BONUS TRACKS: Like New Roots Music? We’ve Got a Whole Lot of News for You

As ND’s Through the Lens columnist Amos Perrine told us last week in words and his excellent photos, the public radio performance show Mountain Stage is marking its 40th year. To mark the milestone, the NPR Music/West Virginia Public Broadcasting show is releasing a compilation album showcasing some of the show’s best recorded moments over the years. Out April 19 via Oh Boy Records, the collection features 21 tracks, from Tyler Childers, Steve Earle, Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Krauss, Jason Isbell, and James McMurtry, among others. The first single released from Live on Mountain Stage: Outlaws and Outliers is a cover of “Space Oddity” by Wilco, which captures a delightful wave of recognition from the crowd just a few notes into the David Bowie cover. Check that out below:

Each week in the “What We’re Listening To” section of this column, my ND colleagues and I like to share a few songs and albums that we’ve been listening to, in hopes you’ll find something exciting to discover (or rediscover) just like we do. Often, with the nature of our work, our listening trends toward new songs from albums on the horizon, and whew are there a lot of those on the radar this week! I’ll get right to those in a sec, but first I have to give a special shout-out to the Old 97s for the very best accidental early album announcement I’ve ever seen. Author Stephen King, known to be a longtime fan of the band, spilled the beans about a new album via X this week, posting to his 7 million followers that “The Old 97s have a record coming in March – AMERICAN PRIMITIVE. It’s terrific.” Ever the good sport, frontman Rhett Miller shared this development on his own social media channels, informing the band’s record label: “Hey @atorecords, we might have to announce the @old97s album title and release date a little sooner than you’d planned.” We’ll bring you more details when ATO, the band, and/or Stephen King sees fit to share them.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Rhett Miller (@rhettmiller)

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO

Here are songs from new album announcements that got us excited this week:

The Secret Sisters – “Same Water,” from their new album, Mind, Man, Medicine, coming in March
Joe Pug – “Treasury of Prayers,” from his new album, Sketch of a Promised Departure, coming in March
Charlie Parr – “Boombox,” from his new album, Little Sun, coming in March
Waxahatchee – “Right Back to It,” from her new album, Tigers Blood, coming in March
Alejandro Escovedo – “Bury Me,” a new version from his new album, Echo Dancing, coming in March
Charm City Junction – “Roll On John,” from their new album, Salt Box, coming in February

The Black Keys – “Beautiful People (Stay High),” from their new album, Ohio Players, coming in April
Aaron Lee Tasjan – “Horror of It All,” from his new album, Stellar Evolution, coming in April
Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams – “Desert Island Dreams,” from their new album, All This Time, coming in April
Cedric Burnside – “Hill Country Love,” from his new album Hill Country Love coming in April
Katie Pruitt – “White Lies, White Jesus and You,” from her new album, Mantras, coming in April

And these songs arrived this week as singles:

Paisley Fields – “Over the Radio Waves”
Kaia Kater – “The Internet”