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The birds are chirping behind singer-songwriter Kelsey Waldon, but there’s still some weariness left in her Western Kentucky accent.
A protégé of the late John Prine whose colorful Americana tunes feature equal parts homespun whimsy and earthy wisdom, Waldon just got back from a two-week European tour, and she’s still re-adjusting. With a forced chuckle, she explains how the airline lost her luggage on the first day, and she ended up wearing the same clothes until there was time to buy more. That may sound pretty rock ‘n’ roll, she admits, but dirty socks aren’t exactly glamorous. Luckily, she “ain’t no regular dog.”
“I’m living the dream,” Waldon says sarcastically, before adding “or maybe more like surviving the dream.”
Still, challenges like that are welcome to the star, since they’re evidence her career is back on track after the twin tragedies of 2020. She was riding high at the time, having just released her well-received debut on Oh Boy Records, White Noise / White Lines, when the pandemic shut down her momentum. And much worse, the label’s founder and folk icon, Prine, lost his life to COVID-19. But Waldon has never been the type to stay down long.
“I think we artists are still kind of coming back into this after an extremely hard time, but I feel like I’m in a great place compared to a lot of my friends,” Waldon explains. “I got a lot of time
I needed to look at my career through a healthy perspective, get a little distance on it. I made a lot of life changes, and really I feel like I’m coming into my career with whole new eyes this time – and I feel more ready than ever.” Her fourth record, No Regular Dog, arrives August 12, and according to Waldon, it’s symbolic of the transition she endured, forcing her to see what she was really made of. Written half pre-pandemic while she was climbing the roots- music ladder, and half during the shutdown, the new album features 11 insightful tunes with a modern-classic sound and the hard-earned self confidence that comes from soul-searching questions like, “Can I really keep this life going?”
Looking for authentic answers, Waldon picked Shooter Jennings as producer and recorded in L.A. to get “out of her bubble,” so the whole thing has a bit of a me-against-the-world vibe. “It feels like coming out of something, like we won’t be put down so easy,” she explains. “I am no regular dog, and maybe you aren’t either.” That sentiment comes through right away, with the set’s scrappy title song leading the project. Raised in tiny Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky (yes, that’s really the name), Waldon says she’s often felt like the underdog, and she’s spent years using music to build herself up – because as her father would say, “You’ve gotta be tough if you’re from Monkey’s Eyebrow.” But after the last two years, Waldon finally has enough to pass some along.
“It’s not even a cocky thing to me; it’s more about inherent worth, and true soul confidence,” Waldon says. “It’s like if I can see this in myself, then maybe others can, too.” Think of tracks like “Sweet Little Girl” like a prequel to that “No Regular Dog” confidence, filled as it is with naivete and a lack of direction. The track follows a lost soul in a spiral of self- medication, crisscrossing the nation’s highways in search of her place, and although crowds love to sing along, Waldon admits it’s actually a pretty self-destructive song. Maybe the dark lyrics go over people’s heads ... or maybe we just all recognize that sinking feeling of time slipping away.
“It’s a long journey,” Waldon says. “And we’re all trying to figure it out and find our way home.” Meanwhile, its twangy, fiddle-and-steel sound and ominous, reverb-drenched vocals are indicative of the album’s sound – which wouldn’t feel out of place on a ‘70s era roadhouse jukebox. Waldon says Jennings never once questioned her vision, so the sonics are all her. Just don’t call it a “throwback.”
“I actually hate that word,” Waldon says frankly. “I think I’m a modern country singer- songwriter who has elements of all kinds of music that I’m influenced by, and I really think this album was able to show that.” Eventually, the vibe starts to shift – emotionally, anyway. Having dealt with the loss of a friend and mentor, and the possible loss of her career, Waldon starts to let go of the pain in the tender “Season’s Ending,” which she wrote in honor of Prine. It was the first thing she wrote after his death, occurring when she was finally ready to start living again.
“I couldn’t write for months,” Waldon admits. “I was experiencing quite a lot of grief, to be honest, and then one day I finally sat down at my desk with this line in my head – ‘season’s ending.’ It kind of reminded me of ‘Summer’s End,’ John’s song. And I was thinking about the cyclical process of life. It does go on, and there can be hope. And sometimes things die and then come back and bloom again.”
Still, No Regular Dog never glosses over the struggle, and Waldon says there were times she considered hanging it all up. “Tall and Mighty” lays out the highs and lows, and why she eventually decided to keep betting on herself. “So many people think you’ve gotta be happy all the time, and you don’t,” Waldon says. “I’ve been there. I’ve experienced buzz moments and not-so buzz moments, and you have to look at it in a healthy way. You have to love what you do, because sometimes there’s not gonna be people feeding you all these great compliments.
“I’ve been everywhere, all around the world ... and I’ve cried in parking lots,” she continues. “Things were kind of rough before they got easier, and even when they’re easier, it’s still pretty hard. But you just gotta keep the train moving, and that’s what that song is about.”
These days Waldon is doing just that. Hanging on, pushing forward, remembering her friends, and refusing to be turned away. Because Kelsey Waldron ain’t no regular dog “It feels like the world is collapsing around us in this moment, especially for me as a woman,” Waldron says. “Our role as artists is more important than ever, so I’m just gonna stay creative, and keep doing what I was born to do.”