Country & Folk

American Folk is the soundtrack to the award-winning 2018 independent film, American Folk, starring Joe Purdy and Amber Rubarth. In addition to both original compositions and classic folk song renditions by Purdy and Rubarth, the soundtrack includes John Prine's ''Some Humans Ain't Human'' and Jerry Garcia & David Grisman's ''Freight Train.''

See You Around is the full-length debut from I'm With Her, featuring multi-Grammy-Award-winners Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O'Donovan. Before coming together these artists co-founded seminal bands (Nickel Creek and Crooked Still) and since have collectively contributed to critically acclaimed albums from esteemed artists including Yo-Yo Ma, The Civil Wars, Kris Kristofferson, John Mayer, Alison Krauss, John Prine, and many more. This much anticipated release reveals the commitment to creating a wholly unified band sound. With each track born from close songwriting collaboration, I'm With Her builds an ineffable magic from their finespun narratives and breathtaking harmonies. The result is a collection both emotionally raw and intricate, with layers of meaning and insight within even the most starkly adorned track. Co-produced by Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Laura Marling, Paul McCartney) and the band and recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in a tiny English village near Bath, See You Around delivers a warmly textured sound that proves both fresh and timeless.

180g black vinyl w/ download card.

LANCO's story begins in the small towns where all five bandmates Lancaster, bassist Chandler Baldwin, multi-instrumentalist Jared Hampton, drummer Tripp Howell and lead guitarist Eric Steedly were raised. Spread across Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia, they lived normal lives full of late nights, long weekends, hard lessons and young love. Alongside award-winning producer Jay Joyce, LANCO focused on capturing the spirit of their exuberant live shows, sharing the same goal to make everything sound authentic and human. If a particular song didn't click, LANCO would take it on the road and perform the new tune every night until things fell into place.

The sessions that produced Out In The Open were brisk and instinctive, expansive yet intimate, visceral and immediate - and they would have had to be, for herein are songs that tell the big story by drawing the small ones. There is, to my ear, as much of Raymond Carver's literate and humane influence on display as the Osborne Brothers, as much Welty in the pointed details - both sublime and confounding - as Clark and Van Zandt. Compassion and determination act as connective tissue when, throughout this song cycle, the bones, muscle, and blood of daily life dance with loose-limbed motion toward the inevitable, guided by an ethos best articulated by Sam Beckett who directed that when we falter, we try again and ''fail better.''

While in the studio, the Rangers stood in a circle - facing each other and the music with a well-worn brotherhood that was as well open to all they could not imagine transpiring between them. The songs were written as a map, and their shared history a compass blade, but the road itself - the journey - was a moving target and, as with all relevant music, remains one. And the Steep Canyon Rangers are moving along with it. - Joe Henry

Chris Stapleton’s From A Room: Volume 2 will be released December 1 on Mercury Records Nashville. The multiple Grammy, CMA and ACM Award-winning musician first shared the album news from stage during the first of two sold-out shows at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena this past Friday. Of the special hometown concerts, CMT praises, “…cemented his status as one of music’s greatest talents to emerge from the current decade.”

The forthcoming album takes its name from Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A (the capital “A” in “From A Room”) where it was recorded over the last year with Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb. Along with Stapleton on vocals and guitar and Cobb on acoustic guitar, the album features Morgane Stapleton on harmony vocals as well as longtime band-members J.T. Cure on bass and Derek Mixon on drums. In addition to seven songs co-written by Stapleton, the album features versions of Kevin Welch’s “Millionaire” and the Homer Banks/Lester Snell-penned song made famous by Pops Staples, “Friendship”.

Volume 2 follows the release of From A Room: Volume 1, which debuted earlier this year at #1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, #2 on the Billboard Top 200 chart and, with its RIAA Gold certification, remains the #1 best-selling country album of 2017. Stapleton’s 2015 double-platinum solo debut, Traveller, is currently the #2 best-selling country album of the year.

With a sound that recalls Country music's acid washed golden era, the '90s influenced band Hot Country Knights has finally revealed more details about their debut album THE K IS SILENT, from Capitol Nashville, available May 1st. Produced by Dierks Bentley, the multi-Platinum entertainer also serves as a co-writer on over half of the 10 brawny tracks, serving up one of the most musically satisfying debut albums since 1999. Standout track "You Make It Hard" best represents their High-T philosophy.

Penning seven of the 10 tracks, Bradbery embarked on a four-year songwriting journey in preparation of I DON’T BELIEVE WE’VE MET, alongside ACM Awards Male Vocalist of the Year Thomas Rhett as well as GRAMMY® Award-winning songwriter Emily Weisband and GRAMMY®-nominated songwriter Jeff Pardo to create songs that were an honest reflection of her story. Chart-topping songwriters Rhett Akins (Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean) and Nicolle Galyon (Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert) also penned tunes on the project.

Co-producers Josh Kerr, Afterhrs (One Direction), Alysa Vanderheym, Jason Gantt (Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Brooks & Dunn), Julian Bunetta (One Direction, Thomas Rhett) and Sam Ellis (Marina McBride, Hunter Hayes) all helped to fine-tune the “fresh new sound” (Rolling Stone Country) of the album.“I am more than ready to re-introduce myself with music that is true to my story and my sound after diving into the writing process over the past four years,” said Bradbery. “With I DON'T BELIEVE WE'VE MET, I got the opportunity to work with amazing writers and producers that brought out my unique style and allowed me to tap into so many different influences. This is the beginning of a new chapter for me, and I am so excited for everyone to hear what we've made."

A lot can change in a year: markets boom and bust, trends come and go, presidents get elected. In 2015, Margo Price was a country underdog just trying to keep enough gas in the tank to get to the next gig, but by the end of 2016, she was one of the genre’s most celebrated new artists and a ubiquitous presence on late night television and at major festivals around the world.

It’s the kind of year most musicians can only dream of, and the arrival of Price’s spectacular sophomore album, “All American Made,” proves that she hasn’t taken a moment of it for granted. Delivering on the promise of her debut and then some, the record finds Price planting her flag firmly in the soil as a songwriter who’s here for the long haul, one with the chops to hang with the greats she so often finds herself sharing stages with these days.

A prolific writer with a knack for candid self-reflection, Price has never had to look too far for inspiration, and on ‘All American Made,’ she and her songwriting partner/ husband, Jeremy Ivey, continue to depict the trials of everyday life with un inching honesty, painting poetically plainspoken portraits of men and women just trying to get by.

Highs and lows, long nights and hard days, wild women and cocaine cowboys, politics and sexism, it’s all in there, singularly filtered through Price’s wry, no-bullshit perspective. Throughout the album, her contemporary take on classic sounds is at once familiar and daring, an infectious blend of Nashville country, Memphis soul, and Texas twang that tips its cap to everyone from Waylon and Willie (who makes a guest appearance) to Loretta and Dolly, all while flipping a middle finger to the cookie-cutter pop that dominates modern country radio. Rich with swirling pedal steel, honky-tonk rhythms, and Price’s stop-you-in-your-tracks vocals, ‘All American Made’ is deeply reverent of tradition even as it challenges conventions, a nuanced exploration of conflicted emotions for our deeply conflicted times.

On his sixth album, Bryan wants to bring us together. “Let me hit you with some hometown truth,” he sings in the album’s title track, before sketching a series of country cliches—cowboys, ploughboys, kids running through Georgia pines—linked by their Southern roots. “We’re all a little different, but we’re all the same/Everybody doin’ their own thing.” Through philosophical musings on faith and fatherhood (“Most People Are Good,” “Pick It Up”) he bids listeners—and, notably, his sons—to be open-minded: “I believe you love who you love/Ain’t nothin’ you should ever be ashamed of.”

Nonesuch Records releases mandolinist, singer, songwriter, and radio host Chris Thile's Thanks for Listening on December 8, 2017, with the vinyl to follow on December 15. The album is a collection of songs that were originally written for performance on A Prairie Home Companion. Since becoming the American Public Media program's host, Thile has, each week, written one new (often topical) "Song of the Week" that gets its debut performance on that Saturday's live broadcast—with Thile, the house band, and some of his guest musicians. For Thanks for Listening, Thile and producer Thomas Bartlett chose ten songs from nineteen possibilities and created new studio recordings of them, rather than merely documenting them as originally performed.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2017 release. Fifteen is the first recording in six years from contemporary folk's most popular group, The Wailin' Jennys. An entrancing collection of cover songs, it includes tunes by Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton, and is their first new music since 2011's acclaimed album, Bright Morning Stars. For founding members Nicky Mehta and Ruth Moody, along with longtime member Heather Masse, Fifteen celebrates a 15-year musical partnership that has resulted in four award-winning studio albums and one live recording on Red House Records, three of which landed the trio on the Billboard charts, while garnering the band a worldwide fanbase. All three band members sing and play a variety of instruments (acoustic guitar, accordion, banjo, ukulele) to create a shimmering tapestry of rich vocals and instrumentals. Additional musicians include Richard Moody (Ruth's brother), Sam Howard, Adrian Dolan and Adam Dobres. Produced by The Wailin' Jennys, Fifteen is a gorgeous feather in the cap of the band that has thrilled millions of listeners to A Prairie Home Companion radio

Tyminski (Dan Tyminski) will release Southern Gothic October 20 on Mercury Records Nashville. All 13 tracks on the album were co-written by Tyminski who describes the album as holding up a mirror to society without judgment or opinions. What started out as songwriting for other artists, resulted in the 14-time Grammy winner finding himself jealous to give up the songs he was writing and realizing that he had an opportunity to explore these songs within his own project.

A Long Way From Your Heart is the fourth release from the fiercely independent outfit whose three previous albums received critical accolades while amassing a massive and highly passionate nationwide fanbase. With his vivid character sketches and blue-collar narratives, Evan Felker continues to solidify his place as one of the finest songwriters to come out of the dustbowl in recent years. Felker’s vocals are honest and affecting, combined with his virtuosic band mates – RC Edwards (bass), Kyle Nix (fiddle), Ryan Engleman (guitar), Gabe Pearson (drums) and Hank Early (pedal steel) –Turnpike Troubadours are a force. The band has achieved a rare feat with A Long Way From Your Heart by creating an album that is immediately accessible, yet continues to reveal greater depth upon each listen.

Warner Music Nashville's Gabby Barrett is setting the trend. Recently spotlighted as one ofCMT's Next Women of Country (Class of 2020), a 2020MusicRowNext Big Thing artist, aSiriusXM+PandoraAll-Genre and Country Artist to Watch, Radio Disney's Next Big Thing, andAmazon Music's Weekly One best performing Country female of 2019, she continues to rise through the ranks as "country music's next female superstar" (Country Now). Garnering critical acclaim, Barrett's current single "I Hope" was named one ofRolling Stone Country's "10 Best Country and Americana Songs To Hear Now" and claimed the #1 spot onSiriusXM's The Highway Hot 30 Countdown and onRadio Disney's Country Top 50 chart. "A voice you must hear, " (The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) Barrett has opened forDierks Bentley, Kane Brown, Luke Bryan, Toby Keith, Chris Lane, Dustin Lynch, Jake Owen, Bebe Rexha, Cole Swindell, Sugarland, andCarrie Underwood, and will take the stage at mile marker festivals like Stagecoach, Tortuga Music Festival, and Country Jam in 2020. With over 130 MILLION on-demand streams to her credit, Barrett previewed her upcomingRoss Copperman-produced album releasing new song "The Good Ones." The Pennsylvania native began singing in her local gospel choir at nine years old, and performed 136 shows in 2017 alone before rising to national prominence as a Top 3 finalist on ABC'sAmerican Idol.

Country superstar Blake Shelton remains firmly rooted as a proud Oklahoman with his forthcoming album, Texoma Shore. “Lake Texoma has always been a place of great memories, new and old,” said Shelton. “I literally recorded this album here at its shore so it’s full circle to have the love of this place and the love of country music come together here.” Texoma Shore follows in the footsteps of Shelton’s last album, If I’m Honest, which was the best-selling country album released in 2016. That album earned Shelton a number of awards, including Top Country Artist at the Billboard Music Awards in May.So what can fans expect to hear on Texoma Shore? According to Shelton: “When you listen to the record it will go from something traditional to something that will make your head spin back to something even more traditional. That’s just what you can expect from one of my albums. At this point in my career it’s always good for me to try something different, with different sounds, and I think you'll hear hints of that on this record. I've explored about every part of country music you can explore and it seems like I always keep coming back to my roots, which is traditional country music. I love great songs and there are so many talented writers in Nashville, but I do have a song on the album that I wrote and I'm very proud of it.”