Later this month, I’ll be catching Kentucky-born troubadour Kelsey Waldon and her hot band for the fourth time since 2019—every time she’s come through town since her white-hot White Noise/White Lines album, in other words. That first time, which saw her backed by a three-piece ensemble, was in a dump of a club before a crowd of—and I’m being generous here—maybe 25 folks, with a few of them more interested in the booze than the music. The last time, last November, found her and her crack band raising the roof at the Cat’s Cradle Back Room before 150-200 fans, about twice as many as when she played there in December 2022.
I start with that because, aside from the stretch of pandemic months when most everyone was sitting at home, Waldon’s on the road more months than not. There’s not much time to write let alone record, so when it came time to release a new record the idea of celebrating some of her favorite songs held much appeal—thus, There’s Always a Song. These are, she says, songs that she treasures. As she explains on both Instagram and the album’s back jacket, “Whenever I feel uninspired or burnt out creatively, I often think back on what has inspired me most and has been partly the reason for my deep dive into country music while also helping me understand my place in it. I have been inspired by all kinds of music spanning many genres, but there is something about old time songs & bluegrass music that resonates so deeply within me. It feels like home and it never goes out of style. Songs like these were here long before me and I believe will be here long after me. It’s a resilient type of music that stands the test of time. It was important for me to do these songs justice in my own voice and share my well of inspiration while also collaborating with some good friends who are carrying their own rightful torch.”
The eight-track outing summons the ghosts of long ago throughout. The opening track is an a cappella folksong called “Keep Your Garden Clean” that was recorded and released by Jean Ritchie in 1952 on Singing The Traditional Songs Of Her Kentucky Mountain Family. According to the book Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians as Sung by Jean Ritchie, “It is an Ozark version of the English ‘Seeds of Love,’ and the tune is not unlike the Ritchie song, ‘The Time Draws Near.’’’ It’s basically a song-long metaphor warning “pretty fair maids” to be cautious lest they, like the narrator, waste their thyme with “a false young man.”
I dove deep into “Hello Stranger” before, so will only say here that listening to it is akin to hearing a stone skip across the vast ocean of time. It’s a shame that S.G. Goodman isn’t hitting the road with Kelsey & Co. for the current tour supporting the album, as hearing the two of them sing this together in person would be nirvana (or my approximation of it, at least). Here’s hoping they join forces on a concert stage at some point.
If the note in SecondHandSongs is correct, “I Only Exist,” here a duet with 49 Winchester’s Isaac Gibson, was first recorded in 1969 (on my fourth birthday, no less) by Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. It’s a tale of heartbreak written by Joyce Morris and Jimmie Stanley; Waldon and Isaac strip away the bluegrass accoutrements and turn it into an affecting country number fit for George Jones and Tammy Wynette.
“Uncle Pen” has the bounce of a Grateful Dead tune, though it’s actually an old Bill Monroe song that he recorded with the Blue Grass Boys in 1950. The version I know best is Hank Jr.’s from The New South (1978), but through the decades it’s been covered by everyone from Goldie Hawn (!) to Ricky Skaggs. Here, it’s a fun showcase for fiddlers Amanda Shires and Libby Weitnauer—something tells me that Weitnauer will prove even more of a monster on violin than she already is if/when they perform it live. Waldon’s lead vocals, for their part, are a delight, as are the backing shouts from Goodman, Margo Price, Shires and Vickie Vaughn.
“Pretty Bird” is another affecting a cappella song, this time of more recent vintage. According to the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, Hazel Dickens wrote it in 1972 after moving from her West Virginia home to Baltimore. “I envied the little bird sitting on the high wire,” she recalled. “It could fly away at any given moment and be free.” Her original rendition can be found on her 1973 collaboration with Alice Gerrard, Hazel & Alice—also the album home to the “Hello Stranger” version that Waldon embraces here.
Appalachian folksinger Ola Belle Reed’s “I’ve Endured” follows. Accented by an emotive fiddle solo from Weitnauer, it relates a life story that many will identify with even if they weren’t born in the mountains nor raised in poverty. Most of us overcome obstacles of one sort or another, after all, and at a certain point we survey our lives, surprised that we’ve made it to our xth year (x = any number you want).
Waldon’s rendition of the Mollie O’Day song “Traveling the Highway Home” is a barreling barnburner of a performance that features Margo Price, her cosmic soul sister, on co-lead vocals. The song itself was written by Frankie Bailes and—perhaps—with her husband Walter Bailes of the Bailes Brothers (he’s listed as co-writer, at any rate). O’Day’s original version is rife with a pronounced gospel fervor that Waldon maintains, just with the gas pedal pressed to the floor. Just when you think it can’t pick up anymore speed, it does.
The album closes with “Your Lone Journey,” a Doc Watson song that he wrote with his wife Rosa Lee as “Your Long Journey”; it’s been covered by Emmylou Harris (on her classic Thirteen album) and Allison Krauss & Robert Plant, among others. Anyone who’s lost someone will hear their heart in Waldon’s delivery.
About the only fair criticism that can be leveled against There’s Always a Song is that it could have been twice as long—but even that wouldn’t have been enough. By honoring her heroes and sharing their treasures with us, Waldon has achieved something increasingly rare these days: true grace. It’s a tremendous album.
The Old Grey Cat 
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