Here’s some the best Americana and roots-type music releases for October 23rd, 2026. 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.
Grey DeLisle
Don’t Turn Around (Hummin’Bird Records)
While a lot of artists at the moment are pulling on the 70’s for inspiration, Grey Delisle harks right back to the 50’s and Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lyn territory, with a dash of Lefty Frizzell in the arrangements. The songs are mostly end of relationship songs but she has her way of describing the event without saying it’s over. Delisle has some amazing musicians with her including Stephen McCarthy, Deke Dickerson, Greg Leisz, Chris Scruggs, Tammy Rogers, Murry Hammond, Mandy Barnett and Micky Raphael, all bona fide and authentic 50’s and country aficionados. The whole album has a real warmth to it, like all good authentic country albums should have, and with this being her sixth album in four years I have got some catching up to do, and I hope you will have too. (edited from Get Ready To Rock review)
JP Harris
Shaving A Dead Man (Bloodshot Records)
On JP Harris’s latest release, fans won’t encounter the tough-as-nails twang of albums past. The shadowy country songsmith recently cracked open a time-bound tome of traditional Appalachian music, revisiting a range of old-time tunes that sparked a love within him years ago and informed his artistic baseline from then on. What Harris came away with was a sixth studio album and a brand-new chapter for a centuries-old songbook of more than mere classics: Shaving A Dead Man contains heirlooms, road maps, and reminders for the present day. The repertoire is heirloom, but newcomers to the old-time genre will hear a hypnotic snap & sway in the silvery plunk of JP’s banjo, a spectral, bluesy emotion in McCoy’s fiddle, & songs with lyrics that conjure something mythical, mysterious, and sometimes murderous. (edited from No Depression review)
Also new this week…
Rayland Baxter – True Violet (ATO Records) +
Muireann Bradley – Blackwood Pew (independent)
The Fretliners – When The Kettle Sings (Hook Set Records)
Gary Heffern and Ed Pettersen – Midnight Sons (independent)
Colby T. Helms – One For The Losers (Photo Finish Records)
Pug Johnson – From a Beaumont Bar (Break Maiden Records)
Caroline Rose – Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall (Suck Records)
Josh Rouse – Museums and Women (New West Records) +
Owen Temple – Closer, Says Love (El Paisano Records) +
Coming out soon… Ben Vaughn, Kaitlin Butts, Lydia Loveless, Willi Carlisle, Sam Burton, Jim Kweskin and more!
