Notes From The 2025 Annapolis Songwriters Festival: A Haimish Haven for True Listening Annapolis isn’t the sort of town where you usually see folks with guitar cases on the sidewalk. For most of the year, pink polo shirts far outnumber black T-shirts, and you’ll spot twenty pairs of topsiders for every pair of boots. But […]
Josh Ritter – I Believe in You, My Honeydew On his eleventh album, I Believe in You, My Honeydew, Josh Ritter isn’t reinventing himself—he doesn’t need to. What he’s doing here is harder: reminding us why belief itself still matters, and why he remains one of the most essential voices in American songwriting. Where his […]
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Emma Swift – The Resurrection Game Emma Swift’s The Resurrection Game follows in the tradition of her heroes, singer-songwriters like Sandy Denny and Marianne Faithfull, artists who transformed personal struggle into compelling music. As Swift’s first album of original material, it represents an important and promising step in her artistic development. Swift herself describes this […]
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Rodney Crowell Airline Highway Before there was Alternative Country, before Outlaw Country, before Americana, there was Rodney Crowell. The veteran songwriter released his debut album, the now-ironically titled Ain’t Living Long Like This, in 1978 — a decade before Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road, two decades before Lucinda Williams’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, and a good thirteen […]
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Abe Partridge and Jack Barksdale Deliver Timeless Musical Truths at Ram’s Head in Annapolis photos by Allison O’Brien/AOB Photos From Woody Guthrie to John Prine, the Americana tradition has thrived on songs that make you think and songs that make you feel. The very best manage to do both. That’s why I chase nights like […]
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James McMurtry – The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy James McMurtry has never been one to pull punches, and on The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, he makes it plain: aging isn’t for the faint of heart. While 2021’s The Horses and the Hounds struck a bittersweet tone about growing older, his latest […]
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Photos of John Moreland and Ramsey Thornton by Alison O’Brien, AOB Photo John Moreland Sad Songs and Quiet Salvation Ram’s Head Tavern / Annapolis, MD May 7, 2025 “We’ll open up old wounds in celebration / If we don’t bleed, it don’t feel like a song,” John Moreland sang midway through his stunning set at […]
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David Ramirez All the Not So Gentle Reminders David Ramirez has long occupied a distinctive corner of the Americana world—somewhere between the confessional poetry of Jason Isbell and the cinematic sprawl of Nathaniel Rateliff. On All the Not So Gentle Reminders, his sixth studio album, Ramirez steps further into that lineage, delivering a rich, emotionally […]
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Josh Ritter photos by Allison O’Brien – AOB photos Minotaurs, Mystics, and Melody – Josh Ritter in Annapolis March 12, 2025 – Ram’s Head, Annapolis, MD Some artists step onto the stage. Josh Ritter bursts onto it. Bounding toward the mic, he radiates an infectious energy that never wavers throughout the night. Ritter smiles more […]
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photos by Allison O’Brien / AOB A Master Class in Lyrical Precision and Bare-Knuckle Truth—James McMurtry at The Ram’s Head in Annapolis, MD • March 6, 2025 Last Tuesday night, Donald Trump delivered the first State of the Union address of his second term. Two nights later, James McMurtry took the stage at The Ram’s […]
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