REVIEW : Sarah McCulloch "Live with the White Knuckle Flyers" • Americana Highways

Sarah McCulloch Live with the White Knuckle Flyers

Sarah McCulloch opens her new live album, Live with the White Knuckle Flyers, with a manifesto of sorts: “Hippie Tattoo” (“I’m a country girl with a hippie tattoo”). It is her way of asserting an independent, countercultural spirit within the country and folk traditions. The Miami native, raised in the remote swamplands of northeastern Collier County, delivers this live album recorded at Temple Beth El in Hollywood, Florida.

Released on August 7, 2026, and recorded a few months earlier in March, these 13 unadorned tracks offer a pure distillation of country music. They embody the genre’s hallmarks without resorting to clichés, evoking everything from the tight harmonies of the Stanley Brothers to the palpable influence of Gillian Welch.

“Back in Them Hills” is a country shindig with hearty harmonica and fiddle and Sarah’s twangy old timey vocals. “Cherokee Rose” is a thoughtful, slow dance waltz bar tune and that moment: “you’re touching my hand the way a man touches a woman.”

“Barely Hanging On” is a song about reflecting on how we barely survived our younger days and the harmonies are trilly and thrilling. “Sugartown” is a nostalgic number about growing up with someone: “I heard your daddy died and your mama moved away, I keep up on you from a distance, I’m still growing up and learning how to stay between the lines, and I can’t help to think of you sometimes.” And then, the heart of it: “I moved on, you stayed behind, still somehow that don’t feel right.”

The band—featuring Savannah Bickerstaff and Jim Bickerstaff on harmony vocals, Jim Bickerstaff and Raiford Starke on guitar, Stan Geberer on harmonica, William Ellis on bass, and Jonathan Hodge on fiddle—perfectly complements McCulloch’s voice, allowing the songs to remain at the center of the performance. And with all 13 songs written by McCulloch herself, the record feels unmistakably personal.