Rootsy Summer Sessions: Katie Pruitt

Earlier this year, we partnered with our friends at I Know We Should to share a set of gorgeous sessions captured during their time at Rootsy Summer Fest in Falkenberg, Sweden in 2023. We’re very excited to once again partner to bring you a handful of special encore performances, shot at 2024’s edition of the event by videographer Brad Wagner. (See more from the full series here.)

So that’s how we find ourselves returning to the banks of the Ätran, the picturesque river that winds its way through historic Falkenberg to the North Sea, where Americana singer-songwriter Katie Pruitt first performs “If I Call You Mine,” with a beautiful August golden hour backdrop. A few passersby linger on the sidewalk, enjoying the surprise-to-them rendition.

“If I Call You Mine” is new, or as yet unreleased, and begins with a tender and longing guitar melody, giving way to a lyric that’s as grounded as it is winsome – or perhaps, pining. “This [song] is about that kind of nervous phase of a new relationship, being able to trust someone again after being heartbroken,” Pruitt explained, when introducing the song before performing it at Tønder Festival in Denmark on the same trip. You can hear the tension and hesitation in the words, the fear of losing – or of accepting – love.

“Is it all gonna change?/ If I call you mine…” she sings, turning around the chorus with that delicious picked hook once again.

For her second selection, Pruitt offers an acoustic take on “Leading Actress,” a track from her critically-acclaimed 2024 album, Mantras – we featured the album in a Cover Story interview in the spring. The song carries a similar theme of longing to “If I Call You Mine,” each number the perfect bookend to the other. The song’s speaker, whether Pruitt or a character, finds themselves orbiting another, or the space left behind by their absence.

“I’m sleeping in the middle of the mattress/ Thinking about changing up my address/ Somehow you’re still the leading actress/ In the movie of my life.”

(Editor’s Note: Explore more of our Rootsy Summer Sessions and our nearly endless supply of live video performances here.)

Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should