Videos Archive - The Bluegrass Situation

WWG In The Round: Bronwyn

BGS is proud to once again partner with our friends at WinterWonderGrass to bring you exquisite, intimate live sessions captured at WinterWonderGrass Steamboat earlier this year. Filmed by Far From Near Productions at the Steamboat Art Museum in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, we’re calling the series of videos WinterWonderGrass In The Round. Artists and bands from the WWG lineup perform in casual and cozy jam circles – unplugged, acoustic, and unadorned – inside the museum, surrounded on all sides by adoring fans, festival-goers decked out in their toques, scarves, and snow clothes. Our very first WinterWonderGrass In The Round videos featured Clay Street Unit, watch here.

To continue the series, next up is a BGS and WWG favorite, Bronwyn. While she may have recently dropped her last name, the fiery, fast-rising fiddler certainly lacks for nothing during her WinterWonderGrass In The Round performances with her all-star band. They begin with “Johnny Ray,” the most recently released single from her upcoming album, Rattlin’ Bones, set for release in just over week on August 13. Earlier this year, the WWG fans gathered at the Steamboat Art Museum got a lovely preview of the track, which combines textures from bluegrass, jamgrass, indie rock, and alt-country. “Johnny Ray” sounds excellent in this simple, unplugged setting. An intricate melodic hook gives way to a complicated, ear-piquing chord progression. The chorus wrenches even more lonesome from the song’s chords, with goosebump-raising harmonies by banjoist Frank Evans. The Bronwyn original is already a standout on the new album.

The group – which also includes Larry Cook on bass, Grant Dresnok on guitar, Tristan Scroggins on mandolin – continues with “Sticks and Stones,” which was the debut single that announced the new album back in June. Driving and forward-leaning, it’s a perfect soundtrack for a roadtrip, Evans’ banjo pushing and pulling the song along. All of the tracks on Bronwyn’s upcoming album were written by the fiddler-singer-songwriter, her personality becoming even more prominent in her lyrics. “Sticks and Stones” could reference the many highly opinionated online commenters who flock to Bronwyn’s content, or it could be considering the cons of a life on the climb in the public eye. But whatever the impetus was for the track, it’s bluegrass as hell – and a delight to listen to and watch. Without any amplification and with the excellent sound and video capture from Far From Near, you really feel like you’re there in the museum.

For their third selection, Bronwyn and band perform “Gallatin Road,” a brand new single from the new album that just released last week. “I moved to Nashville about eight years ago,” Bronwyn explains introducing the song, “and Nashville’s a quirky town, so I wrote a song about one of the extra-quirky roads in it called ‘Gallatin Road.'” The intro immediately strikes listeners as more folky and Americana with a fun groove and solid backbeat, Bronwyn paints her fans a picture of one of the primary avenues through East Nashville and Madison. “…Payday loans, prescription drugs and all the delta8 you need/ Anything goes out on Gallatin Road,” she sings, immortalizing the iconic personality of East Nasty before “New Nashville” completely obliterates it.

For a special, bonus fourth clip, we’re also sharing the lovely “all-skate” song performed by several of the WWG In The Round artists together to conclude a shoot at the Steamboat Art Museum. Clay Street Unit and Bronwyn are joined by Billy Failing and Tyler Grant (who will be featured with their own session in the near future) to perform “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Surrounded by fans, who correctly join in and sing along, it’s a perfect WWG x BGS jam session showcasing the strong sense of community bluegrass has always had. WinterWonderGrass always does an excellent job of centering their and our community in all of their events and activations. The talented musicians swap solos and verses and join together on the choruses in harmony; it’s the perfect way to wrap up our second edition of WWG In The Round.

Stay tuned right here on BGS and on the BGS and WWG social media channels for more content coming soon from artists like Billy Failing, AJ Lee, TopHouse, and Johnny Mullenax in the coming weeks.

Live music is certainly never going away if BGS, WinterWondergrass, Far From Near, and all these artists and bands have anything to do with it. And as long as we have y’all to enjoy it, too!

Video Credits:
Production: Far From Near
Producers: Carly Speno, Sawyer Gieseke
Camera Ops: Sawyer Harris, Sawyer Gieseke, Tobin Voggesser
Audio: Dylan Langille
Mix: Cade Kitzmiller
Shot at the Steamboat Art Museum in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

This content brought to you in partnership with WinterWonderGrass.

MerleFest Sessions: Charles Wesley Godwin

BGS and MerleFest are so excited to once again partner to bring you exclusive clips and sessions captured on site during the incredible 2026 MerleFest event in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Last month, we launched our off-season collaboration with the iconic, long-running bluegrass and roots music festival sharing two of the most memorable performances from this year’s edition of the MerleFest Late Night Jam with the Grand Ole Opry hosted by Old Crow Medicine Show. You can catch up now and watch OCMS with Maggie Rose here.

For our second installment in the series, we step away from the rowdy and raucous Late Night Jam for a more traditional session and set from none other than Charles Wesley Godwin. It was the beloved West Virginian alt-country and Americana singer-songwriter’s first appearance at MerleFest after spending a lifetime being a fan of the event. As he shared on social media the weekend of his performance, “Did it for Doc! Getting the invite to play [MerleFest] was an incredible honor. This has been a festival I’d wanted to be a part of since my college days singing bluegrass. Thank y’all for having us!”

On a sunny afternoon during the festival, our videographer friends at I Know We Should and a small, lucky audience of onlookers and fans gathered to hear Godwin and his band perform three songs for their MerleFest Session. The crowd claps enthusiastically as director Brad Wagner welcomes the group, who begin their performance with “Place I Know,” giving what was at the time an early preview from Godwin’s album, Christian Name, which arrived on July 24. In a bluegrassy acoustic setup with guitars, mandolin, upright bass, drums, and keys circled up around a condenser microphone, they demonstrate the genre melting pot from which Godwin draws all of his sonic inspiration. The song drips with nostalgia and longing, and ultimately lands somewhere between millennial folk, country, Americana, and bluegrass. Punctuated with a tasty twin flatpicking solo, “Place I Know” vibrates with energy – and will make an excellent road trip song.

The small-but-mighty audience roars, and Wagner and Godwin chat about the festival a bit before the group begins “Hallelujah High,” another new track from the LP. This one is a story song, painting an indelible picture of faith, family, and rural life. It’s a lovely bookend to “Place I Know,” drawing from similar nostalgia but feeling more laid-back, focused on imagery and the feelings his tableaus can evoke. Godwin is known for this illustrative writing style, and for the strong influences felt from his West Virginia upbringing and his years crisscrossing the country on tour, performing at festivals like MerleFest.

For their final selection, Godwin and the band return to a fan favorite from his 2025 release, Lonely Mountain Town, “She Don’t Love Me Anymore.” As Charles points out in his introduction, this live session performance is a bit different from the studio recording – “we picked up the tempo a little bit and made it bluegrass.” It’s a perfect treatment for the context, and the song shines in its MerleFest trappings. What’s more bluegrass than lost love and loneliness? The mandolin is picked back up as the band kicks into the fast clip of the song, with Godwin singing, “Tear me up ’til I’m in pieces/ Burn me down ’til I’m ashes on the ground/ I’d do anything to feel the way I did before/ The day she confessed she don’t love me anymore…”

The crowd cheers again, as we and they appreciate our luck at getting to be a “fly on the wall” for these special MerleFest Session performances captured live at the festival in April 2026. Make sure to check out Charles Wesley Godwin’s Christian Name, out now, and make plans to attend MerleFest 2027.

Video Credits: I Know We Should, Brad Wagner and Juan Soria.

This content brought to you in partnership with MerleFest. Experience music and more at MerleFest.org.

Sagebrush SXSW Sessions: Aubrie Sellers

In March, the BGS and Good Country teams were honored to return once again to SXSW, this time partnering with our friends at Big Feat PR for A Night of Good Country at Sagebrush in Austin, Texas. The evening featured lovely half-hour sets from artists on Big Feat’s stellar roster of clients – and quite a few Good Country favorites – including Shakey Graves, Tyler Halverson, Aubrie Sellers, Travis Bolt, and Tenille Townes.

Our pals at I Know We Should were on hand at Sagebrush to capture these Good Country performances, and over the recent weeks and months we’ve been sharing clips and full sets from the week. You can watch our Shakey Graves, Tenille Townes, and Ghost Hounds performances right here on Good Country. Now, we’re continuing the series with our longtime friend and a premier “garage country” purveyor, Aubrie Sellers.

To get us started, Sellers performs “Little Rooms,” a track from her brand-new album Attachment Theory. “This song has been described as carnival-esque,” Sellers explains, introducing the number. “…It’s about finding all the little, scary rooms inside someone’s mind.” With a full country band backing her up at Sagebrush, she sings through the twangin’, slippery song with a marching beat and her gorgeous, crystalline vocals rising above the group’s delicious honky-tonking sound. The song certainly has a silly streak, but Sellers sells it – as she always does – and with the wailing pedal steel wrapped in whining electric guitars it’s certainly Good Country.

For her second selection, Sellers gets the Sagebrush audience ready for boot-scooting with a lovely cover of “Luxury Liner.” Written by outlaw legend Gram Parsons and popularized by Emmylou Harris, Sellers and band are absolutely cooking through the iconic song, chugging drums and electric guitars punctuated by the lonesome cry of the pedal steel and the longing dripping from Sellers’ voice. As the video cuts to a wide shot you can see the Sagebrush patrons unable to contain their dancing, bopping along en masse. The instrumentalists trade solos to close the number, to cheers from the crowd and adulation from Sellers: “They did this on one rehearsal!” It would be hard to tell; this is how Austin and SXSW are supposed to sound.

For her final song, Sellers turns back the calendar a few years to her 2021 Jackson+Sellers collaboration (with fellow singer-songwriter Jade Jackson). Here’s where the garage country dials start getting turned up and up and up! “The Devil Is An Angel” is the lead track on Jackson+Sellers’ Breaking Point, their critically acclaimed duo album. “Seems so sweet comin’ down my street/ But the devil is an angel, too,” Sellers sings her warning with plenty of grit – and with virtuosic vocal runs and licks learned at the feet of the absolute best singers in the business.

The song shows the broad dynamic and stylistic range Sellers has, whether leaning more towards rockabilly, psychedelia, or grunge, or more towards traditional country, outlaw, or Americana. She can really do it all, from singing along with Jade Jackson to backing up Parker McCollum in stadiums and arenas to fronting her own band and releasing her own albums. We’ll always be fans of Aubrie Sellers!

Stay tuned as we have even more Sagebrush SXSW Sessions set to arrive in the coming weeks – including performances from Tyler Halverson and Travis Bolt. It’s all coming soon right here on Good Country! Watch all of our Sagebrush SXSW Sessions here.

Video Credits: I Know We Should, Brad Wagner, Juan Soria, Justin Sherman, and Walker Ames.

These sessions brought to you in partnership with Big Feat PR.

WWG In The Round: Clay Street Unit

BGS is proud to once again partner with our friends at WinterWonderGrass to bring you exquisite, intimate live sessions captured at WinterWonderGrass Steamboat earlier this year. Filmed by Far From Near Productions at the Steamboat Art Museum in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, we’re calling the series of videos WinterWonderGrass In The Round. Artists and bands from the WWG lineup perform in casual and cozy jam circles – unplugged, acoustic, and unadorned – inside the museum, surrounded on all sides by adoring fans, festival-goers decked out in their toques, scarves, and snow clothes. It’s the way music is supposed to be enjoyed, as WWG puts it best announcing the series on social media:

“…No phones, no distractions – shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye. This year, we got the chance to say thank you to the fans who keep showing up. While the festival carried on up the mountain, we gathered downtown inside an art museum for intimate, unplugged performances: WinterWonderGrass In The Round.

“In a world of uncertain economies, rising costs, and AI – live music will never go away. People will always show up. Because nothing will ever replace sitting in a circle, phones away, listening to your favorite artists in a room full of captivated people, surrounded by art.”

In our very first WWG In The Round videos featuring Clay Street Unit, it’s clear to see the truth in these simple and profound words. These sessions capture so much of the ineffable that runs through bluegrass, jamgrass, old-time, and string band music. No sound system, no pedal boards, no laser light shows – and the music is just as compelling as ever. As Clay Street Unit – or “half of it,” as the trio put it, eliciting chuckles from the audience – circle up to pick a song, they begin with “Let’s Get Stoned,” from their February 2026 album debut Sin & Squalor. (Watch above.) At the time of this taping, the LP was brand new. For a jamgrass band singing about smoking weed, it’s a remarkably tender and emotional song. A “love song about getting stoned,” it shows the group’s penchant for thoughtful songwriting and the track is perfectly-suited to the In The Round context.

CSU continue with “Freightline Blues,” another selection from Sin & Squalor. With the fiddle and mandolin playing a lonesome train whistle sound, they kick it off with a forward-leaning tempo perfect for a railroad song. “That railway, lord, it keeps on callin’/ Calls me right back to that freightline,” they sing. (Billy Strings ain’t the only current jamgrass act keeping train songs alive and well!) On the studio version of the number, drums and pedal steel combine with the group’s bluegrass instruments for a fully realized bluegrass-and-alt-country sound, but here in the Steamboat Art Museum “Freightline Blues” works just as well stripped down to its essential elements. And the audience certainly seems to agree.

Bluegrass is art, after all, isn’t it? It fits in perfectly in so many settings, whether at the foot of renowned ski slopes or warm and cozy inside an art museum. WinterWonderGrass is such a unique event in this way, prioritizing one-of-a-kind experiences with a one-of-a-kind community. We hope you’ll enjoy our WinterWonderGrass In The Round series! Stay tuned right here on BGS and on the BGS and WWG social media channels for more content coming soon from artists like Bronwyn, Billy Failing, AJ Lee, TopHouse, and Johnny Mullenax in the coming weeks.

Live music is certainly never going away if BGS, WinterWondergrass, Far From Near, and all these artists and bands have anything to do with it. And as long as we have y’all to enjoy it, too!

This content brought to you in partnership with WinterWonderGrass.

Shaboozey and Friends Turn Tiny Desk Concert Into a Dive Bar

With an incredibly impressive entourage, Shaboozey dropped by NPR earlier this summer for his first-ever Tiny Desk Concert. Although Washington, D.C., is only about 25 miles from his hometown of Woodbridge, Virginia, Shaboozey has been letting his mind wander to the West as he shares music from his upcoming concept album, The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales. The crossover star admits to being nervous before the cameras starting rolling, yet this five-song performance turned out to be quite a pre-party…. er, preview.

One of the early tracks from the new record, “Cowgirl,” will be irresistible to anyone who loves his breakout hit, “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” while another new song, “Drunk,” shows a more introspective side. There’s also a lively sing-along rendition of the GRAMMY-winning hit, “Amen.” Meanwhile, “Good News” is especially suited to the stripped-down NPR Tiny Desk vibe, as fiddlers Sara Watkins and Clayton Penrose-Whitmore deliver a splendid rendition of Bill Monroe’s “Roanoke” as a coda.

Other A-list instrumentalists include Wes Corbett on banjo, Thomas Drayton on bass, Sarah Jarosz on mandolin, Stephen Musselman on Dobro, Darren Poindexter on drums, and Connor Sullivan on guitar, along with rousing vocals from Zenya, Naärai, and Caleb Curry.

All that… and surprise guest Leon Bridges on a new revenge tune, “Burn It Down”? Tell ’em bring another round, we need plenty more! Look for The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales on July 31.

Yamaha Sessions: Cayden Wemple, “Road Rash”

For his second performance of our Yamaha Sessions series, Wemple clips his capo to the 5th fret of his Yamaha guitar, showcasing more of the bright, sparkling high end of the instrument as he plays through “Road Rash.” Intermittently fingerpicking and strumming, Wemple delivers the as-yet unreleased track with his trademark confessional-conversational style. His wordplay is clever and intricate, but never distracting or hampering to the charm of the music or melody. The instrumental hook is lovely and acrobatic on the six-string as his voice soars into the song’s refrain.

“Any minute/ I’ll hop right up and I’ll limp to the finish/ Any minute I’ll hop right up…” he sings to conclude the song, leaving each and every viewer wanting more, as it wraps up in barely over 2 minutes. It’s a short-but-mighty song, packing a punch in every single word and each constituent note.

It’s also a perfect performance to mark the conclusion of our current series of Yamaha Sessions. Watch the full series – including Wemple performing “Handprint” and also featuring two performances by Water Tower here. It’s all been part of our celebration of the 60th anniversary of Yamaha Guitars. From the legendary FG Red Label guitars to modern innovations like their TransAcoustic series, Yamaha continues to set the gold standard for acoustic guitar craftsmanship worldwide. To celebrate 60 years of guitar excellence, visit Yamaha.com and stop by your local Yamaha dealer today.

This content is brought to you in partnership with Yamaha Guitars.

Sagebrush SXSW Sessions: Ghost Hounds

In March, the BGS and Good Country teams were honored to return once again to SXSW, this time partnering with our friends at Big Feat PR for A Night of Good Country at Sagebrush in Austin, Texas. The evening featured lovely sets and video sessions by artists on Big Feat’s stellar roster of clients – and quite a few Good Country favorites – including Shakey Graves, Ghost Hounds, Tyler Halverson, Aubrie Sellers, Travis Bolt, and Tenille Townes.

Our pals at I Know We Should were on hand at Sagebrush to capture these Good Country performances, and we’ve been sharing clips and full sets right here on the site. To continue the series, it’s time to enjoy performances from Americana country rockers, Ghost Hounds.

As it happens, the Pennsylvania-based band have announced their new, upcoming album, Justified, to be released August 21 by Maple House Records. With today’s announcement they’ve dropped a brand new single, “Sinner’s Prayer.” You can stream the track wherever you enjoy music today, but we’re especially excited to unveil that back in March, a special and intimate Ghost Hounds trio – consisting of lead singer SAVNT, Kristin Weber on fiddle, and Joe Munroe on keys – performed a stripped-down, Good Country exclusive rendition of “Sinner’s Prayer” that you can watch here. What a perfect way to celebrate the album announcement and single drop! The trio also performed “Here No More,” a popular track from their 2023 album, First Last Time. You can watch both of these SXSW performances right here, on Good Country.

Being that the release of these Sagebrush SXSW Sessions by Ghost Hounds coincide with Black Music Month, observed each year in the U.S. in June, we spoke to SAVNT via email about the sessions, the songs the group chose to perform, and more. Read on below as you enjoy these lovely two performances by Ghost Hounds.

“What makes ‘Here No More’ and ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ special is the fact that they were written at two different times, but both address coming to terms with mortality from different perspectives,” SAVNT says. “In my opinion, we have all experienced loss in our own way and have carried a deep desire for understanding and redemption. If ‘Here No More’ hits the first stages of grief, then ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ is the desire for grace.

“‘Here No More’ is a song about the loss of a friend and the shock that consumes you when you realize you will never be given the chance to say ‘goodbye.’ And wrestling with the fact that the plans you made with this person will never come to pass. In a sense, it’s about remembering how fragile life is and that none of us are truly sure what tomorrow will bring. ‘Sinner’s Prayer,’ at its core, is a letter to God. After living your life as a rebel, you come face-to-face with the impact of your actions, and at this moment regret settles in and the questions ringing in your head are, ‘Have I gone too far to be forgiven? Am I too late?

“Here’s my lonely prayer
From a man who’s in despair
I don’t deserve your mercy
But I’m asking anyway
I’ve burned through all my chance
And I’ve thrown it all away
So if you’ve got some grace that you can spare
Please hear this sinner’s prayer

“These words reflect the multitude of emotions and lived experiences that inspire you to atone for your past and ask if there is any grace left to spare.”

“I love music because it gives words to the human experience, and there are so many stories to tell. Soul music has a special way of capturing those tales of heartache, love, loss, redemption, joy, and dreams for the future in a way that will stand the test of time. Some of my favorite artists – like Sam Cooke, Bill Withers, and Aretha Franklin – have mastered this. My obsession with roots music (i.e. Americana, country, blues, and soul) was born from my love of storytelling and the vulnerability it takes to speak your truth out loud.

“One artist that comes to mind is Tracy Chapman. Her music speaks directly to your soul and illuminates the complexity of our emotions in a clear way; you feel seen through a lens of compassion. I remember as a kid singing ‘Fast Car’ at the top of my lungs, and now that I am no longer a child, her words carry so much truth and hit in a different way. Nothing about her music is overly produced, and everything is deeply intentional and understood. Watching her take the stage at the GRAMMYs in 2024 was a healing experience, because she is someone who personifies depth and her talent deserves to be celebrated and shared well into the future.

“Charley Pride’s music shows just how far our voices can reach when we stay true and don’t wait for permission. He stood firmly in every endeavor he pursued – from baseball to country music – in a time where everyone was committed to telling him who he was ‘allowed’ to be. His stories spoke to the trials and the joys experienced by everyday people and his words were so powerful that they crossed continents and racial divides. He persevered through discrimination and bigotry with grace. No matter how talented he was, people repeatedly told him to ‘stick to gospel or R&B’ and that he ‘had no place in country music.’

“That is something that many BIPOC artists, including me, have had to deal with. We are able to live out our dreams because he stood strong in his. We all benefit from the legacies of people like Charley and their contributions should be celebrated during Black Music Month – and beyond.” – SAVNT

Video Credits: I Know We Should, Brad Wagner, Juan Soria, and Charlie Peterson.

These sessions brought to you in partnership with Big Feat PR. Explore more of our Sagebrush SXSW Sessions here.

MerleFest Late Night Jam: Maggie Rose with Old Crow Medicine Show

BGS and MerleFest are so excited to once again partner to bring you exclusive clips and sessions captured on site during the incredible 2026 MerleFest event in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. We’re launching our off-season collaboration with the iconic, long-running bluegrass and roots music festival sharing one of the most memorable performances from this year’s edition of the MerleFest Late Night Jam with the Grand Ole Opry hosted by Old Crow Medicine Show.

During the Late Night Jam, a crowd-favorite program that sells out each year at MerleFest, Americana singer-songwriter and artist Maggie Rose joined Old Crow Medicine Show on stage to perform “Beautiful Land,” a track from OCMS’ brand new studio album, Union Made. (Watch above.) Rose also features on the album version of the track, and the collaboration stuns equally in this live setting, captured live by our videographerf friends at I Know We Should. With twanging electric guitars and loping old-time banjo Rose and OCMS frontman Ketch Secor sing, “So people take a chance on each other and see/ What a beautiful land this might be…” It’s a certainly timely message, delivered aptly by Old Crow, Maggie Rose, and their cohort. It’s the exact kind of community message and jam session vibe you can expect each year at MerleFest and the Late Night Jam.

Elsewhere in the evening, Maggie Rose returned to the stage with accompanists from OCMS joining her to perform “Gentle Man,” previewing her most recent single, which back in April had yet to arrive on the streaming platforms and in stores. “Gentle Man” continues in a similar sentimental vein to “Beautiful Land,” kicking off with lyrics that are immediately engaging and relatable: “Confusion of the world is at an all-time high/ It’s no wonder that the heaviness weighs down your mind/ Take your time, you’re only in the dawn of life/ Grow into yourself, find your stride…”

It’s a lovely, contemplative song about masculinity – toxic and otherwise – and offers thoughtful models and ideas for how to reckon with growing up in a world of heaviness and confusion. Rose’s voice is soulful and with great depth and emotion, you can hear the conviction is her delivery of the song.

It’s an excellent way to begin the latest series in our partnership with MerleFest, with Maggie Rose, Old Crow Medicine Show, and these magical moments from the MerleFest Late Night Jam with the Grand Ole Opry. And this is just the beginning! Over the coming months, BGS and MerleFest will bring you more performances, more collaborations, and more unforgettable moments from the artists who make MerleFest special. Stay tuned right here on BGS and across our BGS and MerleFest social media accounts for more coming soon.

Video Credits: I Know We Should, Brad Wagner and Juan Soria.

This content brought to you in partnership with MerleFest. Experience music and more at MerleFest.org.

Yamaha Sessions: Water Tower, “AMPM”

BGS is proud to partner once again with our friends at Yamaha Guitars to bring you exclusive Yamaha Sessions shot earlier this year in Los Angeles, California. On a sunny afternoon, the fellas of Water Tower joined us and Yamaha at a cozy and cute backyard studio in the shadow of the Hollywood Hills in Burbank. Water Tower are an exciting and buzzed-about band in the bluegrass space, pulling as much inspiration from punk, rock and roll, pop, and hip-hop as the mountains of Appalachia and the rural bluegrass landscapes and sounds we all hold familiar. Their sets and shows are rollicking, energetic, unhinged – and equally charming – wowing audiences with their energy, repertoire, and hijinks. (Watch their first performance, “Sittin’ on Top of the World” here.)

For their second song and performance in this latest edition of our Yamaha Sessions series, Water Tower frontman Kenny Feinstein is once again joined by bandmates Tommy Drinkard (guitar) and John Seltzer (ukulele bass). Drinkard steps up to the mic to sing lead on “AMPM,” a song first recorded and released by the band back in 2023. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the band’s Southern California roots, painting a fast-tempo string band picture of a 24/7 Los Angeles convenience store. Next, Feinstein jumps in on verse two – after leaning into his hypeman role through verse one and chorus one – before sliding back up to tenor harmonies for the next chorus.

“I need a little two-for-one/ Over at the AMPM, the corner of Glendale/ At the AMPM, only listen to myself…” they sing, leading into a fiery flatpicking solo by Drinkard on his Yamaha Guitar. The Yamaha Guitars played by Water Tower provide the perfect, lush sound bed for the winking silliness and earnest hot licks they’re known for. These are instruments not just well-suited to bluegrass, but to all sorts of string band sounds, whether infused with punk, showmanship, humor, grit, burnin’ licks – or all of the above.

Stay tuned, as we’ll unveil one more Yamaha Session in the near future featuring Californian indie-folk singer-songwriter Cayden Wemple. It’s all part of our celebration of the 60th anniversary of Yamaha Guitars. From the legendary FG Red Label guitars to modern innovations like their TransAcoustic series, Yamaha continues to set the gold standard for acoustic guitar craftsmanship worldwide. To celebrate 60 years of guitar excellence, visit Yamaha.com and stop by your local Yamaha dealer today.

Watch all of the videos in our Yamaha Sessions series here.

This content is brought to you in partnership with Yamaha Guitars.

Yamaha Sessions: Cayden Wemple, “Handprint”

The warm, honeyed tone of a Yamaha acoustic guitar welcomes listeners to “Handprint,” a 2025 single from Wemple that’s racked up an impressive number of streams online. Our session is an excellent facsimile of the studio rendition of “Handprint;” Wemple is already an intimate, direct artist where it’s normal to feel like, as a listener, you’re being brought inside a cozy bedroom recording studio or perhaps Wemple’s living room at golden hour. On the studio track his vocals are stacked deep and lush, here in our Burbank studio the arrangement is more stark, but it certainly isn’t lacking any of the song’s sparkle and charm.

“…Taking advantage of the UV 9/ Your skin turns red and then back to white/ I put my handprint on it…” Wemple sings, text painting a scene so Californian it would fit right here in Hollywood or in Wemple’s hometown of San Luis Obispo, too. The song is emotive and broad, but tender and pointed, too. All the while, Wemple’s Yamaha guitar provides the perfect foundation for the song and its lyrics to soar.

Stay tuned, as we’ll unveil more Yamaha Sessions in the near future featuring more from Water Tower and Cayden Wemple, as well. It’s all part of our celebration of the 60th anniversary of Yamaha Guitars. From the legendary FG Red Label guitars to modern innovations like their TransAcoustic series, Yamaha continues to set the gold standard for acoustic guitar craftsmanship worldwide. To celebrate 60 years of guitar excellence, visit Yamaha.com and stop by your local Yamaha dealer today.

This content is brought to you in partnership with Yamaha Guitars.