Suzanne Cox Archives - The Bluegrass Situation

Suzanne Cox & Brandon Ratcliff Follow Their Inspiration

Posted on July 24, 2026July 24, 2026 by Justin Hiltner

When mother and son Suzanne Cox and Brandon Ratcliff first began posting vertical videos to social media singing harmonies and cover songs together, they were just doing it for fun. Virality hadn’t entered their minds at all. In fact, Ratcliff had almost sworn off the internet, or using social media to advance his artist or songwriting endeavors anymore. Meanwhile Cox had been asking herself, “Am I retired? Does anyone want to hear me sing?”

From their very first videos, the answer was an obvious and resounding yes. The denizens of the internet were apparently starved for Cox’s voice – but of course they were, haven’t we all been? – and were ravenous in their discovery of Ratcliff’s own talents in musicianship and songwriting. Song after song, clip after clip racked up thousands of likes and views, dozens and dozens of new followers (including quite a few celebrities), and built an organic momentum neither artist had ever seen in their music-making careers so far.

Cox, in her late 50s, and Ratcliff, in his early 30s, have both enjoyed numerous successes and accomplishments in roots music. The Cox Family won GRAMMY Awards and IBMA Awards and appeared on the iconic O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and are routinely named as one of Alison Krauss’s major influences in bluegrass and harmony singing. They are legends. Ratcliff has had record deals, prominent co-writes, his own solo releases, and been on the Nashville singer-songwriter hustle for more than a decade. But the energy behind their mother-son partnership has been unlike anything either have experienced before.

It’s no surprise, though, viewing their many popular videos or listening to their debut EP, Mother/Son Volume 1, released back in April. There’s something special here that can’t just be attributed to blood harmonies or genetic predisposition or God-given talent or “right time, right place.” There are aspects of each of these inputs throughout their current sky-bound trajectory, but the end result is certainly greater than the simple sum of its parts. And it’s landed them on the Grand Ole Opry, while continuing to garner even more views/followers Looking toward the future with excitement, they still let their inspirations and their audience guide them.

BGS sat down with Cox and Ratcliff at a coffee shop in Bellevue, Tennessee, on an afternoon dotted with sprinkling rain to talk about letting go of expectations, where they’re at now, where they’re headed next, and how badly the roots music world had been missing the inimitable voice of Suzanne Cox.

@therealbrandonratcliff I am weary, let me rest #obrotherwhereartthou #gospelmusic #acousticcovers #family #harmony @Suzanne Cox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

I wanted to start by going back to the beginning. Making music has been a lifelong thing for y’all. Your exposure to the music of your family, it being a part of the household. It’s a little bit like “chicken or the egg.” Obviously, y’all singing and being together and making music together would be a part of your family since forever. But I imagine there was a transition point when it went from being like, “We’re mother and son and we sing together,” to being, “Oh, there’s something here that maybe we should pursue.”

Suzanne Cox: I’ll have to let you tell that, ’cause you tell it very well, what happened.

Brandon Ratcliff: Thank you. When we started this really, none of [the business side of things] was on our minds. I keep telling people, “This whole thing has been a happy accident.” This has been a rare thing for me, and I don’t know if this is the same thing for Mom and them [the Cox Family], ’cause it was a different time. But for me, everything I’ve done in Nashville – for the most part, in the business – has felt a little bit like my dad always says, “Pushing a rope up a hill.” [Laughs] It’s like I’m putting so much effort into making something happen. And this [duo] thing kinda felt, for the first time ever, like we were constantly playing catch-up to what was reacting just naturally. Which has been very fun and has made us move very fast.

SC: Oh, it’s like we cannot keep up.

BR: We put something out and all of a sudden it starts working incredibly well and the next thing you know we’re like, “We gotta go record this. What are we doing? We’re late already.” That has been very exciting, fun, refreshing. The other thing is, too, having this kinda direct-to-consumer thing, where you post a video online and it resonates with people – which by the way, just even that was a surprise to us. Mom and I have talked for years about doing a project together or something. But it was mostly just for us. It was just for fun.

SC: “Someday.”

BR: “Someday we’ll do this thing. One day…” [It started when] I was back home for the holidays and we were together anyway, and singing and hanging out like we always do. I was like, “Hey, if we’re gonna sing anyway, we should just post some of these online.” Like, why not? And again, totally not thinking about the outcome. Never once considering–

SC: He was kinda done with TikTok for a little while.

BR: I was holding on loosely with the internet in general at this point. I told Mom right before, “Look, I’m not giving up on the internet, but I’d kinda let the idea that the internet would be my path to success [go].” I was like, I’ll still post, but I’m gonna try not to think about if this is gonna make my career. This was the first time I was kinda letting go of that outcome situation, and then we posted – the first thing, it was a song I was singing on the way over to her house. And it was [sings Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”], “Trailers for sale…”

SC: We were probably in Louisiana.

BR: “King of the Road.” I was singing it while I was riding the roads back there. And it did pretty well [online]. Better than most videos I had posted at that point. I was like, “Oh, this is cool,” but nothing gangbusters. But then the next one we did was a song that Mom sang on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? movie, “I Am Weary (Let Me Rest).” Yeah. We just got out there, started singing it.

SC: In front of an old vintage truck.

BR: Sang it five times in front of this old drilling rig truck. I posted it, forgot about it. My daughter’s third birthday party was later that afternoon, so I had to rush back over, get set up. All of a sudden family starts showing up and I’m getting texts from my cousins and people at the house are going like, “Dude, your video’s going viral.” I got no service out there in Louisiana.
It’s like I’m off the internet. Once I post, I’m done. So I get back on there and, sure enough, I’ve never gotten flooded with so many [notifications]. I open my phone up and it’s about to crash. It’s 400,000 views, 500,000 views. And I’m like, “What the…? This is crazy!” So then I tell Mom shortly after that, I gotta go back to Nashville.

And this, to your point, is where it starts going, “Oh wow, this is something.” This is resonating. There was one week where Rosie O’Donnell and Joe Jonas followed me and started reposting my videos. And it just keeps coming, all these people – Emily Ann Roberts, Ashley McBryde. It just kinda kept growing. Then it was immediately obvious to us and then everybody we were working with – like my producers and songwriter friends – something’s happening. The whole thing’s been like this, just accident after accident–

SC: [Smiling] Which I don’t believe is an accident.

BR: No, it’s divinely orchestrated, for sure. Very divine. The hand of God is all over this stuff.

SC: Brandon’s been at this [a long time], I [have been] for 52 years. And not really doing as much [lately], really at a point in my life where I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing in this new season. And even in prayer: “God, I’ve had a great career.” And I just thought, “Is it a time where I’m just a wife, a mother, and a grandmother?” Which is the best job. I love it. No regrets on that. No regrets. I was at a point before this all happened of just trying to figure out what my new season is. “Does anybody want to hear me sing anymore?” Still love to sing, but just had a lot going on. I had a real hard time. My husband got really sick in 2021. … And it put a lot of age on us both.

BR: Honestly, I think for us both, this season really came [while] we were both in a season of surrender. This openness – “What could happen? What God may do…”

SC: We answered quickly.

BR: It made the soil fertile for this real, raw passion – a just-living-life kinda thing. And I think it came from that season of surrender.

SC: And I was totally fine with that. I felt a calmness in that.

I hear you both communicating not a sense of giving up, but of letting go. Of realizing, “Maybe this isn’t something I need to clutch so tightly anymore.” And there is a freedom in that letting go.

SC: Yep. I agree. And also for it to be such a connection with other people. And that it resonates with people. And I love – I wasn’t reading any of the comments or anything and finally they called me and said, “Mom, you need to read these. You need to see some of this.” It’s just been such a wonderful thing to read what people say. Even if it’s, “My mamaw’s favorite song.” Or, “I bet you she can cook some good meals.” “Can I be adopted?” I just love that.

I think what stood out to me immediately is there’s something here that feels totally distinct from the Cox Family. Fresh and bright and sparkly in so many ways. But also, I was there on TikTok, y’all were on my FYP when that first video blew up. And I, like so many people who grew up with your voice, Suzanne, realized in that moment how starved I was for it. And then to see the world, all of us who did grow up with your singing have that same reaction – and then so many people who didn’t, too, have that moment of, “Who the hell is this?!” That was special to watch happen, even from the outside. Would you have ever believed people were waiting around for you to “come back”?

SC: No, I would not. And like I was telling you, a lot has gone down the pipe since then. It was a lot of heartache that I’ve gone through. We lost our dad in 2019 – so a lot of different issues. So yeah, at some point I was just thinking, “Does anybody ever even want to hear me singing?” I did. I went there. “Do I wanna hear myself sing anymore?” It wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t like I’m bawling in the bathroom or anything.

But we all have those thoughts.

SC: But we do! And it can get to your confidence, because you think that’s something in the past. For me, it was a good run [back then], and it’s been quite a gift for me to hear [the response now].

@therealbrandonratcliff I feel like I’m in a creaky old pew right now #sunday #hymns #hymnfortheweekend #motherson #familyharmony @thesuzannecox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

There’s something encouraging in how you’re speaking about yourself, because, to me, to somebody on the outside – you’re one of Alison Krauss’s favorite vocalists of all time! Suzanne Cox has the same sort of existential doubt that anyone might have. “Does my voice matter? Does the music I make matter?” And if we could all remind ourselves that’s just being human, we all have that ebb and flow.

SC: That’s right.

I think for so many of the hundreds and thousands of us, we never would have imagined that you would have that sort of doubt.

SC: It’s a little different these days. A lot of people have said, “Is she in retirement now?” I don’t know! Am I? I didn’t say it, but just life happens. As women, too, we wear just as many hats as a man does–

Even more.

SC: You’re a mother, and you’re a grandmother, and you’re fixing problems. I wasn’t heartbroken. I had a life that was good and felt good, I felt a peace about it. But I am delighted to be able to have a new song in my heart.

BR: And for me it wasn’t a shock, of course, because like you’re saying–

SC: Yeah, he’s always been so encouraging– him and his brothers.

BR: I grew up hearing mom sing and always knew she had a world-class voice. I used to hear mom all the time growing up, and me and dad would talk about it. I’d talk about it with my brother. It was like, “If anybody could hear this…”

SC: This might be when you were clueless. [Laughs]

BR: If anybody could just hear Mom singing around the house! And this kind of points to what we’re talking about again, this free space. If you could hear her sing just around the house, when she’s just messing around, you’d be like, “This woman is insanely good at singing.” It’s amazing, and almost even better than anything you hear on a recording.

SC: I feel so uncomfortable with y’all saying that. [All laugh]

BR: But to your point, though, this is a universal thing. I think this is true of a lot of us. That “dance like no one’s watching” mindset. When you don’t care, and you loosen up–

First take magic.

BR: Yes!

SC: If you’re like my sister, there was a lot of them that she did was her scratch vocal. One take!

BR: I tell Mom this all the time, and you learn this over and over with the internet, because posting online, there are diminishing returns the more you polish it. … We do have a tendency as creative people, as performers, to be perfectionists. Nothing’s ever good enough. We’re our worst critics. We all have a little bit of deep insecurities or impostor syndrome.

One of the things I love most about roots music – whether bluegrass or country or Americana or folk – is it’s always asking us to let the imperfections be. That’s why this music is so good. Because you can’t ever get a banjo in tune. Because the music has pocket. Because when you’re singing harmonies with somebody, maybe sometimes you are singing a dissonant note, or you’re singing a flat seven instead of something that’s diatonic, because “that’s how it goes.” Even though it’s got a little ugliness in it. The internet wants everyone to be perfect, but roots music is never perfect.

SC: Yep. Never perfect. Like you said, that’s what makes it really special.

@therealbrandonratcliff Can’t wait for @unclebsdamnedoleopry with @heyuncleb and the gang! April 28th we are honoring #continuum with some insanely talented artists and musicians by singing through some classics from the goat @johnmayer #motherson #cover #harmony #johnmayer @thesuzannecox ♬ original sound – brandonratcliff

I love how you guys are making cross-generational music in so many ways. But one of the ways that evidences itself is that I think this is some of the more “outside” or progressive music I’ve ever heard you sing, Suzanne. You’re really playing with genre in a really interesting way. Whether you’re singing a John Mayer cover or it’s “Far Side Banks of Jordan,” I love seeing how these sort of modern, more pop sensibilities are coming into the music. Then you also how the Cox Family vocal stylings have always had a modern crispness, modern licks, runs, and turns of phrase. How are you thinking about genre and playing with that?

SC: I don’t know. I’ve told Brandon this, I’ve never been one of those [tradition hardliners]. I know you say our sound [was traditional], but Daddy, from the get-go, we were doing [all kinds of styles]. He was very open. We started out old traditional country. We used to do old hayrides before we went into the bluegrass scene. But he introduced us to Don Reno & Red Smiley, plus Merle [Haggard] and Loretta Lynn. I’m getting a lot of people saying [I sound like] Loretta Lynn. She was a hero of mine, so I see that. Of course, Dolly [Parton] and Patsy Cline. But [Daddy] was really open to [different styles], so I was already at a point where I love what I love.

If I can make it sound like me, that’s what I wanna sing. So [the Cox Family] opened up for the Counting Crows. And did Eagles songs and “Blue Bayou.” We listened to classical and anything that we liked – Kenny Loggins, Loggins and Messina. … I’ve done Marvin Gaye, on that last album… It was good that he encouraged us to be able to be open.

BR: I feel like for me – and again, I wouldn’t have probably said this five years ago. I would’ve probably taken some real credit for this and been like, “I think it’s ’cause of me!” I’m young, whatever. But I think that, now, as I get older and I kinda look at the context of my life and what they did and everything, and how she raised me growing up, I kinda think it’s a natural downstream effect. Outside of just how she raised me on music, I grew up in the late ’90s, early 2000s, so I grew up listening to everything. She raised me listening to everything, like Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder, Hall & Oates, all the stuff she grew up on. But then Backstreet Boys and the rock groups of the ’90s, Sugar Ray – it was just all over the place.

SC: And Don Reno & Red Smiley. [Laughs]

BR: There’s still a box set of Merle Haggard in my truck right now. I’ve listened to all these kinds of things. I grew up with a very diverse listening, and then I was in the iPod generation, so there was the shuffling music. …

I think when we sing something, even as off the beaten path as it is, I think you just innately are you, and I am innately me. It’s fate, we’re mother-son. We kinda have similar tendencies, to notes and a choice of a run here or not there. I think that’s kinda what gives it that common thread. You can take a hard rock song or you can take an old country song, and as long as it’s me and you singing it…

SC: Sometimes it’s a challenge, too. In a good way! …

BR: But whenever I blend with Mom, it’s like I’m learning how to take the thing that I do that’s really distinct and interesting about myself, but also shed some of the other solo stuff to match with her. Because it’s me and Mom, it kinda changes the alchemy of the song a little bit in a really cool way.

One practical impact of you both being at this point in your careers – Brandon, you have already done two or three or four laps around Nashville, trying to get into the scene in the same way most folks do. Suzanne, you had this vibrant career and were asking yourself, “What now?” So, for both of you to then be able to be like, “Actually, we know we don’t have to do it the ‘Music Business’ way. We know we can just do it the way that we’re gonna do it.”

SC: Exactly. I told Brandon, “I’m 59 this year. And at this age you start relaxing a little bit more.” I could relax a little bit more, my son would say. [Laughs] But I’m learning so much, and I don’t think you can [avoid that]. I don’t think people give up. And I feel like I can still learn a lot. I’m learning from my child, I’m learning from this industry. But we always want to be unique.

BR: That’s one of the cool dynamics about being mother-son. We found a niche, I believe, too. … I’ve seen both sides. In the 12 years I’ve been here, it was the old world one minute and then everything was new. I’ve kinda gotten acclimated to this. And I’m always telling Mom, “It’s really funny we share these stories.” ‘Cause there’s stuff to learn from both eras. I’m always telling Mom, “That thing that you see as messy or weird or, ‘Oh, that was embarrassing,’ I go, ‘That’s when I and everyone else see you shine. You’re funny, you’re smart, you’re incredibly talented.'”

That’s something about this new world, the internet world, that is so different from whenever they were coming up. Where everything was kind of media-trained and scrubbed and, “Let’s shave the edges off.” Whereas now I’m telling Mom, “No, that is the goal.” When you are just yourself and I happen to catch it, that’s the thing that people light up for.

In a world where more and more, when you go on the DSPs and you hit shuffle, you might be hearing AI music, having those moments of real humanity are so important. Maybe it’s imperfect, but it’s real and it’s raw. You see so many videos online that are like three singers in a kitchen harmonizing together “impromptu.” You go to the comments and everyone’s saying, “We can hear the auto-tune.” Audiences know what’s real and what’s fake.

SC: Which is fascinating that you say that, because a lot of people have said, “Oh, there’s no way this is just in your backyard.” [Both laugh]

BR: TikTok has a great reverb, if you only knew.

SC: I think it’s funny.

I want people to think I’m tuned when I’m not!

BR: Exactly. [Laughs] I think people are jaded. I think they’re paranoid – to your point about they’re getting fed so much phony stuff. They don’t know what’s real anymore. That’s one of the encouraging things about the world we live in, I think it is increasing the demand for real human authenticity. That is a positive side of this pendulum swinging. People are fed up with this “sounds too perfect” trend. It’s indiscernible from a robot.

Even to the point that there was a girl who commented on this video we did, I posted a backstage video of us at the Opry. She said, “There’s no way this wasn’t studio-recorded before.” I’m sitting here going, “I’ll take it as a compliment.” ‘Cause I felt like I was all over the place in that video! But thank you for thinking that.

I think people are telling on themselves with a lot of the hand-wringing over what to do about AI. Of course I agree, we should be very careful with how we’re proliferating this technology and protect creators’ rights, but also AI is never gonna be able to do what Suzanne Cox’s voice does, right? And I’ve not yet heard a convincing AI bluegrass banjo player. I don’t think it’s coming for our jobs! I hope that what we’re all doing is real and human enough that AI will never come for these jobs.

SC: When they’re all in the coloring book, inside the lines, we’ll color outside … and the rest of us. We’re gonna color outside the lines. …

BR: I’ll say, I think the one thing I’ve learned from this whole experience is there are no rules.

SC: Yeah, exactly.

BR: This whole idea that you gotta post this many times, you gotta do this, you gotta do that… Blah, blah, blah. People will tell you, whether you’re talking about the internet or anything else, they’ll tell you there’s a certain math to it. I’m like, “Man, I don’t know anything about what I’m doing.” My guesses have gotten better, but I’m still clueless. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that you have to follow the pace of your inspiration. As soon as you start doing it because you feel obligated, you’ve already lost.

Photo Credit: Chase Hentges

Friends New and Old

Posted on April 17, 2026June 23, 2026 by Shelby Williamson

Editor’s Note: Each issue of Good Country, our co-founder Ed Helms shares a handful of good country artists, albums, and songs direct from his own earphones in Ed’s Picks.

Suzanne Cox (of the GRAMMY-winning bluegrass band the Cox Family) and her son, country singer-songwriter Brandon Ratcliff, are taking the internet by storm with their lovely and tender familial harmonies. Their duets have racked up millions of views and likes on social media, leading to a new EP, Mother/Son Volume 1, and a recent appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. Those voices!

You may have seen, I’ve had the good fortune of getting to spend a lot of quality time making a film – and doing plenty of banjo pickin’! – with Rhiannon Giddens recently. Since shooting An Ode to Mary Jo together, I keep going back to Rhiannon’s catalog of recordings and cannot get enough. This duet with fiddler Justin Robinson is from her most recent release, 2025’s What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow. Fantastic old-fashioned, down-home fiddle and banjo music drawn from North Carolina.

I’m with I’m With Her, too. One of our favorite trios in Americana and bluegrass released a brand new live album today, Sing Me Alive, packed with 20 tracks captured at performances across the country and in Canada. Many familiar favorites can be found alongside cover songs and tracks they’ve never released before. Here, they’re joined by Ye Vagabonds in Rocky Mount, Virginia, on “Rhododendron” in November of 2025.

Our Good Country and BGS Artist of the Month, Tenille Townes, released the first full-length album of her independent era last week. As she describes in our exclusive Artist of the Month interview, she took a much different approach to recording this music, doing most of the tracking herself, alone. The songs are deep, meaningful, and cathartic – and damn good. But it’s not an entirely solo album, as I’m With Her (how perfect) and Lori McKenna both feature on tracks. Hear McKenna join Townes on the title track, “the acrobat.”

Our old pal Charlie Worsham is back at it – though he truly never stops. A sideman, radio and podcast host, session player, songwriter, and artist, Charlie does it all. He’s got new music of his own out and the GC team can’t wait for more. As he usually does, he’s once again calling on his superlative cohort of friends in Music City. On his most recent single, “They Never Do,” it’s Lainey Wilson joining in. From some teases on social media, though, we’re expecting many more special guests on Charlie’s outings in the future!

Listen to this issue of Ed’s Picks in one YouTube playlist here.

Listen to the full Ed’s Picks archive playlist here.

Want more Good Country? Sign up to receive our monthly email newsletter – and much more music! – direct to your inbox.

Photo Credits: Suzanne Cox & Brandon Ratcliff by Chase Hentges; Rhiannon Giddens by Karen Cox; I’m With Her by Alysse Gafkjen; Tenille Townes by Madison Rensing; Charlie Worsham courtesy of the artist.

Among Bluegrass Diehards, Red Camel Collective Stands Out

Posted on November 18, 2025November 21, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

When you’re walking around the halls of IBMA’s business conference, World of Bluegrass, for good reasons and bad, everything ends up sounding the same. The Earls of Leicester sound just like Flatt & Scruggs. (Thank goodness.) Every single version of “Carolina in the Pines” sounds exactly like Special Consensus. (As they should.) There are pickers born in the 2000s who sound like carbon copies of Frank Wakefield or Don Reno or Wilma Lee Cooper.

But, in the well-intentioned and admirable adoration, emulation, and preservation a homogeneity results. It’s why IBMA jams sound different from SPBGMA jams; why Californian trad bluegrass sounds completely distinct from say, Virginian trad bluegrass these days. Where music happens, ideas cross-pollinate, and we all start sounding like each other, little bit by little bit. It’s a blessing and a curse.

That’s why it’s all the more remarkable when, out of that bluegrass milieu, a singular voice or perspective or sound can pierce through the sameness and rise above. Especially when that sound utilizes exactly the same tools and is built on a similar respect for emulation and preservation. At this year’s IBMA World of Bluegrass in Chattanooga, Red Camel Collective were one such band.

The group – made up of Heather Berry Mabe, Tony Mabe, Curt Love, and Johnathan Dillon – took home the IBMA Award for New Artist of the Year, their first such trophy. While it’s true they’ve only been a band for a few years (they came together first as Junior Sisk’s backing band and he has since encouraged them to take on work, make music, and record albums of their own), each of the Collective’s members are lifelong veterans of the bluegrass scene.

Perhaps that’s why they do sound like themselves and no one else. They know well by now the intricate little details that add up to a unique sonic brand. It’s intuition. They’re able to follow each other and each song wherever they may lead, landing in sometimes surprising or unexpected places. But still, the bones of this band and of their 2025 debut self-titled album are “just” bluegrass. Straight up and down. When you listen, though – or have the pleasure of chatting with any member of Red Camel Collective, like we did speaking to Heather Berry Mabe by phone – you’ll quickly realize this group has much more going on than the same ol’ same ol’.

Y’all sound like bluegrass, straight up and down, but you also sound like yourselves. Your sound has so much personality. You can tell that you’re holding up tradition, but also you’re trying to sound like your own band, your own group. How do you think that you’ve done that? How have you accomplished having a sound that feels within tradition, but also is something that’s all your own?

Heather Berry Mabe: First of all, thank you so much. That is a huge compliment, especially in today’s time. When I was growing up playing – I’ll soon be 38 years old – it was before YouTube and all of that. So I learned from my family members, I learned from my grandpa and my great-grandpa, and then also from the music that I was listening to at the time. Which was everything from ‘90s country to traditional bluegrass. To me, there was no box. I just loved music and it was just about getting as much of it as I could.

I think what influenced me and my husband, as far as having our own sound, I don’t think it was something that we set out to do [intentionally]. Like, “Hey, we’ve got to find a way to sound like ourselves.” I just think that happened organically. And I’m very thankful, because he’s such a recognizable picker, Tony Mabe. My husband is such a recognizable banjo player. You can hear the influences, but he totally sounds like himself. And his singing is the same way.

And, Johnathan, our mandolin player, he has so many influences, too, but he sounds like Johnathan. Nobody else sounds quite like him. I love that. I think on his part, it’s not focusing on trying to sound like anybody, but playing what you love and inspires you.

It’s not really uncommon for backing bands of bluegrass stars to have their own brand, their own shows, their own followings. I’m thinking about Quicksilver becoming their own band more than once or the New South becoming their own band once J.D. Crowe retired. Or how The Infamous Stringdusters got their start.

So could you tell us a little bit about how your relationship with Junior started as a band? And he just announced his eventual retirement at the end of 2027, as well. I’m wondering how y’all are thinking about what the next couple of years mean for you as a group. Is this your chance to springboard into having a full calendar of solo shows by 2028? Is that too far out to be thinking about?

Playing with Junior, I’ll answer that part first. Johnathan Dillon has been there with Junior since he was 18 years old and he is now 31 – or he’ll be 31 in January. So he’s been there for years and years. I’m not exactly sure how those two got hooked up, I can’t exactly remember the story. But for me and Tony, Junior called me in 2018 to sing a duet with him on an album that he was working on. The song is called “Backwards And Forwards.” I was so tickled when he called out of the blue, especially because I knew this is the first song that Junior Sisk & Rambler’s Choice had ever done with a woman. There’s never been a woman on anything [of theirs before]. So I felt really honored to get to be the first one.

A few months later, he called and said that he needed some help. He asked if Tony and I both would be interested in coming to work with him. Again, I was really tickled to get to be the first woman to play with Junior. We were just so thankful to have the work. It was at a time when my husband Tony was losing his vision. And the rest is history!

It was actually Junior’s idea [for us to be our own band], because there are songs that I’ve written and songs that we love, like I was saying, that really sing to us and speak to us and inspire us. We would sit around and jam on those and they don’t exactly fit Junior’s style. It’s two different styles there. But Junior suggested to us that we cut an album so that we would have something to sell at these venues, something to play on the radio, and all of that. He said, “I think it would be really good for you guys to do that.” So we did. Man, you can imagine our amazement at how much this has blown up! When it started as a side venture.

What are you feeling as you stare down a couple more seasons with Junior, but then his eventual retirement? What’s in the cards for Red Camel Collective? Are you looking ahead already?

We’re doing our best. It’s super hard to plan very far ahead. Lord, sometimes it’s hard for me to plan next week. [Laughs] I’ll be honest with you, most of the time I feel like I’m riding by the seat of my pants, as they say. But we are looking to the future and trying to secure bookings for ourselves so that Red Camel can continue on when Junior retires. And Junior, when he says “retire,” I’m sure that he’ll still keep making records and things like that. He’s using the word “retire” here, but he’s not gonna go away completely, because music is in his blood! It’s just like all of us, we’ll never [stop making music.]

We have plans to go as far with Red Camel as we possibly can. Man, if Johnathan Dillon and Curt Love will have me and Tony – I’m sure he feels the same way – if they’ll have us for the rest of forever, we’ll stay with them for the rest of forever! [Laughs] We love making music together. And we are working on a new album right now. As much as I loved the first one, this next one, it’s just beautiful to see the growth. It’s got several songs that I wrote. Of course, we’ve released one single, “In the Mexican Sun,” and it’s getting played on SiriusXM and a lot of bluegrass DJs are playing that one for us. We’ve got a music video that goes along with that, too.

Yes, we premiered the video right here on BGS!

That’s right!

I’m glad you bring up the single, I feel like it’s the perfect sunny, summer vacation song for moving through fall into winter. It reminds me of Jimmy Webb and the way he writes songs and it also reminded me of Dale Ann Bradley’s “Somewhere South of Crazy.” Can you tell us about the story of the single, because I know from the premiere we did that the songwriter has quite the bluegrass pedigree too…

Yeah, absolutely. We reached out to our buddy Malcolm Pulley, who is a banjo player extraordinaire and incredible bluegrass songwriter. He wrote “In the Gravel Yard” for Blue Highway. He wrote “How Many Roads,” several folks have recorded – Tina Adair, Michelle Nixon, and the list goes on. But he’s just such a good writer, so we reached out to him to ask if he had any songs. [We were] expecting traditional bluegrass, something along that line. I had no idea that he had ever written anything like this.

I believe this is right, he was playing with a jazz quintet at the time – I forget the name of the quintet. They had a [woman] lead singer who was so good. Anyway, he sent me this song that was written I guess in the early to mid ‘90s. The way they recorded it together, it sounded like a Hispanic song, I don’t know if you call it a rumba beat or whatever. It was most certainly not bluegrass! But I loved it, man. I loved the melody and the way that lady sang. It was so good.

I thought, “Man, this is just begging for banjo.” I could hear, instead of the four-quarter time that they were doing, like to halftime it and put a bluegrass spin on it. I thought, “This will really work.” I worked on a little demo of it and sent it over to Johnathan and he was like, “Wow, you’re right. I think that is really cool.”

Let’s talk about the IBMA Award you just won. It’s funny to me – and I think it’s funny to everybody – how every year in the New Artist of the Year category at IBMA barely any of the artists are new!

[Laughs] It is like that, ain’t it?

You just made the point, you’ve only been a band for two years. Your debut album just came out in February of this year. So you guys are new in so many ways, but you’re all also lifelong musicians, veterans. Tell me about what it meant to y’all to step on stage and receive that trophy, because these are peer-voted awards. And yeah, maybe you aren’t new, maybe you’ve been doing this for decades, but this is also a “moment” y’all are having as a band.

It’s so hard, because there are so many emotions. Tony and I, we’ve been married for 20 years and we’ve both, even before that, we’ve just been doing this our whole lives. This is all we’ve ever wanted to do is make music. I know and he knows that’s why the good Lord put us here. We know that it’s our purpose in life and it’s our story. As I look around and compare, I see these young people making such great strides and hitting so many marks so early in their careers. Tony and I, while we had some success, throughout the years for some reason we could just never get that momentum going.

When you’re a person who battles anxiety and crippling self-doubt, those types of things can really eat at you. [They] make you question, “Am I capable of this?” I will tell you the truth. I just said earlier, I’m 38 years old. I have never in my life grown in confidence the way that I have in the last two years. Putting together this album, writing these songs, working through the production process, putting ourselves out there as something brand new.

[Getting the award] felt like a confirmation. It felt like, “Yes. This is where you’re supposed to be.” At the end of the day, an award is a glass thing. It’s just a thing. Awards are not what matters, because there are so many incredible artists and musicians who will never be recognized in that way. Does that take away from their value? Absolutely not! On the other hand, it just felt surreal and it felt like a big kiss on the forehead from the good Lord above to me.

As a band, we were just all blown away. We were not expecting it. I know everybody says that, but this is absolutely the truth. [Laughs] In a category with Jason Carter, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, AJ Lee [& Blue Summit], and Wyatt Ellis and all. Man, we absolutely were completely surprised and blown away – and just extremely grateful, because there are folks who work so hard for years and never get that sort of acknowledgement.

I wanna talk about the new album as well, which came out in February. It’s your self-titled debut. Like what we’ve already talked about, it combines traditionalism as well as contemporary sounds. It’s forward-looking.

But what I noticed first is how live it sounds, warm and inviting – like you’re in the room with y’all. It’s really crisp and it’s really clean, but it also sounds like real music. It doesn’t sound like it came out of a can of bluegrass cheese whiz.

[Laughs] I love it.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you guys accomplished that sound?

For Red Camel Collective, this was our first experience recording together. It was so different from recording with Junior, because the songs and the arrangements are different. I don’t know that we went in with any expectations except to do the very best job that we could. I think those were basically our only expectations.

As far as the sound, we record live. We track live and then we go back and fix and edit. I wish I could answer your question better! … Music is all about feel. Aaron Ramsey said one time, “It’s all about feel, it’s not a science project.” I think that you can strive so hard for perfection that you suck all the soul and all of the life right out of it. There has to be a balance between what we perceive as perfection and the feel and the groove of the music. Because all of the best albums, the ones that I love the most, were all created before autotune! And there are notes in there that would probably end up being tuned today. But they sure didn’t bother me. ‘Cause it’s all about the feel and the vibe.

I’m thankful to work with musicians who recognize that. While they want it to be right, more than anything they want it to have a good groove. We don’t want anything to interrupt that groove, ’cause that’s what makes people wanna get up and dance.

Speaking of sonics, I love how your voice sounds on the record, too. Could you talk a little bit about your vocal process and maybe your inspirations – or who you looked up to as you were developing your own voice as an instrument? I also can’t help but notice you have two vocal powerhouses guesting on the album, Suzanne Cox and Sharon White.

They’re heroes of mine!

Who are the inspirations and heroes that you feel have been infused into your own voice? Or maybe you’ve just done it all yourself?

Lord, no! Uh-uh, absolutely not. [Laughs] The first one that I have to list is Dolly Parton, because she was my earliest influence when I was just a little girl. The first song that I ever sang anywhere was in my grandpa’s church. I sang “Coat of Many Colors” and she was just my hero in every sense of the word, vocally, aesthetically, that she was a songwriter, an actress. I just adored her. I saw her in all these cute little movies like that Christmas movie she made and I just adored her.

Alison Krauss would’ve probably been the next one who came into my purview. Then that album that Alison did with the Cox Family. I was just a kid when that came out and I had never heard anything more beautiful in my life than their voices. They were so angelic. I would put that album on to go to sleep when I was just a little kid. I loved it so much. Suzanne Cox is probably my favorite female vocalist ever. Ever. I love Alison to no end, but there is just something that draws me to [Suzanne]. I call Suzanne Cox the queen of phrasing. Because no matter what it is that she’s singing, she will phrase it exactly the way it should be phrased. She’s a genius and she doesn’t even realize it, because it is so natural to her and it’s not forced. It’s just effortless. It’s just a gift. She just has one of those one-in-a-million voices and I’ll always sing her praises.

Then you mentioned Sharon White. It was so cool to have her come and Suzanne Cox come in and sing on that song, “Last Time I Saw Him.” But the Whites, man, oh my gosh. They were like the it group for harmony backup in the ‘80s and ‘90s country. That’s who everybody sought out, because their voices – it doesn’t matter who they’re singing with – they make whoever they’re singing with sound like a million bucks. And their singing lead, too. Their tone and their delivery is so pure.

That’s what draws me to vocalists. It’s purity. Sometimes with singing you can just hear it’s just put on. That just doesn’t sing to me. It’s a hard thing to describe really, isn’t it? It’s just something in the purity of people’s voices that really draws me in.

Photo Credit: Ed Rode