Here’s some the best Americana and roots-type music releases for May 16th, 2025. Click the artist or album links to find out more. The artist’s names link to their websites and the CD title links go to either Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp or the artist’s site for ordering or downloading. A + sign means although not a featured release, it’s a notable album that’s still worth checking out. Also, this page will be updated as I find out about other new releases so check back again.
Ken Pomeroy
Cruel Joke (Rounder Records)
Raised in Moore, Oklahoma, Pomeroy is Cherokee. Her mamaw gave her a name which means “Little Wolf with Yellow Hair.” Pomeroy started writing songs at 11 years old. She remembers why––and in signature Pomeroy fashion, it’s somehow disorienting and charming, all at once. “I think I wanted to be a songwriter because of John Denver,” she says. Coyotes are all over Ken Pomeroy’s latest album. Not the way they’re all over so many of America’s suburbs, a symbol of how we’ve managed to foul up the environment and drive nature’s creatures from their natural home. On Cruel Joke (the singer-songwriter’s first release for Rounder Records), the canines (along with sheep and wolves, horses and stray dogs) serve as stand-ins for the ways we manage to mess up our own, personal environments, one hurt at a time. (from bio and Americana Highways review)
Also new this week…
Suzie Brown – Songs Worth Saving (Mule Kick Records)
Kat Hasty – The Time of Your Life (Jackie Java Records) +
Sweet Megg – Never Been Home (independent) +
Charlie Musselwhite – Look Out Highway (Forty Below Records)
Christian Rutledge – An Inch Of This New York Mile (Aqualamb Records)
The Talbott Brothers – Borderlands (independent)
The Travelin’ McCourys – One Chord That Rings True (McCoury Music) +
Carolyn Wonderland – Truth Is (Alligator Records)
Coming out soon … Watchhouse, Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’, Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, The Shootouts, Lukas Nelson, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jeffery Broussard & the Nighttime Syndicate, Kelsey Waldon, Shelby Means, S.G. Goodman, North Mississippi Allstars, Tim O’Brien and Jan Fabricius, James McMurtry, The Wildmans, Hayes Carll, Neil Young And The Chrome Hearts, Grayson Jenkins and more!
