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.
“Music as we know it would not exist without the American south. It’s funky and sentimental,” says Georgia artist Brent Cobb. The first release from his upcoming album (out September 22), title track “Southern Star,” certainly grooves!
Buffalo Nichols – “You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond”
Buffalo Nichols (aka Carl Nichols) has turned this 93-year-old Blind Willie Johnson song into a 2023 banger. He shares, “I tried to reimagine the blues with this song as if it were allowed to grow and progress uninterrupted, uncolonized and ungentrified.”
Brennen Leigh – “Carole With An E”
That 60’s and 70’s country classic Nashville sound is alive and well on Brennen Leigh’s new album Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet (out today). “I’m in love with this idea of the real Nashville, ” says Leigh. “The idyllic golden age, which, to me, is around 1967, 1968, because of the alchemy, the explosion that occurred, with the best country music songwriters ever, the best singers in country music.”
No-No Boy – “Nitro ’66 Cannonball Blues”
Recently, No-No Boy, Vietnamese-American singer-songwriter-scholar Julian Saporiti, released a couple of new recordings, including “Nitro ‘66 Cannonball Blues.” Taking inspiration from the traditional folk song “Cannonball Blues,” Saporiti approached the tune from the perspective of a Chinese-American immigrant railroad worker who, after building the transcontinental train lines that laid the groundwork for massive cultural and economic expansion, was deported back to China in 1885.
