folk

The Whitmore Sisters: “Superficial World of Love”

At just past the halfway mark forLove Austin Music Month we should recognize that not every Austinite stayed in town for their latest releases. Case in point: Austin’s Bonnie Whitmore, who after a string of successful solo albums, joined her older sibling Eleanor in Los Angeles to realize their folk project The Whitmore Sisters. And after years apart, their shared sororal energy and equal-but-opposite worldly experiences have swirled together beautifully for the pair’s debut LP Ghost Stories. Ghost Stories is out this Friday and The Whitmore Sisters hit the road for a supporting international tour at the end of the month, though they’ve already globe-trotted plenty in the emotional landscape from the sounds of “Superficial World of Love”!

The Cactus Blossoms: “Hey Baby”

Although Minneapolis brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey didn’t begin singing together until they were in their thirties, The Cactus Blossoms and their handsome harmonies have already flourished a reputation that gives The Everly Brothers a run for their money. A half decade after The Cactus Blossoms released their debut LP You’re Dreaming and just two since their 2019 sophomore Easy Way, Burkum and Torrey have just announced a new full-length, One Day.

One Day drops February 11th of next year and The Cactus Blossoms have shared a little bit of its pollen early to keep our honey jar healthy, courtesy of the record’s soft-spoken, indie-folk-foot-tap lead single, “Hey Baby”!

Strand of Oaks: “Easter” [KUTX Pop-Up]

Singer-guitarist Timothy Showalter took the trauma of his early twenties and transformed it into his solo project Strand of Oaks while he was still in Pennsylvania but it’s open been since he moved down to Austin that his style has fully flourished. Following the release of his eighth album In Heaven back at the beginning of October, Showalter’s been touring America alongside Jason Isbell and embarks on an international tour beginning next February. But the latest from this three-time Studio 1A veteran is a pop-up session which Strand of Oaks graciously allowed our multimedia team to capture in Showalter’s own home, and even though we just got done with Thanksgiving, we’re confident that the set-opener “Easter” is perfect for a playlist of any season.

Stellar: “Enemy”

Though they’ve already proven their outspokenness as an anti-racist organist/activist, Stellar‘s passion is about shine in a separate-but-adjacent setting – folk music. The Austin-based singer’s style falls somewhere between Sinead O’Connor, Indigo Girls, and Joni Mitchell, framing candid societal commentary over enthralling instrumental arrangements. Stellar releases their debut LP RAINBOW SHADOWS this Friday and shares it digitally via livestream that same day, and you can get a grasp on this record’s full spectrum of worldly reflections with a quick listen to the album’s societally-charged lead single, “Enemy”!

Matt the Electrician: “Night Owls”

Back in his screwdriver and salad days, songwriter Matt The Electrician was somewhat of a local legend, coming straight off all-day shifts to open mics still in company attire. Matt’s occupational capacity as electrician is a thing of the past, but the title’s become inseparable from his musical character and internal creative circuitry.

Just last Friday Matt The Electrician shared his new LP We Imagined An Ending, highlighting the singer’s pristine vocal delivery, reflectively human lyrics, and hauntingly sparse acoustic guitar work. We Imagined An Ending also gave us a couple music videos, including the charmingly minimalist visual counterpart to “Night Owls” that make absorbing the nocturnal lyrics quite a bit easier than trying to adjust your sleep schedule into early bird-ism.

Calder Allen: “Bend of the River” (ACL Fest Pop-Up)

As the grandson of Lubbock-raised creative polymath Terry Allen, singer-guitarist Calder Allen has been raised with a set of songwriting sensibilities that few have been privy to. But despite that huge leg-up heritage-wise, Allen only made his live band debut just a couple weeks ago with Charlie Sexton during the first Sunday of ACL Fest.

Calder unleashed a batch of previously-unheard Americana originals, leaving the Tito’s Handmade Vodka Stage thirsty for much more from this poet extraordinaire beyond ACL. So while we all eagerly await to hear Calder Allen again, appreciate the fact that this up-and-comer doesn’t need a backing band to give a great performance, as evidenced by a stripped-down rendition of his earliest compositions, “Bend of the River”!

David Ramirez: “Friends Forever” (ACL Fest Pop-Up)

Since the salad days of KUTX, Austin songwriter David Ramirez has been a major staple of our airwaves. And David’s growth alongside ours over the years makes us feel like we’ve got a special bond between us. So imagine our elation when this six-time Studio 1A veteran visited us backstage at ACL Fest and treated us to a preview of an unreleased track all about his preference for platonic pals, “Friends Forever”!

Heartless Bastards: “Revolution” (KUTX Pop-Up)

One weekend of Austin City Limits Music Festival is already in the bag but those famous flags are still flying high, so we’ve got another week of Austin artist coverage, continuing today with Heartless Bastards. Founded in Cincinnati nearly two full decades ago, this trio has transcended the expectations of traditional rock with flairs of folk, blue, country, and indie, beginning with their 2005 debut Stairs and Elevators and heard most recently on 2021’s A Beautiful Life.

We just revisited frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom’s 2018 My KUTX session ahead of these Studio 1A veterans’ upcoming ACL performance 2:30pm this Friday at the Lady Bird Stage. So we might as well return to a pop-up performance from Wennerstrom recorded right around this same time last year, “Revolution”!

Leah Shaw: “Pretty Mama”

Like many others, North Carolina-born multi-instrumentalist Leah Shaw had her style shaped by her mother. In childhood, Shaw received plenty of maternal encouragement to learn adopt music as a language, picking up piano, bassoon, percussion, and clarinet all by age sixteen. Impressive as that was, when Shaw wasn’t playing in church, memorizing classical music, or perusing her mother’s record collection of Carole King, The Beatles, and Paul Simon, she was pining to become a singer.

Cut to last Friday, when Shaw (now based out of Brooklyn) released her debut full-length Play Beautifully, a phrase taken from her mother, who’d just succumbed to a decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s. Play Beautifully is a gorgeous document of loss and love, inspired by Shaw’s time as her mother’s caregiver during the final year of her life, composed on piano, guitar, and vocals, and backed with electronic and orchestral elements. Needless to say, Play Beautifully is best experienced in its entirety, and to give you an idea of how impactful this moving collection of originals is, just listen to the album closer, “Pretty Mama”.

Adee Lifshitz + SaulPaul: “Just Be”

For the past thirty-two Februarys, Folk Alliance International has hosted a conference in an effort to expand the community of folk musicians across the globe. This year however, ascribing to quarantine conditions, FAI opted for the all-virtual Folk Unlocked, a five-day event that included panels, showcases, and more. They also produced a series of collaborative music videos reflecting on the pandemic, that despite their remote nature and filming of artists in the comfort of their own homes, are still inherently international.

Today FAI added another video to the roster with the help of Israel-born/Manchester-based singer Adee Lifshitz and Austin Studio 1A/My KUTX veteran SaulPaul for a lighthearted reminder to appreciate the moment, whatever it may contain, on “Just Be”!

Israel Nash: “Canyonheart” (Social Distancing Pop-Up)

A firm believer in the bucolic lifestyle, Missouri-born Israel Nash champions a contemporary brand of folk-Americana, dubbed “cosmic country”. With a voice that gives Neil Young a run for his money, plus mouth harp and six-string skills to boot, our September 2014 Artist of the Month has an innate ability to transport listeners straight out of city mindset and smack dab into an intergalactic pasture.

The Studio 1A veteran shares the wealth of his latest, Topaz, with a release show this Friday at Empire Control Room. So if your bond to nature could use some re-lashing, take a few minutes to breath in a passionate performance of “Canyonheart”, filmed last May on Nash’s own Dripping Springs property.

American Dreamer: “Redwood”

If there’s one group who champions the true foundations of folk here in Austin, be it basic concepts like renewing ties to nature and always aiding your fellow human, it’s undeniably American Dreamer. After bonding over their respective graduate degrees at UT’s Butler School of Music, the four began developing their brand of acoustic indie-folk, one that bridges between twentieth-century traditional and modern elements to keep the sound fresh.

As with any real folk act, American Dreamer’s already taken their style across the country and performed throughout their home state, playing everywhere from schools and hospitals to major venues and music festivals. And today American Dreamer was kind enough to let us unfurl their newest single, “Redwood”, whose soothing vocal harmonies and gorgeous guitar/cello/violin/bass arrangement make it as timeless as the eponymous sequoia.

Michael Hays: “Flashback Moonlight”

Having moved from Mississippi to Austin in the ’90s, then to L.A. in 2004, and finally back to our auspicious city limits about halfway through the last decade, singer-guitarist Michael Hays has become a trustworthy transplant in the Austin music experience. By the time Hays released his solo debut in 2014, he’d already worked in a wind chime factory, apprenticed as an accordion technician, professionally taught guitar, and become a must-have session player, not to mention performing with his fair share of rock and fusion bands. Between the birth of his daughter in 2015 and the current year, a little under a dozen song ideas evolved into Michael Hays’ sophomore LP, Red Willow, which drops next month.

Red Willow reintroduces listeners to Hays’ brand of Americana-folk-psych with sounds that bridge David Gilmour to Elliott Smith, waterfowl-centric album artwork that picks up where Christopher Cross’ 1979 debut left off, and surreal cinematic visuals that further enhance already-stimulating sonics, as seen and heard in “Flashback Moonlight”!

No-No Boy: “Imperial Twist”

Without getting too much into politics, I think we can all agree that the Asian-American experience has recently been catapulted into the national spotlight. And in concern to the historical context of that experience, nobody’s captured it in recent music as comprehensively as Nashville-born songwriter Julian Saporiti.

Appropriating the moniker No-No Boy from John Okada’s 1957 novel of the same name, Saporiti’s Ph.D. dissertation took him across the country to several Asian-American landmarks, often wrought with troubled history, to develop his concept album 1975. Saporiti’s dissection of what constitutes American folk isn’t obscured by his outspoken societal observations; rather the two march hand-in-hand across 1975’s dozen, sonically channeling the likes of Okkervil River, Shearwater, Grateful Dead, and The Avett Brothers while lyrically rising to the challenge of telling American folk tales from a different perspectives, perhaps heard best on “Imperial Twist”.

Miss Miranda: “Daniel”

In a world of constant motion, it can be get tricky trying not to get caught up in the rhythm of things when you just want to breath in melody and chords. Thankfully we’ve got artists like Baltimore-born songwriter Miranda Haney who bare it all lyrically but keep their arrangements sparse enough to let listeners soak it all up. After settling here in Austin, Haney subtly shared a collection of quarantine demos, Under My Nose, last September and is now repackaging her blend of finger-picked guitar, storytelling, and folk-infused phrasing under the moniker Miss Miranda.

With its delicate vocal delivery and meditative strumming, Haney’s debut single under the new handle, “Daniel”, is as much a sincere show of force for Miss Miranda as it is a graceful first step.

Mia Doi Todd: “If I Don’t Have You”

Dating back to 1997’s The Ewe and the Eye, L.A. songwriter Mia Doi Todd has permeated an evolving world of parallels; a personality that’s sensuous but stern, curt but existential, and packing a philosophy based on her experiences that still manages universal appropriateness.

Mia Doi Todd’s been challenging the bards of antiquity with her own modern mythologies ever since, and expanded on her jazz-folk sound last week with Music Life. Pairing originals with covers of classics, Music Life breathes effortlessly with Mia Doi Todd’s airy aesthetic, especially on her acoustic rendition of Gregory Isaacs’ “If I Don’t Have You”!

Chris Pierce: “It’s Been Burning for a While”

L.A. multi-instrumentalist Chris Pierce began losing his hearing at the formative age of fifteen. But instead of hindering his progress, Pierce let it push him to new levels of awareness and musicianship. Fast forward to 2021, where Pierce’s performance passport has grown to include supporting spots for the likes of Aaron Neville, B.B. King, Seal, Al Green, Blind Boys of Alabama and more.

The latest expansion on Pierce’s folksy brand of acoustic soul came with last Friday’s American Silence LP, ten tracks of poignant political observations and reactions drawn together by Pierce’s guitar, harmonica, and vocals. It’s a powerful full-length to say the least, and has all the elements of prime-era Bob Dylan and Richie Havens, especially on “It’s Been Burning for a While”!

Erin Ivey: “Where Have You Been All My Life” [PREMIERE]

Longtime listeners of KUTX aren’t likely to gloss over certain Austin songwriters based on remarkable talent, perhaps most notably six-time Studio 1A veteran Erin Ivey. Whether she’s teamed up with Tosca String Quartet, The Finest Kind, David Ramirez, or just going solo acoustic, Ivey’s made countless jaws drop and eyes water with her luminous vocal presence and impressive range dating back to her 2007 debut.

But with seven years having passed since her last studio album, Whisper of the Moon, Ivey’s fans have been in dire need of an update. And they’re in luck! Next Friday Erin Ivey shares her ten-track full-length Solace in the Wild, leaning on her classic indie folk sound with sprinkles of Americana and psychedelia and other powerful nuances throughout. And though another premiere of sorts may understandably be taking up most of the spotlight today, take your mind off the news and enter Solace in the Wild with its lead single, “Where Have You Been All My Life”!

This Song: John Prine (Rerun)

Beloved American singer-songwriter John Prine is on many people’s minds right now. He is currently in stable condition on a ventilator due to symptoms from COVID-19. Our hearts go out to him and his family. This episode, recorded live in 2018 at Waterloo records, is a testament to Prine’s creativity, kindness and generosity of spirit. In it, he explains how Bob Dylan’s “The Lonsesome Death of Hattie Carroll” changed his life and goes in-depth on his own songwriting process for his album “The Tree of Forgiveness.

Listen to this episode of This Song

Watch to the full interview of John Prine’s This Song episode from KUTX’s Facebook page

This Song: Patty Griffin on “Secret World” by Peter Gabriel

Patty Griffin’s latest record “Patty Griffin” is a gorgeous acoustic exercise in vulnerability. The album was borne out of a period in her life where she stepped back from music to undergo treatment for breast cancer.

Listen as she explores all the ways that Peter Gabriel’s “Secret World,” from his epic breakup record up US, impacted her life and her songwriting. Griffin also explores how her friendship with George Reif inspired the song “Luminous Places,” and how important it is for her to allow herself to be vulnerable in her work.

“That’s what I would always like to try to arrive at. Something that’s deeply true and that I learn from. Then I’ve really got something to give”

Listen to this episode of This Song

Hear Patty Griffin’s new self-titled record “Patty Griffin”

Check out Patty Griffin’s Tour Dates

Check out Patty Griffin’s performance at KUTX Live at the Four Seasons

Listen to Songs from this episode of This Song