Gone Country, Again

Bet you didn’t believe me, did you? No way I had the discipline to send another newsletter in a timely fashion, huh? Especially in These Times and this economy and this heat? Well, joke’s on you because I did it, babies! It’s called growth, look it up. 

Continuing the tradition I started last week with my screed on Perfume Genius, this week I’m fangirling out about Kelsey Waldon, a country singer from my old Kentucky home who has become one of my favorite artists over the past year or so. I think I probably heard about her from my favorite country newsletter, Don’t Rock the Inbox, and then I went to see her last May at my favorite country music event, Honky Tonkin’ in Queens, and ever since then it’s been Kelsey central over here. 

But first, allow me to back up and share a bit about my personal history with country music. I grew up listening to country, which was for a time the only genre of music that anybody in my family listened to. Some of the first CDs I bought with my “own money” (allowance for making my bed) were country—shoutout to Faith Hill’s It Matters to Me and Alan Jackson’s first greatest hits collection—and I was Rosemont Forest Elementary School’s most devoted listener of Virginia Beach’s biggest country radio station, 97.3 The Eagle. On one rare occasion when it snowed in Hampton Roads, my grandpa asked me what kind of snowman I wanted to build, and I said Dolly Parton. This meant we built a regular snowman but gave her gigantic honkers. 

But then I got to middle school, and it was no longer cool to like country music. It was bad enough that we moved to Kentucky—I wasn’t about to lean into the hick stereotype and listen to anything with a twang. So, save for The Chicks and a little bit of Shania Twain, I put away those childish things and cultivated a taste for boy bands and later emo and punk rock. In college, I relented and joined an early Facebook group called “Everything AND Country,” but even then I was only listening to classic country artists like Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline. It’s cool if it’s old, you see. 

About 10 years ago, though, the country bug got me again. It started with the rise of “cool” female country singers like Kacey Musgraves and Margo Price, then continued with me embracing (formerly) radio-friendly artists like Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris. Now, country is probably the genre I listen to the most, and it’s the one where I’m most consistently seeking out new artists and going to shows by people I’ve never heard of before. And it feels great! I wish the younger me had the courage to admit how much I liked this music, without worrying what the snobs at the college radio station had to say. 

Jingoistic pro-America guys aside, this is actually a great time to be embracing your inner country girl (unless you’re a country radio operator, but that’s another newsletter). There is so much good music out there right now, on all levels of fame and in every subgenre of country: Lainey Wilson, Mickey Guyton, Emily Nenni, Charley Crockett, Luke Combs, Kaitlin Butts, Shaboozey, Ella Langley, Tiera Kennedy, Laci Kaye Booth, Megan Moroney, Valerie June, Lola Kirke, and the list goes on and on on and on. 

And, of course, Kelsey Waldon. Her music is country country—fiddle, pedal steel, the occasional Bill Monroe cover—but it’s not old-fashioned. She’s from Monkey’s Eyebrow, a real town that I’ve never been to but know about because you can’t live in Kentucky and not know you’re just a short drive away from a town called Monkey’s Eyebrow. Maybe it’s that Kentucky link that’s tricking me into feeling a more personal connection with her music, but I felt that even before I knew that’s where she’s from. Her voice has a real Southern twang that can’t be faked, that reminds me of how my West Virginia family sounds, that brings back memories of summers spent damming up the creek and going up the holler to hunt water dogs. (Did you know I was that country?)

Her new album, Every Ghost, came out on June 20, and it’s fantastic. One of my favorites is “Comanche,” which she called her first truck song (IYKYK) at her album release show earlier this month. I also love “Tiger Lilies,” which she said was about her late grandma who always planted tiger lilies in her yards. I had already liked the song, but hearing that little backstory made me tear up. My late grandma loved to garden too, and my mom and I have matching tattoos of one of the flowers she used to grow. 

 By the time the show ended, the crowd had really thinned out (rude!), but I got to meet Kelsey afterward. I tried not to go full fangirl but I was several Lone Stars deep and she had just killed it so hard. I sort of blacked out from excitement, but she was so gracious and was happy to hear how much I like her music. It reminded me of something that Amerie (yes, of “1 Thing” fame) said when I interviewed her recently. 

“I think people just assume that artists don't feel any way about that … or are just used to it, or we don't have any emotions attached to it, but they don't realize that a lot of times artists just kind of don't know if people care about certain things. And so they don't know that it really is a surprise. Or even if it's not a total surprise, it still hits you in a fresh way every time when you feel like someone appreciates what you do and that connection that you've made with that person.” 

I always struggle with this as a person who is supposed to be “objective” in my day job but then desperately wants to tell certain artists how much I love their work. Should I have told Shirley Manson (brag) that I had photos of her on my wall as a teen? Was it weird that I told Michelle Zauner I wanted to listen to her album in the Met while looking at the Caspar David Friedrich exhibit. (Maybe, but she approved, and I did do that and it was incredible.) Can I write about stuff I like without an air of detachment and just be a fan?  

My interaction with Kelsey reminded me that it’s OK—and even welcome!—to let people know how much their art means to you. Don’t be a creep about it, obviously, but also don’t give in to the idea that you must be above it all. Listen to the songs that you like. Tell your favorite singer that her song makes you think of your grandma. Life’s too short and there’s not enough joy in the world as it is.

On Repeat:

“The Law Is for the Protection of the People” by Kelsey Waldon

This is a Kris Kristofferson cover from the 2020 EP They’ll Never Keep Us Down, but it’s really hitting right now for obvious reasons. Kelsey, please come back again and play this one for me! 

My Clippings:

As hinted at above, I interviewed Shirley Manson about her new record and while I mostly kept it together, I lost it a bit at the end when she told me to go to enjoy my life and I said I would and she goes, “That’s my girl!” But really, who among us?