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We start the week with new singles from three of Americana/country music’s best-known names these days. Childers’ new album, Snipe Hunter, comes out on July 29th and includes 13 tracks, including this first single, which he has been performing live for a few years now. Childers has also contributed a bit to Price’s album Hard Headed Woman, which comes out 8/29. It’s her first album recorded in Nashville, her home for 20 years, which she credits for creating a space for independent and insurgent country music to thrive alongside more mainstream acts. Asleep at the Wheel pays tribute to, unsurprisingly, the Lone Star State: Ray Benson front-man says “It’s been fifty-five years for Asleep At The Wheel as a band, and fifty of them have been spent in Texas.”

Written during his treatment for stage 3b colon cancer, the album's beach-country songs were born from fantasies of ocean breezes and sandy beaches, dreamt up while the longtime road warrior was confined to his home while undergoing chemotherapy. Tropicana trades honky-tonks for hammocks, offering a rallying cry of resilience wrapped in tropical twang. "I was at home for a year, without the ability to play shows or even take a vacation," Walker explains. "Since I couldn't leave town and go see a palm tree in real life, I started writing about them."

"Three years ago these Irish lads were not even a band. Now they’re on Warner Records, following up an attention-grabbing debut EP with a 14-song album that’s poised to break them worldwide. Their aesthetic is pretty simple and straightforward: Amble plays pastoral indie-folk drawing inspiration from Ireland’s natural beauty, with impressionistic and often melancholy lyrics that draw power from lead singer Robbie Cunningham’s arresting baritone voice."

He’s 92, and this is his 77th solo album… Celebrate another wonderful new one from The Red-Headed Stranger! Willie has been mighty prolific lately, with help from producer Buddy Cannon, a few family members, and a whole world of Willie fans. He’s released a few albums over the years that were entirely the works of other songwriters: Lefty Frisell, Kris Kristofferson, and Harlan Howard. He’s done so again now, with fellow Texan Rodney Crowell.

A union hymn, a cowboy ballad, assorted apocalyptic vignettes, a Richard Thompson cover… Welcome to the latest album from Willi Carlisle! One of the most memorable songwriters to come out of Kansas, Arkansas, and to some extent Peculiar, Missouri these past few years, Carlisle’s previous peculiar hits include “Vanlife” and “Critterland.”

Canadian native Tami Neilson has another powerful album of Americana styles with this tribute to the larger-than-life statue “towering over Broadway like the patron saint of heartbreak in downtown Nashville as she smiles coyly over her shoulder in red cowboy boots.”

Laissez les bontemps rouler, with this wonderful new tribute to the great New Orleans brass band tradition. Saxophonist Jeff Coffin (of the Flecktones and his Mu’Tet) and trombonist Ray Mason conceived this band back in 2021, when they led a 20-minute French Quarter-style parade through their Nashville neighborhood during the Covid lockdown for the 50th birthday of a friend who longed to spend it in New Orleans

As you might expect, this is some exquisite pickin’ from two of the best in the business! Recorded live on April 7, 2024, at Nashville’s American Legion Post 82, this new album features the acclaimed duo performing 20 traditional bluegrass and folk songs. They particularly highlight some favorite tunes of Doc Watson, Tony Rice, and Clarence White, but also perform covers from the likes of Bob Dylan and Blaze Foley.

Andrew Marlin & Emily Frantz started performing together in 2009 in coffee shops and restaurants of Chapel Hill and other NC towns under the name Mandolin Orange. They now have their second album under the Watchhouse name, and an extensive tour of North America that comes back to us over Labor Day weekend for the Earl Scruggs Music Festival. They are certainly a grassroots success story that’s been driven by Marlin’s poignant songwriting, that has earned them a reputation for creating music that “redefines roots music for a younger generation” (Washington Post), with songs that touch on the unknowable mysteries, existential heartbreak, and communal joys of modern life.