Gillian Welch: Last News

Bright Eyes have announced the next wave of their Companions project, which will see the band reissue their back catalogue, accompanied by new recordings.Earlier this year, the trio shared “companion” records for ‘A Collection Of Songs Written And Recorded 1995-1997’, ‘Letting Off The Happiness: A Companion’, and ‘Fevers And Mirrors: A Companion’.This new set will see 2002’s ‘Lifted or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground’, and 2005’s ‘I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning’ and ‘Digital Ash In A Digital Urn’ be giving the same treatment. Each record will be released on November 11 via Dead Oceans and will include guest performances from Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Becky Stark and Maria Taylor.Across the releases, a series of covers will also be featured. They will include Bright Eyes’ take on Azure Ray’s ‘November’, Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel’, and The Faint’s ‘Agenda Suicide’.Ahead of the arrival of the next three “companion” releases, Bright Eyes have shared new recordings from each record.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “I’ve grown tired of traveling alone,” Jason Isbell once sang, in a number that remains a favorite for fans in a lonesome mood. But that’s one of his old songs that means something different today. He’s traveling alone and loving it, at least in the sense that he is hitting the road as a solo artist for a first-time national acoustic tour, reflecting the formal aloneness of his just-released album “Foxes in the Snow.” Or maybe the reflection goes the other way: Isbell has suggested that he was booking the tour dates first last year and the idea of recording a full record with no band was an outgrowth of that impulse.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Are we in a golden age for acoustic music? You’d just about have to think so, if you are privy to a couple of significant tours coming through California right now, one by the duo of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, another by solo artist Jason Isbell, trading coastal cities like capos at a guitar pull. Isbell has been in the review headlines, shining a light on just how good lonesome finger-picking can sound on record with his first band-less album, “Foxes in the Snow.” But the Los Angeles re-arrival of Welch and Rawlings — who are more than six months into touring behind their excellent 2024 joint effort, “Woodland” — is a reminder not just of what an influence they’ve surely been on someone like Isbell, but how they remain the unshakable queen and king of this idiom.

Come back, ’24, all is forgiven. Whether it was an unusually great year for you or an annus horribilis, chances are you needed music to help see you through. Here are 50 of the songs that did the trick for the Variety music staff — representing the realms of superwoman super-pop (Chappell, Charli, Taylor and Ariana), hip-hop (Kendrick Lamar, Doechii), Latin music (Karol G, Kali Uchis), country (Lainey Wilson, Megan Moroney), rock (Jack White, Vampire Weekend), R&B (Ella Mai, Tinashe), club sounds (Jamie XX), Americana (Waxahatchee, Gillian Welch), show tunes (Cynthia Erivo) and, not least of all, the great, genre-defying mischief that Beyoncé got up to this year.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are not the first musicians ever to name an album after a favorite studio or, in their case, the one they own and operate in East Nashville. But “Woodland” isn’t just a random title — it really does reflect the hardships and triumphs that came about over the last few years at the recording facility of the same name, which had its roof blasted off in the famous Tennessee tornado of 2020, right before lockdown made everything still more difficult.

The Judd sisters paid an emotional tribute to their late mother Naomi Judd at the Country Music Hall of Fame on Sunday.

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Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame Sunday evening in Nashville, in an emotional medallion ceremony that went on as scheduled the day after Naomi Judd’s death. The Hall had announced Saturday that the induction would go on in the wake of the tragedy due to the wishes of the family.“I’m sorry that she couldn’t hang on until today,” said a tearful Ashley Judd, according to an Associated Press report.

Kurt Vile has performed an acoustic version of his track ‘Runner Ups’ for the Food For Love charity livestream over the weekend.‘Runner Ups’ comes from Vile’s 2011 album ‘Smoke Ring For My Halo’, which NME gave four stars at the time of its release.Watch the performance below (around the 1:57:16 mark):Food For Love was organised to benefit the New Mexico Association of Food Banks, and has raised more than £500,000 ($700,000) so far. The livestream also featured appearances from David Byrne, Nathaniel Rateliff and Game of Thrones author George R.