Dallas Ugly’s New Album Is Downright Beautiful

Dallas Ugly is not a country band. Except that they are?

More than a decade ago now, college classmates Eli Broxham, Owen Burton, and Libby Weitnauer began playing together as a new acoustic band, bluegrass and old-time chops combined with jazz and jammy virtuosity. Eventually, via COVID pandemic cloistering together, they crafted a collective identity as Dallas Ugly, a vibey and tight alt-country group built around original songs that made a splash with their 2022 debut, Watch Me Learn.

On that album you can hear bluegrass grit, the tenderness of folk and indie songwriting, influences of Southern rock and pop, and dashes of Texas twang – perhaps supplied by confirmation bias thanks to their moniker. On their latest album, See Me Now (released in April), the trio are abandoning any and all claims to Americana and country. But this collection – one of the best roots albums of the year – still listens like so many classic artists and albums at the intersection of indie, country, and the vast musical horizon.

When you ask the Nashville-based band how they’ve landed in this new, borderless, agnostic genre territory, they seem as surprised by their own chosen style markers and aesthetic vocabulary as their audiences. “It’s an accident,” says Weitnauer – with delight. “We don’t know why we sound this way. We’ve been able to loosen up more, build on the experience we’ve gotten just as musicians. … With this iteration, I feel like it shows a full development of our sound.”

In truth, however See Me Now and Dallas Ugly strike your ears, it’s quite a straightforward task to trace their journey through genres. (Though it’s not the most straightforward to discuss!) The trio simply follows each song down their own individual creative rabbit holes, trusting the music and each other to find or carve out sounds that encapsulate the feelings, textures, and stories that they craft together. They don’t lead the songs, the songs lead them. As a result, Dallas Ugly alchemically transform barn burning old-time fiddle, endless country twang, deep honky-tonkin’ pocket, earnest, sentimental songwriting, and pop-informed sweet tooths into smooth, artful, endlessly interesting indie rock.

Dallas Ugly’s brand of roots music – if you can call it that – is downright beautiful. We spoke to the group via phone between tours in May about making the album, claiming genre (or not), and the sometimes passive, sometimes overwrought process of shepherding these songs into the world.

I wanted to start with getting the genre conversation out of the way, as it were. Y’all have been very forward with communicating that this isn’t really a country album; that you don’t really see yourselves as a country band. You call it indie, indie-pop-rock. I hear you as decidedly Americana and country, personally. Obviously you have those indie-pop touches – plus, we know you have string band bones as well – but can you talk a little bit about your relationship to genre and how you intentionally stepped into this much more free, borderless sonic space with this project?

Libby Weitnauer: It’s funny, because as I’ve had more conversations with people since the album’s come out I’m like, we definitely marketed it wrong. [Laughs] The other way we could’ve gone – everyone is like, “Do you ever listen to Sunbelt?” “Do you ever listen to Wilco?” “What about like The Breeders?”

Everyone says it’s ‘90s alt-country. It’s like, “Damnit… you’re right.” [Laughs]

But you asked what were the intentional steps that we made – and I would say there have been no intentional steps towards any genre. Which is why we are having trouble pinning it down, because I think we decided to market it the indie route. Honestly, the Americana world seemingly wants to have nothing to do with our music. [Laughs] So we were like, “Okay, then, I guess it’s not Americana, I guess it’s not country.” Every time we bring it to those people they turn it away.

I would say our relationship with genre is very passive. When we’re making decisions and writing songs, genre isn’t a consideration. It’s always been that way. When we started playing together as the very goofy band that we were before this band, that was a sort of attempt at new acoustic music. It was the same thing, we just make decisions [based on] things that we like, or think we’re supposed to do sometimes, or sound good. Then it comes through this Dallas Ugly Eli-Libby-Owen filter, no matter what.

We’ve honestly tried so hard to fit into a genre. Where we’re like, “Okay! We’ve done it this time. You guys, we made a song that sounds like something else that exists.” Which is a funny thing to aspire to. Just trying to create stuff that we like and then it’s, “Oh, nope, nevermind. There it is. Just as weird as ever.”

Do you feel like the songs are what’s guiding you in that passive way? That you’re just trying to give the songs the treatment they each want or are asking for or deserve? Do you feel like it’s taste? Or is it just how it ends up is how it ends up? What do you think is the process for how it ends up being borderless and amorphous and not quite any one thing?

Owen Burton: Yeah, I think those are all in there. I think it isn’t as if we’re striving when we’re writing, it’s not like we’re intentionally pointing to a specific genre. There’s just things that we don’t realize are so genre-coded that are kind of inescapable about our musical voices. When we are asking how to start a song it’s, “Let’s do a fiddle kick.” It’s not, “Let’s do a country thing.” It’s just, “I feel like a fiddle kick would make sense.” And then, on the other end of that is people being like, “This is a country record now!”

It’s fair enough. But I think with this record, too, [as] I’ve learned with our first album – which we were like, this is a country record – I feel like we learned, in how it was received, how actually regimented the Americana style is. And how we weren’t within certain signifiers that are pretty regimented. Indie rock is way more broad, in terms of what it tolerates stylistically.

So the next one, this one, certainly can fit in that big tent. Now, the way it’s been perceived that way too, [I’ve realized] indie rock’s pretty regimented in ways that I didn’t understand, too. Mostly about singing. I think just none of us sing like indie boys. [Laughs]

LW: Or country voice. That’s the thing, I think what it comes down to is if different people were singing our songs, maybe it would be clearer. But I think, especially Owen and I, we have acquired taste, stinky cheese voices. [Laughs] It’s definitely not for everybody. Eli, obviously he doesn’t sing quite as much, but weirdly I would say Eli has the most familiar voice.

I happen to love stinky cheese.

LW: Exactly! Me too.

How does Justin Francis play into the genre paradigm here as your producer, as somebody who effortlessly walks between those sonic worlds? Can you talk a little bit about working with him and having him in the control room?

OB: He understood what we were going for. When we started, we intentionally controlled less variables going into the studio for this one. It’s not as if we had a strategy meeting about what kind of album this was gonna be before we started, making creative decisions on it. The songs were vaguely written before we went into the studio, but not arranged and not figured out like across the band ahead of time.

I feel like even just that process– I guess that’s a bit of a question, is that more of an Americana process or more of an indie rock process? I see that as more of a rock process; I feel like rock bands often go into the studio with songs not even written and they just write it in the studio. With [Justin] on board, he had all kinds of ideas when we were writing in the studio, little bits of studio vocab that we don’t have ourselves. [He] pushed and pulled in different genre directions, for sure.

LW: Part of the reason that we worked with him is we did these two singles with him, “Big Signs” and “Born Crying” just to try working with another producer and see what happens. I don’t even know that we were really [thinking] we could make an album with him, because honestly, he’s the real deal! We were like, “He’s famous, so he probably won’t make an album with us, but let’s just see what these things will sound like.” It was so effortless and he let us do our thing on those two. I feel like those [songs] are just as unhinged as anything else that we’ve made and he was right there with us with the ideas.

I would say, generally, working with him was really effortless. That’s the word I would use. The whole time, even the pre-production meetings.

Let’s talk about some of the music. My favorite is “Bad Feeling.” I know the lyric may say, “It’s a bad feeling, I don’t like it at all…” but I do like it. I like “Bad Feeling” a lot. I heard you guys play this song live a bunch before the album, too, but can you talk about the origin of it, its writing, how it came together in the studio?

LW: That’s the one song I think on the whole album that we had been performing [before recording]. Maybe “You Can Leave,” but it changed a lot. “Bad Feeling” we had been performing pretty much as it is, for the most part. I’m glad that you like it, because that was the song I was like… not disappointed in, but I had so much trouble breaking out of the live arrangement that we had. We had played it so much that I felt like the track suffered a little bit from how attached we were to the live arrangement.

But the making and the writing of that song, I feel like I wrote it [because] I’d been listening to a lot of Judee Sill. I guess I was inspired by that and was trying to capture how some of her songs, the chords move with the lyrics a lot. I didn’t end up really sounding like her at all, but some of the original harmonies we had for that song, played [off of] some of the harmonies in her music.

I feel like that song is like the epitome of my writing style, which is pretty autobiographical. Every time I try to write like feathery stuff, it sounds really goofy. And so with lyrics, I just try to find the most straightforward way I can say something. Usually that ends up being the most poetic, from my voice.

How do you know when you have a hook or you have the bit of the song that’s gonna be what everybody shouts along with? To me, it doesn’t feel like any of you are writing songs because you think they’re gonna be a hit. But at the same time, when I hear a really hooky song or a really catchy song – like basically this whole album – whether it’s “Bad Feeling” or “Sugar Crash” or “Circumstances” or “See Me Now,” I can picture a “light bulb moment” when you find that hook or line that ends up being the sing along.

LW: When I’m writing, I don’t really consciously think about hooks like this. That being said, a lot of my songs start with either a phrase or a melody. I’ll be on a walk or doing something in the kitchen just singing little thing. Like “Circumstances” – “I put a letter in the mail…” – that just happened in my brain when I was doing something. Then usually I’ll grab onto that and write the song around whatever little melody piece comes to me. I guess what ends up being the hook, a lot of the time, is what comes to me. And then I find myself singing it and I let it take off and do what it’s gonna do.

Eli Broxham: I feel like something that comes up, a question we end up asking ourselves that I’ve heard Libby ask a bunch of times is, “Is this super cheesy?” [All laugh] Which, we definitely ride the line of cheesiness, but at some point, you have to just be like, “I don’t know. I like it. And that’s good enough.” If it’s borderline to me, maybe it’ll be over the line for somebody else, but clearly, within bounds for another listener.

At some point, trust your instincts and be like, “It might be cheesy, but that’s okay.” And yeah, I think melodically is where I have my surest footing [writing hooks]. I still feel as a songwriter, if I hit the mark, it’s maybe by chance or something.

I also want to talk about “See Me Now,” because it’s the title track, because it’s a great song, but also because I feel like it epitomizes the journey y’all have been on, from Watch Me Learn to this album. Not just musically and creatively, but also genre, and also politically and socially. This song is “of the moment” in a really interesting way, because you can listen to it down and it’s a love song and it’s a song about seeing and being seen, but it’s also about perception and, “Is my existence valid?”

All of that is really deeply resonant, but if you zoom out and view the song in the context of the band, it changes its meaning. If you zoom out yet again and you view it in the context of y’all really coming together during COVID to do this project as Dallas Ugly, being friends for more than a decade, it changes the meaning of the song again. It’s a tesseract of a track where you guys are writing in four dimensions – it’s not too intellectual or conceptual, but it has endless depth. How!?

OB: I actually wrote that very quickly, because Elise Leavy was having like a songwriting circle. I hadn’t written a song terribly recently, so I was just gonna write something real quick for this. That was the song I wrote and at the time – this is years ago – I was very into that Kacey Musgraves album, Golden Hour, and the lead track, [“Slow Burn”]. That acoustic intro thing, I was messing around with that, because the chords are really simple, but the voicings are so interesting.

Those two things – “hurry up and write a song” and the somewhat new vocab I had just learned – came together. That first draft of it was soft, crummy – plus those lyrics, it’s hard to say what they’re about, because I wrote them very quick. Sometimes this spiel I give on stage is:

It’s three people meeting each other after some kind of apocalypse. In the universe of the apocalypse, because nobody has anything anymore, it’s very hard to [determine] what status anyone was before the apocalypse. It’s three different kinds of people with different former social status, wishing that people they interacted with could tell what status they used to have.
People are very comfortable in their status, I feel like whether it’s high status or low status, people find comfort in both. Personal comfort in your own status and the comfort in feeling like you know how to treat people once you derive their status.

I feel like audiences never understand that spiel and it’s maybe too heady to be worth anything. [Laughs] Maybe that’s also why it feels like there’s so many different reads you could have of that song.

I think the most interesting thing about it – and maybe I’m projecting y’all – is the sentiment, “Can’t you see me now? I want you to see me.” Maybe that’s just the millennial condition. All of us having nostalgia for something that never existed, generationally, and being like, “I need you to see me. I need you to perceive me. But also I’d rather you perceive me from the golden era, from the before times. From when things were right.”

Also the “Can you hear me now?” reference of it all feels very millennial, very of the 2000s in a great way. Again, is this cheesy? No, of course not. Listen to it! But also, yes it is.

OB: Yeah, that’s where we live.

LW: That’s where we live! And I would say, before this, before the version that’s on the album, it had a very different flavor. I can’t even remember how it sounded exactly, but it was definitely more country – almost like country rock – and that was over the line. I’m glad we found [this style] and Justin helped us find that. Just pulling it back to the other side a little bit, because yeah, lyrically and melodically, it’s so solid and awesome. But we had to go to the drawing board a few times to get the setting right for it.

 

@dallasuglymusic Woops! We turned our indie pop song “Circumstances” into an acoustic one 🙊 #bigthief #adriennelenker #mjlenderman #mjlenderman #fiddle #acoustic #uprightbass #arcadianwild #indierock #fleetwoomac #acousticguitar #folkmusic #indierock ♬ original sound – Dallas Ugly

EB: That one is like the musical ideas are blocks that are put in place. I remember when we were doing this – after some of the drawing board stuff that Libby was talking about – but I was listening to that Mac Miller album, Circles – which I think is maybe the best Mac Miller album. I was listening to how the elements didn’t change, they just turned on and off to make the song, which I feel like is pretty common in pop and rap production. But often, especially in this band or in Americana and rock, things tend to sneak in and out and evolve.

But for that song in particular, the bass line just turns on, then turns off for a little part. It turns on and turns off. There’s different parts of different sections, but they are like binary, which I think is an interesting approach – and a first for us, in that sense. Somehow, that takes it out of the realm of cheesy country and accentuates the lyrics in a nice way. Even that final chorus, where it’s just a big pause and then the chorus turns on.

LW: That’s interesting that you say that, ’cause I feel like for my fiddling, that was the approach I took on this whole album. Honestly, until we got to the pre-production meetings I was like, “I don’t even think I’m gonna play fiddle on this album.”

I took more of [an approach like] I’m a sample of a thing, rather than being a fiddle in a band. Like even on “You Can Leave,” which is the more fiddle-y of the tracks, in the verses I’m not doing traditional fills. I’m doing this one rhythmic hook every time this comes around and that’s what I’m playing on this song.

It was the idea of turning things on and off rather than trying to be part of the whole song. And I let myself punctuate things and not feel like I need to play the whole time.


Photos courtesy of the artist.

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Danny Roberts, Dallas Ugly, and More

The music release cycle marches on, bringing us to our first premiere roundup of March!

Below you’ll find new tracks and videos from artists like Big Love Car Wash, who take us on a tour of our collective subconscious with a bluegrassy-folky track, “Dream Journal.” Plus, mandolinist Danny Roberts – who you may know from The Grascals – pays tribute to two of his mandolin heroes with his new instrumental, “Lawson Sizemore.” And Dallas Ugly bemoan a bit too much indulgence and “sweets” with “Sugar Crash,” a deliciously saccharine number produced by Justin Frances from their upcoming album, See Me Now.

Country rocker Joel Timmons returns to his recent release, Psychedelic Surf Country, with a lyric video that tells the story of his dad burning piles of Christmas trees on “Just a Man,” complete with vintage 8mm family footage. Don’t miss singer-songwriter Grayson Jenkins turning over aging, mortality, and the constants of life on “Taxes & Time” with a charming video and a clean honky-tonk sound.

It’s all right here on BGS! Scroll for more, because You Gotta Hear This.

Big Love Car Wash, “Dream Journal”

Artist: Big Love Car Wash
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Dream Journal”
Album: Daydream
Release Date: March 14, 2025 (single); June 6, 2025 (album)

In Their Words: “For me, ‘Dream Journal’ is about a fork in the road, about making a pivotal decision. The decision that inspired this song was between attending law school and dedicating myself to music. At its heart though, ‘Dream Journal’ is about really listening to yourself. When you’re dreaming peacefully, where are you?” – David Rabinowicz, songwriter, guitar, lead vocals

Track Credits:
David Rabinowicz – Guitar, lead vocals, songwriter
Sol Chase – Mandolin, harmony vocals
Everett Wren – Fiddle, shaker
Taylor Turner – Double bass
Joseph Holguin, Arlyn Studios – Recording, mixing engineer
Andrew Oedel – Mastering engineer


Dallas Ugly, “Sugar Crash”

Artist: Dallas Ugly
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Sugar Crash”
Album: See Me Now
Release Date: March 6, 2025 (single); April 18, 2025 (album)

In Their Words: “This song was inspired by the reliability of a low showing up after a high, specifically in a romantic setting. You know if you keep playing with fire you’re going to get burned, but it’s just so much fun. Besides, even when things are going well, falling for someone is a mix of fear and excitement. Sonically, we wanted to make this a sweet little candy bop and our producer, Justin Francis, nailed it with the warbley synth sounds he added. We also went for some cheekier arrangement choices to just really drive the playful aspect home. Hope this little twangy, twee song makes you dance!” – Libby Weitnauer

Track Credits:
Libby Weitnauer – Acoustic guitar, vocals
Owen Burton – Electric guitar, vocals
Eli Broxham – Bass
Brandon Combs – Drums, percussion
Justin Francis – Programming, percussion, acoustic guitar, keys


Grayson Jenkins, “Taxes & Time”

Artist: Grayson Jenkins
Hometown: Greenville, Kentucky
Song: “Taxes & Time”
Release Date: March 7, 2025

In Their Words: “‘Taxes & Time’ spilled out onto my notebook page early one morning after a restless night of sleep spent on an air mattress at a family member’s house. Nine times out of ten, those things go flat in the middle of the night – no fault to my hosts. This time, though, it also happened to be in the middle of the pandemic and one of the first times I had left home and my own bed in many months. I woke up at 5:00 am or so thinking about my grandfather, including a very distinct memory from my childhood of someone saying something to the effect of, ‘Papaw doesn’t travel outside of this many miles from home, because he has to get back to sleep in his bed.’ In about five minutes, I’d written the whole song with no melody or instrumentation in mind. This all happened around the time I turned 30 and it was cathartic to put my thoughts on paper about getting older, feeling and looking older, and thinking about what the important things in my life should be moving forward.” – Grayson Jenkins

Track Credits:
Grayson Jenkins – Songwriting, acoustic guitar, vocals
Paddy Ryan – Drums
Aaron Boehler – Bass
Jesse Aycock – Dobro
Fats Kaplin – Fiddle
Kevin Gordon – Backing vocals


Danny Roberts, “Lawson Sizemore”

Artist: Danny Roberts
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Lawson Sizemore”
Release Date: March 7, 2025
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “While I was putting together songs for this record I knew that I wanted to salute two of my favorite mandolin players – Doyle Lawson and Herschel Sizemore. Both of these men not only had an impact on me musically, but personally as well, and I wanted to pay tribute to them by writing a song that would show their influence on my playing and ‘Lawson Sizemore’ is it. I really enjoyed writing this tune and I hope I did two of my mandolin heroes justice with ‘Lawson Sizemore.'” – Danny Roberts

Track Credits:
Danny Roberts – Mandolin
Andrea Roberts – Bass
Tony Wray – Acoustic guitar, banjo
Jimmy Mattingly – Fiddle


Joel Timmons, “Just A Man”

Artist: Joel Timmons
Hometown: Folly Beach, SC
Song: “Just a Man”
Album: Psychedelic Surf Country
Release Date: February 7, 2025 (album); March 7, 2025(video)

In Their Words: “‘Just a Man’ is the true story of my early childhood introduction to pyromania. The lyrics tell the story (fairly accurately) of my father gathering a pile of Christmas trees in our backyard and setting it on fire, nearly burning down our house and neighborhood. Woven through this humorous recollection is the realization that my dad is ‘just a man.’ Though he seemed like a flame-wielding mythical god to me as a little boy, he was full of his own dreams, doubts, questions, hubris, and fears. I edited together the lyric video with some vintage 8mm movie film footage that my mother shot. The final result feels like an intimate home movie night and it’s a visual love letter to my dear dad, Clyde. The recording features fantastic fiddling from another sweet man that I love, Jason Carter.” – Joel Timmons

Video Credits: Videography by Carlin Timmons. Edited by Joel Timmons.


Photo Credit: Danny Roberts by Sandlin Gaither; Dallas Ugly by Betsy Phillips.

6 Old-Time Tunes for Your Winter “Happy-Sads”

Every January and February contain the same complicated emotional cocktail – a hangover from the holidays, a buzz of hope for the future, grief for the year gone by, relief to have moved on, joy in the lack of plans, and perhaps even dread for any winter still to come. Whichever way you slice it, it is a time of mixed emotions, usually of the slightly melancholy variety, but not wholly sad. I call this the “happy-sads.” This gentle gloom has always been beautiful to me in art, music, TV, film, etc. – and especially in an old-time tune!

Old-time music covers a vast range. There are tunes for every occasion and feeling – and the bittersweet is abundant. It’s also possible to get something different from a tune, depending on when and how you come across it. The tunes I find myself most drawn to this time of year are those that lope along, tinged equally with a sweet sadness and hope. Here are six old-time recordings that won’t cure your January/February “happy-sads” but rather, indulge them.

“Lost Indian,” Tricia Spencer & Howard Rains

Based in Lawrence, Kansas, Tricia Spencer and Howard Rains have deep musical roots in Kansas and Texas, respectively. With two wailing fiddles right up top, this is the perfect recording to start off this list. When the band kicks in you want to dance, but also cry?

“Backstep Indi,” Pharis & Jason Romero 

A fretless gourd banjo is a sure-fire way to indulge all of your complicated winter feels. Pharis & Jason Romero are no strangers to the cold and gray up in their Canadian home. A modern old-time tune, “Backstep-Indi” winds in and out and back again making it the perfect recording for a reflective chilly day.

“Fire on the Mountain,” Matt Brown

Matt Brown’s recording of “Fire on the Mountain,” a tune from Kentucky fiddler Isham Monday, never fails to inspire peace, personally. It’s just ultimately serene and mournful like a proper January morning (or afternoon or evening). The G cross tuning, fingerstyle banjo, the simple delivery are all just right.

“Railroad Bill,” Etta Baker

The way Etta Baker’s fingerstyle guitar just chugs right along with a slow, but definite evolution during “Railroad Bill” has a familiarity and comfort to it. Her sound is still, steady, and warm, and that minor six chord really hits on a glum winter day.

“Weevils in the Grits,” Sami Braman

Sami Braman’s original tune, “Weevils in the Grits,” marches right along with Brittany Haas guest fiddling alongside her and her band. Open tunings on a fiddle can lean in the more “raging” direction or the drones that they create can open up the sound to something ethereal and archaic. Sometimes you get a combination of both, like we have here! BGS premiered “Weevils in the Grits” last year, too.

“Laughing Boy,” Earl White Stringband

There are several tunes off of the Earl White Stringband album that could have ended up on this list, notably the old-time jam hit “Chips and Sauce,” but this particular one stuck because of that fleeting moment where the melody winks at the minor chord while the band plays the major four and your heart explodes.


Photo Credit: United States Resettlement Administration, Ben Shahn, photographer. (1937) Aunt Samantha Baumgarner i.e. Bumgarner. United States, Asheville, North Carolina. Photograph retrieved from the Library of Congress.

LISTEN: Dallas Ugly, “Big Signs”

Artist: Dallas Ugly
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Big Signs”
Release Date: September 8, 2023

In Their Words: “I wrote this song as I was having a reckoning about a sense of stagnation — in my life and personal growth. Nothing was bad, but nothing was great either, and I knew it was time to blow my life up a little and make some space for new things.

“Sonically, we all had The Beatles song ‘Two of Us’ very much in our ears when we were working on the arrangement, and Dominic Billett slipped right into that vision with his drumming. Owen’s dog gets a production credit, as he chose to ring his dog bell right as we were trying to find the perfect sound to complete the chorus. He has been immortalized in the track.” – Libby Weitnauer


Photo Credit: Betsy Phillips

LISTEN: Sami Braman, “Weevils in the Grits”

Artist: Sami Braman
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee (from Seattle, Washington)
Song: “Weevils in the Grits”
Album: Riveter
Release Date: April 7, 2023
Label: Padiddle

In Their Words: “This is the newest tune on the record, composed about a year ago after realizing I had never written a tune in Calico tuning (AEAC#–one of my favorite tunings ever)! The melody flowed out quickly, using a repetitive phrase that lands on the IV chord over and over again to end each part. That repetition and simplicity was satisfying to me, especially while humming it in my head as I walked around my neighborhood later that day. The following weekend, I had breakfast at my friend (and fellow fiddler) Libby Weitnauer’s house and she made some grits that had some specks of mysterious ‘seasoning.’ Upon further investigation, we realized that ‘seasoning’ was in fact little weevils (may they rest in peace) that had grown over time within the unopened box. Some of us ate it anyway, though I was too wimpy and squeamish. But the experience provided a perfect tune name!” — Sami Braman


Photo Credit: Alex Steed

BGS Class of 2021: Our Favorite Albums, Made With Intention

This collection of albums is not simply a “best of” 2021. That would be selling every single collection included herein far too short. These roots and roots-adjacent releases each stood as a testament to the music makers and communities that spawned them. Not simply in the face of a globe-halting, existentially challenging pandemic, but in the face of an industry, government, and culture that would just as soon have all of us pretend the last two years — and beyond — simply didn’t happen. 

These artists and creators refused to let the pandemic define their artistic output through it, while simultaneously acknowledging, processing, and healing from the pandemic through this music. Not a single album below is a “pandemic record,” yet every single one is a resounding, joyful balm because the intention in each is not simply a reaction to a global disaster or an attempt to commodify it or its by-products. Not a single one is an attempt to “return to normalcy.” They’re each challenging us as listeners, in both overt and subtle ways, to walk into our collective new reality together, wide-eyed and open-armed, and with intention.

Daddy’s Country Gold, Melissa Carper

It was a sly move on Melissa Carper’s part to give her album, Daddy’s Country Gold, a title that works on so many levels, nodding to the passing down of sounds, to her road nickname and to her ability to casually loosen postwar country perceptions of masculinity and femininity. In her songs and performances, her gestures are even more beguilingly subtle. Enlisting a fellow upright bassist to produce with her, the Time Jumpers’ Dennis Crouch, Carper claimed western swing and early honky-tonk eras as her playground, and the shrewd, crooning intimacy of Billie Holiday as her guide. Carper sings in a slight, reedy rasp, deftly phrasing her lines and curling her words to suggest the lasting nature of longing and fleeting nature of pleasure. She’s written a movingly clever ballad of broken commitment (“My Old Chevy Van”), elegantly pining tunes of both torchy and down-home varieties (“I Almost Forgot About You,” “It’s Better If You Never Know”) and whimsical fantasies of rural homesteading, sometimes making clear that she’s cast a female partner in those stories (“Old Fashioned Gal,” “Would You Like to Get Some Goats?”) Her artful knowledgeable nudging of tradition is a revelation. — Jewly Hight


Music City USA, Charley Crockett

Few artists in the last few years have us as fired up as Charley Crockett. His unapologetically individual sound and aesthetic shine through once again on his 2021 release, Music City USA. The irony, of course, is that the album sounds nothing like most of what comes out of modern-day Nashville. It’s an amalgamation of influences both old and new — blues and classic country and soul with a peppering of Texas-tinged Americana on top. Charley Crockett absolutely represents what the future of Music City sounds (and looks) like in our book. — Amy Reitnouer Jacobs


Home Video, Lucy Dacus

We must forgo the existential “Is it roots?” question at this juncture, simply because this stunning and resplendent work by Lucy Dacus refused to be excluded from this list. Perhaps the superlative album of 2021, in a year filled to bursting with objectively and subjectively superlative albums, Home Video is impossibly resonant, relatable, down-to-earth, and touching — despite its intricate specificity and deeply vulnerable personality. Dacus’ queerness, and the beautiful, humane ways it refuses categorization and labels, is the crack beneath the door through which the light of this gorgeous, fully-realized universe is let into our hearts. Her post-evangelical pondering; the challenging while awe-inspiring abstract, amorphous gray zones she doesn’t just examine, but celebrates; the anger of rock and roll paired with the tenderness of folk and the spilled ink of singer-songwriters — whether taken as a masterpiece of genre-fluid postmodernity or an experiment on the fringes of roots music, Dacus’ Home Video establishes this ineffable artist as a subtle, intellect-defying (and -encouraging), empathetic genius of our time. — Justin Hiltner


My Bluegrass Heart, Béla Fleck

It’s been over twenty years since the eminent master of the banjo, Béla Fleck, recorded a bluegrass record. My Bluegrass Heart completes a trilogy of albums (following 1988’s Drive and 1999’s The Bluegrass Sessions) and is as much a who’s who of modern bluegrass – featuring the likes of Billy Strings, Chris Thile, Sierra Hull, Bryan Sutton, Molly Tuttle, Michael Cleveland, Sam Bush and many others – as it is a showcase of Fleck’s still-virtuoso level talent.

But as much as My Bluegrass Heart is an album for a bluegrass band, we would be hard pressed to call it a bluegrass album (in the best possible way). As he has done countless times before, Fleck effectively breaks every rule and pushes every boundary by surrounding himself with fellow legendary rule breakers, creating something wholly beautiful and unique in the process.Amy Reitnouer Jacobs


A Tribute to Bill Monroe, The Infamous Stringdusters

Bluegrass loves a “back to bluegrass” album, no matter how far an artist or band may or may not have traveled from bluegrass before coming back to it. On A Tribute to Bill Monroe, the Infamous Stringdusters cement ‘80s and ‘90s ‘grass – “mash” and its subsidiaries – as an ancestor to the current generation of jamgrass. Or, at the very least, it cements that these two modern forms of bluegrass cooperatively evolved. It’s crisp, driving, bouncing bluegrass that’s as much traditional as it isn’t. Sounds like quintessential Stringdusters, doesn’t it? Their collective and individual personalities ooze through the Big Mon’s material, which is what we all want cover projects to do, in the end: Cast classics in a new light, into impossibly complicated refractions. And, in this case, infusing postgrass sensibilities back into the bluegrass forms that birthed them. — Justin Hiltner


Race Records, Miko Marks & the Resurrectors

One of the best bluegrass albums of the year most likely would not be “binned” as bluegrass, and that this album is titled Race Records demonstrates exactly why. Miko Marks returns to the primordial ooze aesthetic of country, old-time, blues and bluegrass — without a whiff of essentialism — and accomplishes a Bristol Sessions or ‘40s-era Grand Ole Opry sound that’s as firmly anchored in the present as it is elemental. Marks’ musical perspective has always highlighted her awareness that the death of genre, as it were, is nothing new, but a return to the traditions that birthed all of these roots genres, many of which can be attributed to the exact communities race records originally sought to erase. Marks & the Resurrectors joyfully and radically occupy songs and space on Race Records. The result is as light and carefree as it is profound; it’s devastatingly singular yet feels like a sing along. All quintessential elements of bluegrass and country. — Justin Hiltner


Dark in Here, Mountain Goats

John Darnielle sings at the velocity of a firehose torrent, and he writes songs with titles like “Let Me Bathe in Demonic Light” and “The Destruction of the Superdeep Kola Borehole Tower.” But rather than death metal, Mountain Goats play elegantly arranged folk-rock dressed up with saxophones and the occasional keyboard freak-out. Dark in Here, the best of five Mountain Goats albums released the past two years, coheres into tunefulness despite the clashing contrasts — especially “Mobile,” a gently gliding Biblical meditation on hurricane season, and also Darnielle’s prettiest song ever. Perfect for the whiplash jitters of this modern life. — David Menconi


In Defense Of My Own Happiness, Joy Oladokun

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so immediately captivated by an artist as I was when I first heard Joy Oladokun’s single, “Jordan,” earlier this year. On that song — and every other one on In Defense of My Own Happiness that I played over and over this year — her clear voice and searingly personal lyrics emerge as a calm, universal call to pursue something better, melting down her own painful past and re-molding it in the image of self-love, inner peace and … well, joy. Oladokun is indeed building her own promised land, and we’re all lucky to bear witness. — Dacey Orr Sivewright


Outside Child, Allison Russell

One might assume an album covering the subject of abuse could intimidate a listener with its potential heaviness. While Outside Child does indeed venture into the depths of those dark experiences, Allison Russell gleans profound lessons learned and treasures discovered from each and every detail of her experiences in her youth. The result is ethereal and uplifting — and a release of trauma through a bright musical experience swelling and overflowing with hope for the future. — Shelby Williamson


The Fray, John Smith

Most artists are pretty keen to play down the idea of a “lockdown record,” because they’re worried it will limit the music’s appeal or longevity. But the emotions John Smith pours into The Fray — born of that period when we were all taking stock of our lives, and wondering what to do next — will hold their currency for a long while yet. It’s honest, yes, but also pretty soothing on the ear, showcasing Smith’s fullest sound to date — both heart’s cry and soul’s balm at once. — Emma John


See You Next Time, Joshua Ray Walker

I wasn’t out after “Three Strikes.” Instead, I was all in. With the steel guitar weaving like a drunkard in a Buick, it sometimes seems like this Dallas musician’s third album is about to go off the rails, along with the lives of the people he’s created in these songs. It never does, though, and that’s a credit to Joshua Ray Walker’s commanding vocal and a willingness to bring his dry sense of humor to the country music landscape. From the pretty poser in “Cowboy” to the unsightly barfly known as “Welfare Chet,” these folks feel like true honky-tonk characters. — Craig Shelburne


Simple Syrup, Sunny War

“Tell me that I look like Nina,” sings Los Angeles singer-songwriter Sunny War in “Like Nina,” the keystone song of her fourth album, Simple Syrup. The Nina in question is, of course, Nina Simone. The look is the “same sad look in my eyes,” though in concert War often flashes a bright, disarmingly shy smile — that of a young Black artist demanding to be taken on her own, singular terms, not the terms of cultural expectations. She continues: She can’t dance like Tina, sing like Aretha, be styled like Beyoncé. But she can see injustice, seek love and respect, seek a sense of self, and sing about it, captivatingly, with her earthy voice and folk-blues-rooted fingerpicking, enhanced by a small cadre of friends led by producer Harlan Steinberger. Like Nina? No. Like Sunny War. — Steve Hochman


Sixteen Kings’ Daughters, Libby Weitnauer

There’s a new artist on the folk scene — Libby Weitnauer. Weitnauer is a fiddle player, violinist, singer and songwriter raised in East Tennessee and currently based in Nashville. Her debut EP and first solo effort, Sixteen Kings’ Daughters, was produced by Mike Robinson (Sarah Jarosz, Railroad Earth) and presents centuries-old Appalachian ballads that have been recast into a lush and unsettling sonic landscape. Weitnauer’s high lilting voice is reminiscent of Jean Ritchie, and she glides with ease atop eerie backdrops of electric guitar, bass, fiddle and pedal steel. A strong debut to say the least, and we’re excited to hear more. — Kaïa Kater


Urban Driftwood, Yasmin Williams

Watching Yasmin Williams play guitar can boggle your mind. She uses her full body to coax noise from the instrument, her fingers pounding on the strings, her feet clicking out counter rhythms in tap shoes, one hand even accompanying herself on kalimba. As impressive as her technique is, it’s less remarkable than her facility for compositions that are melodically direct yet structurally intricate. Urban Driftwood is a carefully and beautifully written album, and Williams’ songs lose none of their flair when she transfers them from the stage to the studio. Dense with earworm riffs and evocative textures, the album represents a crucial pivot away from the increasingly staid world of folk guitar, which has recently been dominated by white men indebted to the historical American Primitivism pioneered by John Fahey. Williams is opening that world up to new sounds and influences, insisting that her guitar can speak about our present moment in ways that are meaningful, moving, and subversive. — Stephen Deusner


LISTEN: Kelly Bosworth and Libby Weitnauer, “Phoebe in Her Petticoat”

Artist: Kelly Bosworth and Libby Weitnauer
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Phoebe in Her Petticoat”
Album: Pocket Full of Candy EP
Release Date: September 4, 2020

In Their Words: “We learned this centuries-old song via the playing of Bruce Greene on River in Time. We were struck by the beauty of his performance and wanted to stay out of the way of the song as much as possible. To capture this, we set it to a simple guitar duet with sparse harmonies that come and go as they please. Traditionally an ‘add-as-you-go nonsense’ song, the version we learned spoke more to stereotypical gender roles than we were comfortable with, so we scrambled some of the words to offset that in our recording. As the rest of the material on the EP developed, we realized a line in the song, ‘pocket full of candy,’ was the perfect descriptor for the sweet, simple, and sad little collection of songs we had put together, and so this became our title track.” – Kelly Bosworth and Libby Weitnauer


Photo credit: Joseph Dejarnette

Eight Great Cuts of “Eighth of January”

It’s one of bluegrass and old-time’s favorite days of the year! The “Eighth of January” can be heard from every jam, every folk club, every radio tuned to the bluegrass airwaves — well, it ought to be like that.

To do our part, we’ve collected eight great versions of “Eighth of January,” that is, “The Eighth of January,” or “Jackson’s Victory,” or “Gulf of Mexico” to mark this auspicious day. At the end, we hope you’ve found a new lick to add to your own versions of the tune and we hope “eighth” doesn’t look like a word to you anymore, too!

Tui

Let’s start with a decidedly old-time take from fiddle/banjo duo Tui, AKA Libby Weitnauer and Jake Blount. Here’s hoping you make a stank face when they ever-so-slightly pass over the b7 — if you recall your last music theory course, see also: “the subtonic” — in the B part. (If the parts have been counted wrong, this writer begs your forgiveness.) The frailing rakes by Blount on the banjo, the pair’s playful deviations from each other, only to return, totally enmeshed a moment later… it’s delicious.


Charlie Walden

The old-time fiddler of Missouri, if Charlie Walden doesn’t come up in the first round of results when you search the internet for “Eighth of January” something is very wrong. His command of raw, timeless (and seemingly effortless) fiddling stems from a wealth of talent combined with his insatiable appetite for tunes — he’s collected countless melodies, stories, and songs from fiddlers all across his home state.


Tony Rice

An old-time fiddle tune fully assimilated into the bluegrass canon? This right here is how. That’s Darol Anger and David Grisman on the tasty twin parts, Todd Phillips on bass, and the one and only Tony Rice holding it down and shredding it up all at once. Every time they slightly push, syncopating the tail-end of a random melodic phrase here and there, a shiver should go down your spine.


Jeremy Stephens

No one alive plays Don Reno-style banjo better than Jeremy Stephens. Full stop. Now, if you’ve already hit play and have listened through to his first solo, you should know this: He recorded Scarlet Banjo at the ripe old age of 16. You know him now thanks to his quintessential sound with High Fidelity, but Stephens has been burning a torch for unencumbered, fully-realized traditional bluegrass for a long time. And it’s always been this good!


Scotty Stoneman with the Kentucky Colonels

The Kentucky Colonels were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2019 and though Stoneman was not an original member, he left an indelible mark on the band’s legacy, which manifests chiefly through his “hot” fiddling on the band’s essential live recordings. Though fans may be most familiar with hearing the Colonels hold on for dear life in the wake of his bow at truly incomparable tempos, Stoneman is relatively subdued in his captivating improvisations over “Eighth of January.”


Eric Weissberg

Deliverance reverberates throughout the ages for all of the wrong reasons. If you forgot this was on the original soundtrack to the infamous film, we don’t blame you. That’s why we’re here to remind. Weissberg’s banjo playing — especially his fantastic melodic approach, heard here — certainly deserves more recognition than simply being regarded as the originator of “Dueling Banjos” in its modern form.


Johnny Cash, “The Battle Of New Orleans”

We may have neglected to mention earlier that this tune is named “Eighth of January,” commemorating the day of “Jackson’s Victory,” because (cruel, genocidal) President Jackson won “The Battle of New Orleans” that very day in 1815. Yes, this tune has a lot of titles — and lyrics, to boot! Here’s the Man in Black lending the dusky patina of his baritone to our song du jour.


Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves

This particular variation on “Eighth of January” was found in recordings of African American musicians Nathan Frazier and Frank Patterson, who were first recorded in Nashville in the 1940s, so you’ll notice de Groot and Hargreaves stray from the melodic phenotype of the others on this list. It’s a gentle reminder that the way these tunes travel — from picker to picker, across generations, across counties and countries — is just as important to the history of string band music as the tunes themselves. Just about a year ago (hmm, how is that so easy to remember?) we featured this track in an edition of Tunesday Tuesday, solidifying this BGS tradition.


Photo of Tatiana Hargreaves (L) and Allison de Groot: Louise Bichan

Tui, “Cookhouse Joe”

“Old-time.” The moniker itself seemingly contains eons of musical cross-pollination, generations of aural tradition, lifetimes of carefully and purposefully — and haphazardly and accidentally — passing down the skills, stories, community, and tunes that make up the musical form. A new crop of old-time pickers has been slowly but surely emerging from the tight-knit, often insular (but almost never outright forbidding) ranks of the genre, with a continuing focus on the decades that have come before, but through a new lens. One of reclamation and representation, of mining stories and songs, one of painstakingly undoing the erasure that has prevailed over the history of any/all non-white, non-colonial, non-Christian, non-normative musics in this country.

Tui (pronounced TOO-EE), an old-time duo that includes fiddler Libby Weitnauer and multi-instrumentalist Jake Blount, perfectly epitomizes this new generation, this fiddle + banjo changing of the guard. In title and song roster their upcoming release, Pretty Little Mister, subverts the usual narratives of old-time — whether by turning the staple “Pretty Little Miss” on its gendered ear or by meticulously crediting and tracing back each track’s origins, often to fiddlers and pickers of color and other otherwise underrepresented folks of bygone eras.

“Cookhouse Joe,” the final tune on the album, was originally learned from a late-in-life recording of Kentucky fiddler Estill Bingham. And it’s okay that you might not recognize that name — that you probably will not is almost the entire point of the record. Tui has already done the work for their listeners, putting in the time to make sure that the old-time they create, for years past and the ages to come, tells the whole story of how and by whom this beautiful artistic tradition came to be. And on Pretty Little Mister it’s not only beautiful, it’s so much more.