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For 13 years now, The Waybacks have hosted arguably the most exciting tradition at MerleFest: they play a classic album in its entirety with a variety of guests, with assorted snippets of tributes to other singers and songs woven in. Most exciting (and impressive) of all: no one but them knows what it’s going to be until they launch in to Track 1! They’ve released most of their previous Hillside Album Hours on CD, including this latest one just in time for last month’s festival. This one includes Sam Bush, Jim Lauderdale, Kevin Russell, and others, and starts with an illegal smile for the beloved singer/songwriter who died in April of 2020; he’d been scheduled to play MerleFest that year.

Steve Earle, James McMurtry, Hayes Carll, Ringo Starr…. Ray hangs with the best! There also probably some new discoveries for you here, too, for some serious rockers and Ray’s classic wit and wisdom. This is his 2nd in a series of collaborations.Listen on Apple Music

He’s led a rather low-key, laid back life despite being a Nashville songwriter, but his colleagues have finally cajoled him into releasing a debut record under his own name. And those colleagues include Anderson East and Miranda Lambert (who co-produced it), Bob Weir, Rabert Randolph, Natalie Hemby and Dave Cobb. Raitiere sings about “a single wide dreamer in a double wide world”, the “redneck white & blue”, and being “a few sandwiches short of a picnic”: a few characters that a lot of us can probably relate to.

We fell in love with his 2019 album “Between the Country”, with its beautiful imagery and warm sound reminiscent of early John Prine. This new one also centers for the most part around his Eastern Kentucky homelands, and was recorded on reel-to-reel tapes in short spurts over the course of two years, with producer Andrija Tokic (Phosphorescent, Alabama Shakes, Hurray For the Riff Raff.)

Blues, country, rockabilly, surf….This Halifax, Nova Scotia artist had dived into all of these styles, and this new one finds him weaving them together quite well. Check it out with us on Thursday.

As our own Joe Kendrick wrote for NPR, “Having grown up between England, France and Italy before moving to the U.S. at 18, Vane seems unlikely to have become a torch-bearer for American roots music.” But she certainly has embraced the blues well, with her soulful voice, terrific slide guitar work, and authentic blues storytelling.

He’s known as “The Godfather of Americana”, thanks to his 65 years of great blues, country, and swingin’ jazz, and the 81-year-old has a new one taking a look back at some of his favorite songs throughout that period. Ray Charles, Hank Williams, Little Richard… You’ll recognize a lot of these gems, all delivered with that great Delbert swagger. Released on May 13th.

Kelly Finnigan and his band dig into more great psychedelic soul, this time telling the story of a quaint motor lodge of the 1940’s that transformed into a bohemian hangout for musicians and vagabonds by the ‘60s and ‘70s. Some of the most prominent acts of the era stayed there, until the money ran out, and the Sage Motel devolved into a place where you rent by the hour…

Much like Calexico’s new heartfelt tribute to their friends, family, and terrain of the Southwest (featured Monday for “New Tunes at 2”), this new one from Tuba Skinny is a love letter of sorts to the musicians, neighborhoods, et al of their native New Orleans. The band started as a busking band in the French Quarter, and has branched out into jug band, country blues, ragtime, R&B, and more, but they come back to their roots on this one, and this time all of the songs are originals!

It was 32 years ago that drummer John Convertino first met multi-instrumentalist Joey Burns, and they relocated to Tucson, Arizona to dive into their new band Calexico. Like their namesake border town, the band has grown and evolved over the years, but all the while they’ve fostered that great blend of influences from California and Mexico. El Mirador is a heartfelt tribute to the people and places of the Southwest that make up the band’s roots.