Folk Alley Sessions

By the time I spoke with Allison Moorer at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida this January, she had been touring in support of her memoir and accompanying full-length album, 'Blood' for several months and had become accustomed to the way her audiences were inclined to bond with her, across their own traumas. In this Folk Alley Session, we discussed all of this and more, and Moorer also gifted...

It’s hard not to throw around words like “prodigious” when talking about someone like Sierra Hull. At just 28 years old, she has already released five albums, worked with many of the biggest names in Nashville, taken home a half-dozen IBMA awards, and earned a Grammy nomination for her sparsely arranged mandolin-and-bass 2017 singer-songwriter album Weighted Mind . So, when one hears her sing abou...

Fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves and banjo player Allison de Groot first started their collaboration over the term “old-time music” and realized, pretty quickly, that their definition of the term was very similar. We like the same kinds of music, they say, and so it was easy to become musical partners and share that love with other music fans. The duo put out a self-titled album in 2019 and they came to...

From breakups to childhood memories, romantic entanglements and friends in trouble, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin duo Dead Horses (Sarah Vos and Daniel Wolff) tackle anything and everything that comes their way. Recently, they let us in to see how they think about music and musicianship and shared a song from their 2018 release, My Mother the Moon , as well as a couple of new songs for 2019 during an e...

Lula Wiles (Mali Obomsawin, Ellie Buckland, and Isa Burke) were friends for years in their native Maine before coming together, officially, in 2016 in Boston. The trio believes that music has the power to bring out the humanity in all of us. They gathered together at the Upper Jay Arts Center’s Recovery Lounge in Upper Jay, New York to share some songs from their new album, What Will We Do - their...

Anna Tivel joins us for a Folk Alley Session taping at CitySpace in Easthampton, Massachusetts to share some thoughts about, and music from, her 2019 release, The Question . With Dietrich Strause joining her on backing vocals and guitar, Tivel dove into the inspiration behind a few songs on the recording…and explained why the music on this record, music from the guts, she says, feels oh so good.

Former Stray Birds frontwoman, Maya de Vitry joined us in the studio to share some eye-opening thoughts about what it really took to put together her debut solo album, Adaptations , during a recent session in Nashville, Tennessee.

Winnipeg duo, The Small Glories' (JD Edwards & Cara Luft) new album, Assiniboine & the Red , is a collection of collaborative songs of strength, resilience, and connection. They joined Folk Alley at the Lake Flower Landing in Saranac Lake, NY to talk about their history, their music, and their very exciting plans for the future.

What happens when a group of talented musicians get together for a short period of time in a small space with a gigantic wood stove? Musical magic, according to Kris Delmhorst . She talked about this and the making of her 2017 album, 'The Wild' when she and her husband and musical partner, Jeffrey Foucault stopped by Beehive Productions studio for an exclusive Folk Alley Session.

What happens when a group of talented musicians get together for a short period of time in a small space with a gigantic wood stove? Musical magic, according to Kris Delmhorst . She talked about this and the making of her 2017 album, 'The Wild' when she and her husband and musical partner, Jeffrey Foucault stopped by Beehive Productions studio for an exclusive Folk Alley Session.

What happens when a group of talented musicians get together for a short period of time in a small space with a gigantic wood stove? Musical magic, according to Kris Delmhorst . She talked about this and the making of her 2017 album, 'The Wild' when she and her husband and musical partner, Jeffrey Foucault stopped by Beehive Productions studio for an exclusive Folk Alley Session.

What happens when a group of talented musicians get together for a short period of time in a small space with a gigantic wood stove? Musical magic, according to Kris Delmhorst . She talked about this and the making of her 2017 album, 'The Wild' when she and her husband and musical partner, Jeffrey Foucault stopped by Beehive Productions studio for an exclusive Folk Alley Session.

What happens when a group of talented musicians get together for a short period of time in a small space with a gigantic wood stove? Musical magic, according to Kris Delmhorst . She talked about this and the making of her 2017 album, 'The Wild' when she and her husband and musical partner, Jeffrey Foucault stopped by Beehive Productions studio for an exclusive Folk Alley Session.

In order to embrace change and in order to embrace her own voice as a songwriter, Courtney Hartman knew she needed to get away from a lot of the noise in her life. And so she set off on a truly epic, hundreds-of-miles-long trek, accompanied only by the lightest guitar she could find. Hartman shares insights into her epic journey - which turned into a new album, Ready Reckoner during our exclusive...

During an exclusive Folk Alley Session that North Carolina progressive sting band, Mipso , did for Folk Alley, the group eloquently talks about "the how and why" of their evolution as a band and the decision to push their musical boundaries in the first place.

Sarah Lee Guthrie has been on stage almost since birth. But she has never been up there alone. She started (and still performs) with her father, Arlo, and the rest of her talented family. Sarah Lee partnered with her husband, Johnny Irion, and even though they had great success, there was a folky voice that wanted to be heard. Now, she's out solo for the first time, giving full and glorious attent...

The rain was coming down hard one day in April in Upper Jay, New York. And that’s the day Ana Egge , along with Alec Spiegelman (keyboards, bass clarinet) and Dave Cole (drums) showed up to play songs from her album, White Tiger , at the pop-up studio our friends at Beehive Productions Studio set up at The Recovery Lounge.

During an exclusive session at the 2019 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida, Courtney Marie Andrews shared some thoughts about her work ethic, about her background, and, of course, about the music she makes.

Songs are personal, and important, parts of our souls, of our SELVES. That’s how Caroline Spence feels…and the songs she’s written over the last 5 years are hugely important to her…and, she hopes…to YOU. Spence joined us and our friends from Beehive Productions Studios in January at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida share some thoughts about her songwriting process…and also to share some new...

Nashville-based songwriter, Mary Bragg joined Folk Alley for a conversation and performance of songs from her album Violets as Camouflage in our pop-up beach house studio at the 2019 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida.

Steve Poltz shared the stories behind some of the songs on his newest recording, Shine On , during an exclusive session we recorded at the 2019 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida.

In 2013, Amythyst Kiah released her first full length studio album, Dig , and in 2018 she joined forces with Allison Russell, Rhiannon Giddens, and Leyla McCalla as part of a collaboration called Our Native Daughters. They’ve since released an album on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Songs of Our Native Daughters . Later in 2019, Kiah releases another new solo album, Weary and Strange , and she s...

Ruthie Foster joined Folk Alley at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida to share some thoughts about what making music for an audience means to her; that process, she says, lets her “channel the good stuff” in the world and it’s an experience she never wants to give up.

From the fears and concerns of a young girl, to the hopelessness of unrelenting poverty, to the laissez-faire attitude of a woman in the twilight of her life, Gretchen Peters creates characters that everyone can relate to. That’s a gift and it’s one displayed most prominently on her new album, Dancing with the Beast . She shared thoughts about the record and music from it during her exclusive sess...

Lilly Winwood describes her 2017 debut EP, ‘Silver Stage' as her “coming of age album,” and tells us about it in an exclusive Folk Alley Session performance recorded at the 2018 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida.