Hear the Best New Folk Music with Fresh Cuts Friday

Ready for some of the best new music we’ve heard this week? It’s a great list as you’ll see below — and as you’ll hear when you join me for my ‘Fresh Cuts’ radio hour! Listen every Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific via the 24/7 stream on our website, app, or your smart speaker.
Or, just click on the Fresh Cuts stream whenever it’s convenient for you.
In the meantime, check out some of the best new music we’ve been listening to this week.
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Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’, “Room On The Porch” (feat. Ruby Amanfu)
Room On The Porch (out 5/23) is the second album from TajMo, the historic collaboration between two generations of American music masters. The title track brings TajMo together with a third generation of roots music trailblazer via special guest Ruby Amanfu.
The North Carolina duo Watchhouse (Andrew Marlin & Emily Frantz, formerly Mandolin Orange) return with their new album. Rituals (out 5/30), co-produced with Ryan Gustafson (The Dead Tongues), explores the boundaries between identity and awareness, and how we often confuse patterns with truths. The 11-song collection muses on the endless nature of evolution, asking questions like: how can we have a positive relationship with change? How can we meet our ends gracefully? Is the world on fire or at home in the sun?
Kris Delmhorst, “Not the Only One” (feat. Anna Tivel)
Kris Delmhorst’s latest is Ghosts in the Garden (out today!) which features lots of great guest singers, like Anna Tivel on “Not the Only One.” She shares “I started writing “Not the Only One” ten years ago; it’s been a bunch of different songs along the way. Ultimately it became a song about the invisible griefs that accompany each of us through our life. And about the impossible disconnect of carrying the brutality and sorrow of this world as we go about the business of our day-to-day.”
On Lucy Kaplansky’s new collection, The Lucy Story: unreleased & rare tracks, 1976-2023, she shares her Lyle Lovett cover of “God Will.” Lucy discovered Lyle Lovett through her old friend Nanci Griffith’s versions of his songs. This fan favorite from her live shows was recorded for her album Over the Hills, but did not appear on the album. The stellar players include Larry Campbell, Duke Levine, and Stephan Crump.