this particular tractor part. How to deal with a stubborn mule or a pig that wouldn’t do what you wanted them to do. I thought it was fascinating, and the language of it – I love lingo so much. I love getting into some endeavor or line of work or character where there’s lots of language that I haven’t heard before. Like specialized language to a particular job or whatever. This book was full of it. I was just fascinated by all of it.
The whole thing about the last verse about the pig, all of that, it’s just outta the catalog. Those were all things [from the book]. Like, “Are you dealing with a hog who’s ill-formed? And unquiet in his mind? Here’s what you can do.” I found it all so interesting.
Then the middle verse about the tramp, to me he was dressed in soldiers’ clothes. I imagined he’d been shot and was laid over this farmer’s fence. It would have been just at the close of the Civil War era stuff. I wanted all of it to hang together, but with all of these strange things going on the overarching thing is this farmer going, “I can’t get rid of these weeds.” Why does he care? I don’t know. I just liked the guy [because] the thing that sort of kept him going was that his eternal reward might be a meadow without all of these weeds in it.
Your career has intersected with bluegrass and has been part of your career in so many ways. You’re a picker – which is one of the first things I noticed about this album, you guys tracking it live means we get to hear you pick the guitar. All these bluegrass folks have cut your songs, you’ve been nominated for an IBMA Award. What does the genre mean to you? And of course, the inseparable community that comes with it. How does that fit into the constellation of how you make music, songwrite, and be creative in general?
That’s interesting. I love the world of bluegrass. Maybe I’m just a little particular. Like, if you looked at all genres of music as slices of a pie, there’s really only a sliver that I really love. Out of any genre. Whether it be jazz or a big band or blues or bluegrass or classic country or rock, there’s really only a little bit of it that I really like and most of it, the rest of it I find I can leave alone. Not quite for me.
But I always said, good bluegrass might be the best music ever. Like, when it’s good and it’s right. I wish I had started trying to play that kind of music when I was younger. I got fascinated with it too late to physically do it at a level that I appreciate. I can distinguish the difference in the nuances of really great players, but I’m not able to do that. I don’t lose a lot of sleep over it, but I’ve probably got carpal tunnel trying to figure out Tony Rice licks a few times in my life. There’s so much of it that I really like and I love.
I’ve never really sat down to try to write bluegrass songs. I just write songs. Like you were talking about this interview going under the Good Country category, I’ve always sat somewhere in the mushy in-between of folk, singer-songwriter, bluegrass, and country. I’ve just always existed somewhere in the middle of all that stuff. Some of my favorite artists have done that, as well.
Some of my favorite bluegrass artists were folkier or bluesy-er. Del McCoury or Doc Watson. Tony Rice was such a genre evader. I always appreciated that about certain bluegrass artists. But writing-wise, I just always wrote songs. And because of the nature of what I’ve ingested, they lend themselves fairly well to more traditional bluegrass arrangements. They always play everything a lot faster than I think they’re going to. [Laughs]
Last night at the Bluebird [Cafe] I did my version of “Thunder and Lightning,” which is a moonshining song of mine that Lonesome River Band cut. I think I’m playing my version fast, like it feels fast to me. And then I hear them do it and it’s about twice as fast as I play mine. It sounds great when they do it, but if I try to play it that fast it sounds ridiculous.
I write some with Sierra Hull, she’s so much fun to write with. It’s funny, she hardly plays when we’re writing, which I had to get used to. ‘Cause the first time I wrote with her I was like, “Oh I can’t wait to just watch her play!” And I don’t even know if she touched the instrument a couple of times, just to check a chord. But I got to like her so much and enjoy writing with her that it didn’t matter. [Laughs] …
My dad was a piano player – and still is. His dad was a piano player, too. So I started on piano when I… I think I was like four. I was kinda tugging on their shirt going, “Hey, I wanna play piano!” And they’re like, “Yeah, okay. Sure.” But they did let me, I started, and I did like classical piano for years. Then I went to saxophone and then I heard a Chuck Berry record and I needed a guitar. Today. Right now. This afternoon.
I was talking to a friend of mine who is a bluegrasser, saying, “I just don’t know how you guys do it, the flatpicking. How are you doing this?” And he goes, “You remember when you were learning Rolling Stones songs on a Stratocaster when you were a teenager? Most of these guys were playing D28s with grown men at festivals then.” When they were that age, that’s what they were doing. Picking with grown men.
Who were having pissing contests with those children. [Laughs]
Although names like Billy Strings and Sturgill Simpson currently corner the market at the intersection of country, jam bands, and bluegrass, rising star Daniel Donato has emerged in recent years with an out-of-this-world sound – and his newest project may be his best yet.
On Horizons (which released in August) the prodigy who as a child honed his skills on Guitar Hero and Nashville’s Lower Broadway turns a new page with an 11-song, hour-long compilation that brings his live and studio sounds together with drawn-out jams conjured up by his longtime bandmates from Cosmic Country – a moniker that describes both the group’s sonic and spiritual ethos.
“I want there to be a Cosmic Country sound where you can hear it right away, you can hear the first eight bars of any song and say, ‘That’s it!'” says Donato.
“Some of it is technical, like using the same microphones and the same studio as the last record. And some of it’s just in the way we approach it – and that’s something we get better at every time.”
Sitting on the back of his month-old tour bus affectionately referred to as “The Snowman” prior to a recent show in Lexington, Kentucky, Donato spoke to BGS about his Lower Broadway roots, creative freedom and restraints, and the catalysts for Cosmic Country.
We already touched upon your similarities with Billy Strings, but what about your parents’ influence – I know they played a big role in your musical foundation as well?
Daniel Donato: Everything when I was younger came from my parents. My father had a certain disposition for great rock and roll music like Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Led Zeppelin. But to be honest, I really don’t know where all of it comes from, because if you and I listen to a record we’re both going to hear it in different ways. For that reason I think a lot of this just comes from something that’s already dwelling within us and we’re just expressing from within that place.
For example, when I first heard Marty Robbins, I loved all the great guitar on it. And when I heard the Grateful Dead play “Big River” and make it eight minutes long in a really artistic and authentic way, I love that too. They’re all influences, but they start externally and creep inside you to the point that you take them with you everywhere you go and create from that place of soul, which is a combination of the body, the mind and the spirit.
Ever since I started playing guitar, I’ve always felt like I sounded like me and that “me” is constantly changing and revealing itself more and more. It’s like what Bob Dylan said – “I contain multitudes” – and it’s true. There are multitudes of self that just keep getting revealed through this authentic expression.
Was there a specific moment that served as the catalyst for you picking up the guitar and pursuing a career in music?
There have been many, but arguably the biggest was when I first saw the Don Kelley Band at Robert’s Western World and was in a state of shock – I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it. That moment of hearing them and seeing how they interacted was amazing and was a big motivator in me wanting to do that too. It was a call to adventure and a reminder to believe I’m capable of anything, which is what ties all of these moments together.
That is not a self-assertive belief, that is a belief grounded in an authentic desire to make something beautiful so I can be of service. It was a big turning point in my life when I first started conceptualizing and receiving that, because then you can give it and then it turns into the cosmic circle of all things.
Some might perceive it as arrogance, but I think there’s a lot to be said for having the confidence to know what you’re doing is worthwhile and constantly chipping away to get better and reach your goals, whether that’s in a musical sense or wherever else life takes you.
I had already tried other forms of expression in my life before it, like sports. I also tried skateboarding and really loved video games like RuneScape, World of Warcraft, and chess. Even so, there were so many things I was bad at and I didn’t have beliefs that I could do them. But with music and the guitar, I could intuitively feel the potential I had with it and immediately locked in.
Artistry nowadays is parasocial on a lot of levels because of this immense amount of connectivity that we have on the various social platforms. [They] make it so anyone can get into the business of needing the world to give them permission to say something or express something real, when in reality the world does not need to give you permission for any of that. I’m not saying you should participate in any of the unspeakable, ungodly things we see happening to humans around the world, but if you want to express something artistically and you feel it’s true to you, then why should you need to get someone else’s approval to do that?
That idea to the mind is [like a] letter to the Pony Express – it needs to be delivered and it needs us to exist in flesh so we can externalize these internal values and expressions. It doesn’t need other people, it needs you, but at the same time it does bring people together – it’s so strange. It’s the thing that comes from most within an individual, but it’s also the thing that is the most unifying to an external community. It’s this weird “as above, so below” reflection that is purely righteous, so as I get older I feel I have more grace in relation to that particular part of existence.
The communal element seems to be a huge driving force behind not only your live show and fans, but this new record as well. Whereas some artists opt for a more straightforward studio approach, what made you want to emulate the energy from a gig on Horizons?
Cosmic Country records, to me, are like movies. The most enduring elements of certain movies that I love are the really long ones that have a very dynamic and rich storyline with a lot of drama and comedy in an attempt to scale the human experience. Like in A Fistful of Dollars, Django Unchained, or The Hateful Eight. The art is asking a lot of you during these three hour-long films, but it’ll give you a lot, too. There’s reciprocity there and our community is always willing to take the trip, which is equal parts liberating and terrifying. [Laughs]
If you were asked to write the score for a film, what would you want it to look like?
It would have to be a very truthful opportunity for me. I have always wanted to do that, even when I was really young. I always wondered where music and movies came from. But for now, we put out our records, and we play a lot of shows.
Speaking of the new album, you’ve been playing most of the songs on it live for a while now. What kept you from holding some or all of these songs back until the project’s official release, which it seems more and more singers are doing nowadays?
I like to look at our music as living music. It’s liberating in potential, but it’s also liberating because it gives you a framework to operate and create within. Every day of your life is different, so why wouldn’t the music that accommodates your life every day be different? These new songs are no different than a young child – they do better when they get to go out and be around people so they can grow spiritually.
That’s why it’s also important to share stories that everyone knows, which is why we incorporate a lot of covers into our shows and even recorded a volume called Cosmic Country & Western Songs in 2021. It gives people context and I love doing that. My favorite part of playing at Robert’s was we only played covers all those years so I’ve always loved making other’s songs my own – because if a song is good enough, you can play it with an original feeling.
But with Horizons every song I had my hand to the pen, even “Hangman’s Reel” – a traditional Celtic fiddle tune that the band and I fit into the Cosmic Country framework.
You’ve mentioned Robert’s Western World a couple times now. A couple weeks ago you returned there after making your headlining debut at the Ryman. What was that like?
We’ve done what’s never been done down on Broadway – going from cutting your teeth on the street corners and at places like Robert’s to topping a bill at the Ryman. It’s a common storyline for folks in Nashville to get their starts down here. Some go on to become songwriters, others become singers on stage and some become session musicians, but it all starts down on Broadway.
What I learned down there led me to getting in the door at Robert’s and leaving my blood and sweat on that floor there – like a dojo – before carrying us all the way to the Ryman. It was incredible getting to do a full headlining set up there and then going back home to where it all began at Robert’s and doing another set of music for their fans. We’re actually planning to release both soon as live recordings, so stay tuned!
With Horizons you placed parameters on how many times you’d go back to record and work on each song. With how open-ended so much of your creative process seems to be, what made you opt to place constraints there?
If your personality has a disposition for conscientiousness and open mindedness, it becomes that individual’s responsibility to see the trends of that because it can help optimize the way you engage with human relationships when creating projects. When we went and did Reflector we spent a lot of time on things we didn’t need to because I didn’t know better at the time.
When it came time to record Horizons I knew we could take half the amount of time to make it because we play it every night and shouldn’t need a bunch of tries to get it right. So I decided we’d just aim for three takes of a song to be more efficient. There’s a liberating faith that comes with knowing that’s good enough. If you know you have seven chances, you’re probably going to take seven – but we’re trying to work to ensure it only takes one.
You were talking earlier about creating living music, and stuff like this seems like it helps to keep what you do in the studio just as fresh as what you’re doing out on the road.
They’re two very different things. One’s a picture of a person and the other one’s a person. A picture can do a lot, but it’s not that person, especially when it comes to thinking about a picture of someone that you love who is no longer alive. Even then it’s not the same as them being in the room with you again to hug you.
For instance, I know that there will be a day where I have a gig and I won’t be able to call my dad to debrief – that’s gonna be a tough one. So the live thing is almost like a conveyor belt trying to make it an exact replica of what’s going on on the albums. There are people I see do that and I really respect how they do it because it’s authentic to them, but it was never for me.
How did your approach to bringing Horizons to life differ from how you tackled Reflector and other projects previously?
We had two years of intense experience constantly working on these songs between albums. It made me a different person on some level because I had a better idea of what to aim for and what not to aim that really allowed us to hit the bullseye this time compared to Reflector. And I’ll probably be saying the same thing again when the next record comes around, which will be a lot different than Horizons.
You just alluded to going a different direction with your next album. Someone else known for that who I know has heavily impacted your musical trajectory is Sturgill Simpson. How’d you get sent down the rabbit hole of his music?
Man, I remember when Sturgill Simpson worked at the Turnip Truck in the Gulch in Nashville, I would always see him there and thought nothing of it until one night when I was at The 5 Spot and heard him on stage singing for the first time. Then when Metamodern Sounds In Country Music came out I was in my friend Harrison’s basement. We had gone to Grimey’s to buy the record, we smoked some weed, turned it on, and listened with headphones on. It was and still is a defining moment in my listening experience of music – that record is so special.
Looking back I can see why Sturgill wanted to make a bunch of 180s, because from SOUND & FURY to Sailor’s Guide each album is its own thing. Most successful artists have one signature piece of work, like Tyler Childers’ Purgatory, Chris Stapleton’s Traveller, Tom Petty’s Wildflowers, the Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s Dead, or Neil Young’s Harvest. Unless you’re someone like Bob Dylan or Willie Nelson where you have over 100 albums out. There’s usually one record where you’re like, “that’s the one.” With cosmic country we don’t have that album yet, but I think Horizons could be it.
What has the process of bringing Horizons to life taught you about yourself?
The concept of a Horizons is two-fold. There’s a literal, geographical, physical, material horizon where the land meets the heavens. Then there’s the metaphorical one, and we’re always pushing the cosmic country horizon. But there’s also a psychological horizon where you’re meeting your potential that the sky is symbolic of.
As Alan Watts would say, “there’s a dance to those things,” and I feel that since we put out Horizons that the band and I are on the verge of new horizons. It truly is the dawn of a new day.
Artist:SAVNT (lead singer of Ghost Hounds) Hometown: Englewood, New Jersey Latest Album:Almost Home (released by Ghost Hounds in March 2025) Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Sav
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
My favorite memory from being on stage was back in 2018. A close friend of mine, Mitchell Lee, asked me to help him close his show at Music Farm in Charleston, South Carolina. I sang a song which we now know as “You’ll Never Find Me,” on our album Almost Home. By the time I got to the second chorus of the song, people were vibing so much that they were singing the chorus back to me. To witness a song no one had heard before make such an impact – that will forever be one of my favorite memories.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do they impact your work?
Water is the element in nature I connect to the most. When I start writing a song, I am either walking in the rain, washing dishes, taking a shower, or standing by a body of water, and that’s when inspiration comes to me the most.
What’s the most difficult creative transformation you’ve ever undertaken?
Stepping into this new space as the lead singer of Ghost Hounds has been the most difficult yet rewarding creative transformation I’ve ever undertaken. As a solo artist you are often told to pick one lane, stick to it, and simplify your words so people can understand you; that doesn’t really work for someone like me, who is not only inspired by many genres of music and appreciates great storytelling.
With Ghost Hounds, I get to move wherever inspiration takes me. I get to explore my love of soul, folk, rock, blues, and country without apology. After coming from a world that was so restrictive, this type of freedom can be scary and you may feel like you are out of place. But with the support of my bandmates I realize the more authentic I am, the more real the music feels – in a world that teaches us to hide our emotions, this music thrives when you expose them.
What is the most random interview question you’ve ever been asked?
The most random question I’ve been asked was, “Is cereal a soup and is a hot dog a sandwich?”
If you were a color, what shade would you be – and why?
If I was a color I would be a shade of electric blue – the color of Iron Man’s heart piece. It reminds me of lightning and, for whatever reason, it makes me feel extremely powerful, like a storm.
Lead Image: Ghost Hounds by Allister Ann. Alternate image: SAVNT by Sergio Colon.
When Margo Price took the stage at Jimmy Kimmel Live earlier this week to promote her excellent new album, Hard Headed Woman, and to perform its lead single, “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down,” she had no idea she could end up being the final musical guest on the long-running and beloved late-night television show. It’s no surprise, though, that she had written and picked to perform such an apropos song for the moment – and for what would become the final musical performance on Kimmel ever. Across her many late night TV appearances, from Saturday Night Live to Full Frontal with Samantha Bee to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Price never edits, pulls punches, or worries about “acceptability.” She brings her brash and bold outlaw trappings with her wherever she goes.
Late-night television may just be entertainment and may not seem incredibly important in the grand scheme. But as these platforms are canceled or removed – for financial reasons, or due to the ever-shifting landscape of television and show business, or due to the current crackdown on free speech and expression – roots, country, Americana, and bluegrass artists are losing strikingly valuable opportunities to reach new audiences and bring their art to millions and millions of viewers (and potential new fans) around the world. Both Kimmel and Colbert especially are obvious admirers of roots bands, artists, and musicians, often showcasing more country, bluegrass, and folk performers than their competitors in the space. Their cancellations amount to an immeasurable loss for working artists – and not just the superstars – of roots music.
Though these shows and stages with their far-flung, global reach are becoming even fewer and further between, and the working class and anti-establishment messages of Good Country like Price’s won’t be as common or frequent on late-night television as a result, the messages in the music will remain as prescient and topical as ever. In moments like these, we need more hard-headed women like Margo Price.
Below, enjoy a few of our favorite moments when Margo Price brought fire and brimstone, grit and gristle, twang and charm to these popular late-night television shows.
“Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down” – Jimmy Kimmel Live (2025)
The lyric change heard ’round the world? Margo does such a great job of making music of and for the moment. “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down” is just one song from her latest album, Hard Headed Woman, that speaks to the tumult and turmoil through which we are all living. That’s what country music is for, after all. Johnny Cash was never the only star in the genre to flip a middle finger at “the man.” Maybe Margo didn’t know that’s what she was doing… (she absolutely knew, and always has).
“Hurtin’ (On the Bottle)” – Saturday Night Live (2016)
A huge moment in her career, Margo made her SNL debut in 2016, bringing her contagious Loretta-inspired and rock-fueled traditional country to one of the biggest and most mainstream stages there is today. Her huge hit at the time, “Hurtin’ (On the Bottle),” sounded just as good and just as compelling on the stage of SNL as it did on the album.
“Stone Me” – Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (2020)
This is what we mean when we say Margo Price has never backed down, pulled punches, or censored herself. If she were to appear on another late-night TV show, say, next week and perform “Stone Me” as she did on Full Frontal in 2020, the chorus would ring as true and righteously as ever: “Love me, hate me/ Desecrate me/ Call me a bitch, then call me baby/ You don’t know me/ You don’t own me/ Yeah, that’s no way to stone me…”
The signature agency and autonomy that are present through all of her work are on full display here – just like on Kimmel with “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down.”
“Since You Put Me Down” – Saturday Night Live (2016)
Margo Price will not be put “in her place.” Folks have tried and tried again, but it seems like oppositional energy fuels her. Now that is outlaw country.
For her second song selection for her SNL debut, she performed “Since You Put Me Down” with floor-length fringe and a perfect two-stepping back beat. She sticks it to the man yet again, with the speaker in the lyric saying her piece, claiming her space, and seeking justice.
“Lydia” – The Daily Show (2023)
If agency and autonomy are two of the most tangible through lines in Price’s songwriting, working-class issues would be right up there among them as a frequent topic and source of inspiration. On the surface, “Lydia” may seem like a traditional “sad ass” country story song, but the issues informing the lyric’s contours are very clearly why she brought this song to The Daily Show. Speaking about gentrification, healthcare, substance abuse, hardship, and societal and community neglect, Price finds authenticity in avoiding manicured, polished, and sanitized narratives. She’d always rather speak to real people about real issues.
“Four Years of Chances” (How I Wrote That Song) – The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (2016)
When she appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Price participated in a “How I Wrote That Song” segment describing the process by which her original, “Four Years of Chances,” came to be. She always uses her television appearances to platform songs that talk about real life and about women’s issues; Margo effortlessly turns the tables on so many country tropes and leverages those expectations to surprise and engage.
“A Little Pain” – The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2017)
“A Little Pain” from 2017’s All American Made opens with the lyric, “I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep/ Too many obligations I’m trying to keep/ Gotta please everybody except for myself…”
Yet, as we’ve seen from each of these television performances, Price doesn’t seem terribly concerned with pleasing anyone except herself. It’s within this paradox that we find perhaps the chief source of Price’s power. Like all humans – especially women and many other marginalized folks living through a white- and cis- and male-centric world – she experiences the insecurities, doubts, and trials that we all face. But instead of letting them put her down or keep her down, she still digs her heels in, takes up space, and says her mind.
That’s about as country as it can get, right there. While none of us are sure what the future holds, perhaps we need more of this kind of art and music on late-night television and not less.
Photo Credit: Yana Yatsuk
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