Did You Miss Gil & Dave on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert? Watch Here

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – one of the most beloved modern duos in bluegrass and Americana – brought music from their GRAMMY Award winning album, Woodland (2024), to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this month, performing “Empty Trainload of Sky” live on television. They also performed one of their classic tracks, “Look at Miss Ohio,” a song from Welch’s seminal 2003 project, Soul Journey, for a web-exclusive video. Watch both performances, which feature Punch Brothers and Hawktail bassist Paul Kowert backing up the pair, right here on BGS.

Welch and Rawlings are currently in the middle of a 30+ date headlining tour, with two concerts set for Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, the Mother Church of country music, on May 22 and May 23. Earlier this month, coinciding with their appearance on The Late Show, they also appeared for two nights at Carnegie Hall before continuing along the East Coast. In June, they’ll be heading out West and concluding their run in the Pacific Northwest.

Between them, they’ve racked up endless awards and accolades, including 14 GRAMMY nominations and five GRAMMY wins collectively. In 2015, they were honored by the Americana Music Association with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting. But it’s not these well-deserved recognitions, their millions of streams and sales, or even their fantastic contributions to films like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs that will be their crowning achievements. Instead, it’s the nearly universal love, admiration, and respect they receive from within and outside the American roots music community that best showcases their far-reaching impact.

That and, of course, the incredible body of work they’ve fashioned together. Whether the timeless and twenty-year-old staples like “Look at Miss Ohio” or the blustery and destructive new work, “Empty Trainload of Sky,” Welch & Rawlings continue to gift us all songs that will stand the test of time – and that we each carry with us wherever we go.


 

LISTEN: DoomFolk StarterKit, “Look at Miss Ohio”

Artist: DoomFolk StarterKit
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Song: “Look at Miss Ohio”
Album: Like You Mean It Records Sampler Vol. 1
Release Date: May 21, 2021
Label: Like You Mean It Records

In Their Words: “Recording any of Gillian Welch’s work is such an honor. ‘Look at Miss Ohio’ holds this fantastic tension between societal and familial pressures and a deep desire to find new ways of living. The line that pushes me over the edge is ‘I know all about it so you don’t have to shout it / I’m gonna straighten it out somehow.’ There’s so much there — it’s a line you might shout at a parent defensively, but it is also packed with utter humility and self-awareness. For me, this song depicts the story of someone choosing to embrace ambiguity while living with the hope that it’s going to shake out alright, somehow. Making peace with the fact of uncertainty is a theme that’s found its way into some of my own songs here and there. I’ve tried to represent that in this cover with a balance of lightness and melancholy in the arrangement.” — David Swick, DoomFolk StarterKit


Photo credit: Emily Barrett