Pew Playlist: 3 Albums That Should Be On Your Radar, 12/9/16

Kelsey Waldon – Dirty Old Town

Kelsey Waldon‘s Dirty Old Town, released in August of this year, came back to our attention recently with a live Audiotree Session featured on Spotify, and we got all excited about the record all over again. This album from the hardworking Nashville-by-way-of-Kentucky songstress is country as cornbread, and we just know you’ll devour every morsel on this tasty twanger.

Charlie Parr – I Ain’t Dead Yet

Bluesy roots music revivalist and one-man-band Charlie Parr can play anything with strings like it ain’t nobody’s business, holler and howl like a Mississippi Delta blues originator, and looks like one of my family members who grew up in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.  Interestingly enough, Parr actually hails from the Land of 10,000 Lakes (for those of you who didn’t pay attention in junior high Social Studies, that’s Minnesota, y’all).  Now, Parr has released I Ain’t Dead Yet, a five-song EP of swamp-style rootsy recollections, give it a spin.

Cat-Iron – Cat-Iron Sings Blues and Hymns

Cat-Iron, a.k.a. William Carradine, was born in the late 1890s in Garden City, Louisiana. As the story goes, a renowned folklorist coaxed him to play a few songs to record (having converted to Christianity, Cat-Iron originally balked at the idea of playing any blues songs), and was able to cull a collection that is equal parts blues numbers and equal parts sacred – all recorded right in Cat-Iron’s living room. Originally released on the Smithsonian Folkways label in 1958, this forgotten classic was recently re-issued by Exit Stencil Recordings. Thank goodness.

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