Artist: Alabama Slim
Hometown: Vance, Alabama / New Orleans, Louisiana
Song: “Someday Baby”
Album: The Parlor
Release Date: January 29, 2021
Label: Cornelius
In Their Words: “‘Someday Baby,’ well, I tell you, when I first heard the record, it was Muddy Waters that did it. I play it the way I want to play it and sing it the way I want to sing it. That’s it.” — Alabama Slim
Photo credit: Jed Finley
Artist: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers
Hometown: Xenia, Ohio
Song: “Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23”
Album: Industrial Strength Bluegrass
Release Date: March 26, 2021
Label: Smithsonian Folkways
In Their Words: “The great Appalachian migration of the 20th century placed tens of thousands of families from the hills and hollers into the industrial region of southwestern Ohio. Three shifts a day produced steel, paper, automobiles and more, from Cincinnati northward to Hamilton, Middletown, Dayton and Springfield, in the Miami valley of Ohio. No one makes better music than homesick hillbillies and they picked and sang at neighborhood taverns, churches, radio stations and fairgrounds. My parents left Kentucky in 1964 and I was born in Middletown, Ohio, one year later. Dad was a fiddler and radio personality spotlighting bluegrass music for the entire region.
“‘Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23′ was penned by Dwight Yoakam early in his career. His roots travel US Route 23 from eastern Kentucky to the Columbus, Ohio region. My mother’s parents lived a few miles off Route 23 in Lawrence County, Kentucky, in a’ ‘holler.’ Our family made the trip from Ohio to see my mamaw and papaw Williams hundreds of times. This song’s second verse was so personal to me, it took a lot of rehearsal to sing through my emotions. Seeing their porch light burning brightly, as a kid, meant I was soon to welcomed into their loving arms. In these troubled times, it’s a memory I cherish and find very comforting.
“‘Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23′ is the opening track to the forthcoming album entitled Industrial Strength Bluegrass. The 16-song project will feature songs all connected to the rich history of bluegrass music created, written or recorded in my neighborhood, southwestern Ohio. I can’t wait until the world hears Dan Tyminski, Lee Ann Womack, Doyle Lawson and more artists performing songs draw from a deep well of classic bluegrass!” — Joe Mullins
Photo credit: Russ Carson
Artist: The Horsenecks
Hometown: Astoria, Oregon
Song: “Six Foot Under”
Album: Started Out in Town
Release Date: January 29, 2021
Label: Tiki Parlour Recordings
In Their Words: “We got this song from an early sixties recording of an obscure country singer named Bob Fryfogle. A man jilted at the altar, walking around the church graveyard wanting to bury his heart. The melody and lyrics are so lonesome, as soon as we heard it we knew we’d have to learn it. It’s a departure from the rest of the songs on the album in that it’s the only song with electric guitar and drums, while the rest of the album is acoustic. This song represents a broader scope of the music we love to play at live shows or sitting around kitchen tables.” — The Horsenecks
Photo credit: David Bragger
Artist: Selwyn Birchwood
Hometown: Tampa, Florida
Song: “I Got Drunk, Laid and Stoned”
Album: Living in a Burning House
Release Date: January 29, 2021
Label: Alligator Records
In Their Words: “This song proves that you can party to blues music. When I look back at all of the blues songs that I really loved growing up, a lot of them were about drinking, f#%^ing or smokin’… So I wrote a song about all three!! ‘I Got Drunk, Laid and Stoned’ is the epitome of what I feel is missing in a lot of blues music right now. You’ll find all of the rawness, edginess, and boundary pushing that I love in music. This track revs you up, tells a story, and grooves all at once!” — Selwyn Birchwood
Photo credit: Ivy Neville
Artist: Wolf van Elfmand
Hometown: Edwards, Colorado
Song: “Sweet Regret”
Album: All Blue
Release Date: January 29, 2021 (single), February 12, 2021 (album)
In Their Words: “‘Sweet Regret’ is a song that grew out of loss and its lessons. We all lose things and likely sometimes we flail about in anger or get lost in lonesomeness that follows. This song is about the long road towards discovering the only other option: acceptance. Learning to live with the darker parts in the journey and recognizing that old feelings sometimes live with us forever is a strangely beautiful lesson from losing.” — Wolf van Elfmand
Photo credit: Carolyn Pender
Artist: Pony Bradshaw
Hometown: Chatsworth, Georgia (Murray County)
Song: “Foxfire”
Album: Calico Jim
Release Date: January 29, 2021
Label: Black Mountain Music
In Their Words: “‘Foxfire’ is the least personal song on the record, but maybe my favorite to play. It was inspired by a couple of Charles Joyner books I was reading at the time… Down by the Riverside: a South Carolina Slave Community and Shared Traditions: Southern History and Folk Culture. I’d recently written a song called ‘Old Dave Drake’ (not on this record) about the potter and slave from Edgefield, South Carolina, and was reading a lot of history, nonfiction, and folk culture studies. ‘Foxfire’ was born out of that time period. I don’t think it’s written enough about (in song form), but I also understand that it’s not my place to be an authority on the subject. I tend to write things I’m interested in as opposed to what might interest folks. Hopefully the two come together every now and then and we’re all satisfied, though.” — Pony Bradshaw
Photo credit: Bekah Jordan
Artist: Lizzie Weber
Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri
Song: “Blue Wave Bloom”
Album: How Does It Feel EP
Release Date: January 22, 2021
In Their Words: “‘Blue Wave Bloom’ was the last song on the EP that I wrote in isolation during the shutdown. The red tide had just occurred in California and I was in awe of the bright blue colors enveloping the black sea. I began writing the lyrics, positioning the red tide as a metaphor for toxicity in one’s own mind, something that for me, arose with that extreme isolation. It served as my anthem, along with the other two EP songs, for overcoming adversity, reminding myself of my own willpower and strength in the face of any challenge. My hope is that this song resonates with the listener in that very same way, reminding them of their own power and personal strength, and their ability to survive the hardest of times.” — Lizzie Weber
Photo credit: Stephen Gilbert
Artist: Taylor Ashton (featuring Rachael Price)
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York via Vancouver B.C.
Song: “Alex”
Album: Romanticize
Release Date: February 5, 2021
Label: Signature Sounds
In Their Words: “Rachael and I traveled to On Deck Sound Studio in Connecticut to do a streaming show from their live room just after the new year, and before the show started broadcasting we filmed this stripped down version of ‘Alex,’ which is a song on my upcoming EP Romanticize (a companion to my album The Romantic which came out last year). The produced version is lush, with piano, electric guitar, drums, bass clarinet and synths, but I love the way this song feels just stripped down to the skeletal banjo part and the two voices. Rachael and I singing together has definitely been a hallmark of this quarantine time, since we would usually be too busy with our respective schedules to make it work. So the song ‘Alex’ and this stripped-down live video are a record of this time and this silver lining of an otherwise extremely weird year.” — Taylor Ashton
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
Artist: The Burnt Pines
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Lisbon, Portugal
Song: “Diamonds”
Album: The Burnt Pines
Release Date: January 22, 2021
Label: Adraela Records
In Their Words: “This song offers a bit of a different twist on a typical love song, in that it’s told from the perspective of a faithful and committed partner, in a complicated and difficult relationship, as many relationships are. It’s an aching love song. Through the twists and turns and uncertainties of his relationship with his partner, and dealing with her indecision between wanting both a mutual commitment and a certain freedom that she imagines outside the relationship, he keeps returning to his intense and poignant feelings in the song’s chorus: ‘I bleed apart. Torment in the colorful rain. Diamonds, oh diamonds, I don’t mind getting old for you, babe.’ Love often isn’t easy.” — Aaron Flanders, The Burnt Pines
Photo credit: Rui Major, The Burnt Pines
Artist: Balsam Range
Hometown: Haywood County, North Carolina
Song: “Rivers, Rains and Runaway Trains”
Single Release Date: January 15, 2021
Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “‘Rivers, Rains and Runaway Trains’ is another great tune from Milan Miller and Beth Husband. For me it’s an upbeat and moody song that reminds me that there’s sometimes that one person or thing in your life that no matter how much you look ahead and prepare they still catch you by surprise. Could be in a good way or in a not so good way. As the song says in the bridge: ‘My steady feet stumbled, the heavens they rumbled, the earth shook below the ground. I tried to speak but mumbled, my senses they crumbled, the second you came around.'” — Caleb Smith, guitarist and vocalist
Photo credit: David Simchok
