Kelsey Waldon's 'There's Always a Song' honors country music's soulful, timeless art

Kelsey Waldon is a Kentucky songstress as steeped in knowledge of roadside taverns as she is in multiple roots music traditions.

"Life is too short not to make music, travel and get through it all with your friends," she says about her latest album, the May 10-released "There's Always a Song," a record comprised of timeless countrified covers.

She's speaking to The Tennessean while seated at a dining room table at Oh Boy Records headquarters near South Nashville's Berry Hill neighborhood.

The late John Prine's independent label has been the former Belmont University student's home for the past five years.

Her statement offers a sense of the spread of her musical awareness and knowledge, driven by her feet being planted solidly in country music's foundations.

Why are so many female performers gaining in independent country renown?

Of late, a blend of playlist creators, tastemakers and small-venue bookers has carved out a lucrative and vibrant niche for a generation of female honky-tonkers to grow into multiple levels of sustainable stars at the confluence of Americana and country music.

Waldon is in that growing mix of top names alongside performers who include Bay Area-native Emily Nenni, fellow hill-topping Western Kentuckian S.G. Goodman, Nashville rocker Margo Price, Oklahoman Kaitlin Butts, Texan Summer Dean and West Virginian Sierra Ferrell.

The stress of the work required to maintain a schedule of barnstorming dates along with consistently breaking into higher rankings on Billboard's breakout artist charts has found Waldon entrenching herself deeper in timeless bluegrass, classic country and old-time music.

"Not everyone has the level of conviction I feel like I was born with having to (maintaining those traditions), playing ancient, timeless melodies that were here before me and will be here long after me," says Waldon.

She immediately laughs. It's an almost self-conscious tick that repeats throughout the conversation.

It's a reflex tied to what she describes as life and road-worn "experience and hard-earned wisdom" that makes an artist feel "crazy" to undergo the "consistent, determined sacrifices" required to balance maintaining sanity and a career and, hopefully, achieve some level of progression, too.

'There's Always a Song'

Related to that progression, the great value of "There's Always a Song," an album of covers by peerless talents, is that it sharpens the metaphorical raw edge that emerges when the contrivances of Music Row and the belief that pop stardom is a Spotify click away are removed from the recording of an album.

Goodman and Waldon's collaboration on A.P. Carter's "Hello Stranger" sounds like a timeless shout down into a holler. Amanda Shires' pairing on Bill Monroe's "Uncle Pen" continues the song's flexibility and resonance for multiple generations. Similarly, Price with Waldon on Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys' bluegrass classic "Traveling the Highway Home" sounds as hard-driving and rambunctious as its forebear.

Collaborating with great friends on comfortable songs yields honest output. As Waldon says, "If the whole world goes to hell, we still have the music."

That music is meant to be a breath of fresh air for audiences that have been pushed an almost never-ending stream of underground-to-mainstream aimed roots musicians by playlist creators and tastemakers in the past half-decade.

Waldon feels that offering a show of gratitude to artists like those previously mentioned — namely, the women involved in the making and in some cases, re-making of the album's source material — allows for the discovery and reviving of voices critical to contextualizing modern-day conversations about legendary sounds and styles.

Authentic soulfulness forged by collaboration and inspiration

"I didn't think I was a good singer; I was just singing to write my songs," says Waldon, whose self-effacing nature isn't meant to hide anything.

Instead, "There's Always a Song" allowed her to learn that her gift was tied more so to her unique ability — similar to every artist mentioned, both classic and current — to embody her soul's honesty.

She describes arriving at a point where she feels in full emotional ownership of her art as overcoming the self-doubt that results from making a release every 18 months for 17 years and assuredly feeling both pressure and burnout as a result.

"I don't think that I'll ever believe that I've made it, because that would mess up all of the humility I've learned from (the struggles) I've been through," Waldon says.

She adds a humble note that unifies the moment, the album, her collaborators and her inspirations.

"At it's core, as much as music is a lot of damn work, it's also all about singing with your buddies and being inspired by them."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Kelsey Waldon talks new album, country covers and music's soulfulness