I’m in the car, not driving far—to the grocery store and back—and yet it feels like I’ve jetted into the past. During my distant college daze, I routinely saddled up a rusty ol’ Chevette and rode it betwixt the Penn State mothership, where I had too much fun, and the suburban Philly hitching post I called home, where I had little to none, then did the reverse a few days later. Sometimes the drive flew by, with the 200 miles taking a little more than three hours; others, almost always around the holidays, were interminable, with the extra traffic on the road slowing things to near six. Accompanying me was usually a pal (or two) and/or kids who traded gas money for a lift.
Once, and this is the memory that came to me, it was myself, my roommate, and two freshmen—a guy and gal, literal next-door neighbors, who’d been friends forever. As we pulled out of the dorm parking lot, I asked them what kind of music they liked. They either missed the “I’m a Fan of Hank Jr.” bumpersticker I’d plastered on the back of the car not long after acquiring it or, more likely, didn’t know who he was. (It’s not like MTV played him, after all.) “Anything but country,” said one. The other agreed.
My roommate, who also liked Hank, chuckled. He knew what was coming, if only from the glint in my eye. I pushed my cassette of Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound into the tape deck and smirked when the woozy title track stumbled from the speakers. For the next however-many hours, Hank, more Hank, Emmylou, Willie, Dwight, and other hillbillies (real or imagined) filled the air.
Kelsey Waldon’s Every Ghost would’ve fit right in. It reminds me of the ornery outlaw music of the ‘70s and ‘80s—though, in truth, it’s not ornery, just hardcore. It’s country music thick with themes of family, friends, foibles, regrets and recriminations, of looking back in order to move forward. It reminds me of several Hank Jr. albums—and not just because the cover conjures Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound’s. “Lost in My Idlin’,” for instance, seemingly channels his “Stoned at the Jukebox,” while habits old and new run through other tunes.
The album opens with “Ghost of Myself,” about the many lives Waldon has lived: “I had to get tough so I could get wise/I’ve been a thousand women in my own time/Been a thousand women and I’ve loved them all/I had to get low so I could walk tall.” It’s easy to wish we’d done this instead of that, whatever either may have been, and quit what we needed to quit before we finally did—but such is life, right? Forgive yourself. Move on.
The second track, “Comanche,” finds her behind the wheel of her decades-old Jeep truck and thinking about the long ago; she explained on Instagram, “I do a lot of driving and thinking in the Comanche. It has provided me great therapy, just like songwriting. One night I was thinking about someone who I loved very much, but I had to put some boundaries around to protect myself. I also had to accept things for how they were, even though they could of been different. Have y’all ever grieved someone who was still alive? I have. It’s almost worse than the other way around.”
“Tiger Lilies” celebrates her late grandmother by way of perennials she transplanted from her grandmother’s garden to her own. “Falling Down” steps into the shoes of a broken man who’s lost his wife and kids; it’s a sympathetic portrayal of someone in free fall—the bottom’s in sight, but hasn’t been reached. I hear my dad, who battled the bottle, in him. “Nursery Rhyme” belies its title by digging into the internal and external forces that keep us at bay, while “Let It Lie”—sure to be rip-roarin’ fun in concert—turns tour trouble in Winnipeg and Wyoming into a metaphor for overcoming heartbreak: “Push on through ’til you reach the other side.”
“Lost in My Idlin’,” as I said above, reminds me of a Hank Jr. song, though—from the sounds of it—all of her rowdy friends have yet to settle down, making sobriety that much more of a challenge. “My Kin” digs into the family traditions—and DNA—that have shaped her: “Been knocked down a time or two/But give me a chance and I’ll come on through/I’ll still be singin’ like an old violin/I’m the best and worst of my kin.” The album closes with a bluesy spin through Hazel Dickens’ “Ramblin’ Woman” that conjures Lucinda’s days with Gurf Morlix.
As with last year’s There’s Always a Song, Waldon produced the album with help from Justin Francis, who also recorded and mixed it. Her touring band, the Muleskinners, provides perfect support throughout.
At its best, with this thing we call music, we lose ourselves in the melodies yet hear ourselves—and/or those we’ve loved—in the lyrics. Old-school country music, especially, delves deep into matters of the heart, while shining needed light into dark nights of the soul. While Kelsey Waldon has done that from the get-go, she’s only gotten better with each album. Every Ghost is a haunting tour de force. Don’t miss it.
(The album is available to stream on all the virtual racks around, while the LP or CD version can be purchased from the Oh Boy online store.)
The Old Grey Cat 
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