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Check out this 8th album from the Austin roots-rock band, which comes out on Friday the 17th. It’s founding songwriter-guitarists Ed Jurdi (also a member of Trigger Hippy) and Gordy Quist, keyboardist Trevor Nealon, bassist Nick Jay, and drummer Clint Simmons. As Jurdi says, “Good, mid-tempo rock and roll: that’s our breadbasket, and there’s not a lot of that music being made right now. The new songs embody the spirit of our new record: survival, gratitude, resiliency, and a new-found focus on the simple things that make life worth living.”

We’re excited to introduce to you this new all-star roots project featuring Andrew Marlin of Watchhouse, Noam Pikelny and Chris Eldridge of Punch Brothers, bassist Greg Garrison (Leftover Salmon) and fiddler Alex Hargreaves (Billy Strings), available March 31 on Free Dirt Records! Though Pikelny, Eldridge, Garrison all knew each other from their early work with Punch Brothers, impromptu backstage jams with Marlin at festivals across the country were the key that unlocked the project. A lifelong song collector, Marlin selected and sang lead on most of the songs here, which include traditional roots artists like Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerard, John Hartford and Norman Blake, as well as more contemporary songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Martha Scanlin, Marlin reveals to us the (not so) simple secret of making that high lonesome Bluegrass sound among these: “You take sad songs and make them sound a little happier, and you’ve got yourself a Stanley Brothers album all of a sudden.”

Jazz singer, songwriter, and guitarist Vilray met singer Rachael Price back in 2003 as students at the New England Conservatory of Music, and he also formed a band with other members of what would become Lake Street Dive, which is how we got to know Rachael’s exquisite voice and presence. They began performing together as a duo in 2015. Get to know this wonderful collection of songs, most all of which were written by Vilray.

After closing shop 40 years ago, the Flying Dutchman record label is back. Billy Valentine reinterprets iconic protest songs from Gil-Scott Heron & Leon Thomas, who recorded for this fabled label, as well as those of Marvin Gaye, Eddie Kendricks, Curtis Mayfield, Prince, War & Stevie Wonder.

Hard to believe the Red Headed Stranger is turning 90 next month, yet here he is releasing yet another fine album – his 15th or so in the past 10 years! What’s his secret?!? Well, he might list a few things he credits… but one must certainly be his deep love for great songs and great songwriters. His latest collection is a tribute to another favorite of his, the late Harlan Howard.

When you hear there’s a new release from a Scottish musician on the Scottish label Haggis Records, you might assume bagpipes and strathspeys. Not so with this terrific trumpeter, who delivers a variety of jazz styles from modal jazz grooves to Brazilian samba beats, Latin rhythms to cinematic soundtrack vibes, and along the way, some beautiful ballads.

The next three selections for “New Tunes at 2” this week take us in a jazz direction. He’s mostly been known as an acoustic jazz guitarist, but on this one Kingsley was inspired to go in a more electric direction.

It’s the first of two solo tributes in a row from one well-known WNCW favorite to another for “New Tunes at 2” this week. Seth of The Avett Brothers has been studying and recording the songs of Greg Brown’s roughly 30 albums for years now, and is excited to share some of the songs that speak to him so deeply

She hails from Wales, but calls New Orleans home now, and that seems to be her spiritual home by the sound of this swinging Jazz and Blues tribute to many “pioneering but oft-forgotten women” like Blossom Dearie, Nellie Lutcher, and Peggy Lee. Accompanists include Jason Marsalis, Donald Harrison Jr., Charlie Gabriel, and Nicholas Payton.

Melissa Carper has previously gotten airplay here with groups like The Carper Family and The Buffalo Gals Band. We fell in absolute love with her 2021 album Daddy’s Country Gold, and this follow-up from the singer/songwriter/bassist does not disappoint. Also featured on the album are Dennis Crouch on bass, Chris Scruggs on guitar and console steel, Billy Contreras on fiddle, Sierra Ferrell and Larry Marrs on harmony vocals, John Palmer on keys, and Matty Meyer on drums. Crouch and Andrija Tokic, both of The Time Jumpers, produced this. It will be released on November 18th via Thirty Tigers.