Sunday didn’t bring quite the glorious sunshine hoped for on the final day of The Long Road 2024 but it was at least dry. First stop was Buddy’s to catch the first part of My Darling Clementine’s set. Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish’s onstage bickering is a key part of the act and had the early morning audience laughing. They played ‘No Heart In This Heartache’ and ‘Going Back To Memphis’.
En route to the main stage I spent a few minutes watching Ciara Mann who had a pure sounding folk voice and was accompanied by a fiddle player. The only full song I caught was ‘Oranges‘ about a breakup. Definitely worth keeping an eye out for on the gig calendar.
Jess Williamson started off the day’s proceedings on the main stage and began her set with a request from one of her biggest fans this side of the Atlantic with ‘Wind On Tin’. As the set progressed you could see more and more people drawn in by Williamson’s captivating sounds and the level of applause rising at each song’s conclusion.
‘Chasing Spirits’ quickly follows with its soaring vocal. Williamson introduces ‘Summer Sun’ by contrasting the weather in her twin homes of Texas and Los Angeles with that in south Leicestershire. Next up we get the closing song from “Time Ain’t Accidental”. ‘Roads’ packs an awful lot in with a rush of emotion at its core.
In 2022, Williamson was half of the award-winning duo Plains whose sole album “I Walked With You A Ways” is a personal favourite. She breaks out ‘Abilene’ from that album to an enthusiastic reception. Next, we get ‘Hunter’ which opens with “I’ve been thrown to the wolves and they ate me raw” but is as much about resilience and taking control.
Williamson brings out her iPhone which she had used during Covid while writing songs for “Time Ain’t Accidental” (2023). The phone contains drum tracks and a couple of instrumental tracks. Plugging it in she closes out the set with three of that record’s songs: ‘God In Everything’, ‘Topanga Two Step’ and the emotional title track leaving the sun in the sky and warmth in the now-grown-quite-big hearts.
Following Williamson on the main stage was Color Me Country All Stars, the revue version of the previous day’s Front Porch takeover. Campaign lead, Rissi Palmer, started things off with her ‘Country Girl’ before she introduced Michael Warren reprising ‘Where She Ain’t’. The next act was Angie K, originally from San Salvador, with her latest single ‘Death Of Me’. Angie K was getting plenty of plaudits form music fans over the weekend and you could see why. Palmer announced that the next artist was from London and out stepped Simeon Hammond Dallas. She’s also been generating plenty of buzz and as she performed a belting version of her latest track ‘Do I Die’ you could see the wow factor in real time. While most of the performers tend to fall in the country soul space, RVSHVD who followed with his ‘Shoe Box Money’ leans more to hip hop. Tiera Kennedy, who performed on Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” was the last performer with an impressive take of ‘Gentleman’ from her 2022 EP “Alabama Nights”.
The set has been short, but it’s been hugely enjoyable and emphasises that when Palmer says “Country music is for everyone!” she means it’s for everyone to develop as well as simply perform it. The message is underlined further when the brings everyone – plus The Bros Fresh – back out for a finale ensemble ‘Let The Circle Be Unbroken’ complete with audience singalong.
That didn’t leave much time to see the end of Dylan Leblanc’s set at Buddy’s. Leblanc seems to be channelling Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the moment while filtering through his own lens and songs. He and the band jammed out on the three performances I managed to see and were seriously impressive, pushing boundaries and engaging the crowd.
Next up at Buddy’s was Texan Vincent Neil Emerson perched on a chair with his acoustic guitar. He started off with Townes van Zandt’s version of ‘Dead Flowers’ and followed it with another cover, Charley Crockett’s ‘Time of the Cottonwood Trees’. Emerson’s style is a drawling vocal over his acoustic guitar fitting the Buddy’s setting nicely. He switched to his own songs with ‘Clover On The Hillside’ and a couple of new songs one which ‘Chipping At The Stone’ addresses the challenges of getting sober.
This sets the pattern for the rest of the set with covers – ‘Cod’ine’, ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, ‘If I Were a Carpenter’ (the latter learned from seeing Rambling Jack Elliot perform it to 10 people in a bar) and his own including new songs ‘Rodeo Clown’ and ‘Rich Man’. The audience was suitably appreciative but in retrospect I’d have preferred a set with fewer covers.
Never having seen Kaitlin Butts before I was unprepared for the star quality oozing from the Tulsa singer-songwriter. Butts’ songs are acutely observed and beautifully delivered while intermixed with great stories and a large dollop of joie de vivre.
She opens with her classic country ‘What Else Can She Do’ before launching a drinking contest to ‘Wild Juanita’s Cactus Juice’ with a suitably raucous audience response. Having taken them to the party, she then darkens the mood with ‘Blood’ a tale of toxic people and the heart-breaking ‘She’s Using’ detailing a friend’s fall into addiction and her reaction to it.
Butts’ lead in to ‘Come Rest Your Head On My Pillow’ managed to weave in a story about Vince Gill, the Grand Ole Opry and a woman wearing a T-shirt with ‘Cowboy’s Pillows’ emblazoned over the chest – Gill appears on the song on her ”Roadrunner!” album. After ‘Marfa Lights’, we get a couple of songs reaffirming her assertiveness as a woman- ‘Other Girls (Ain’t Having Any Fun)’ and ‘That’ll Never Be Me’. Introducing ‘Elsa’, Butts recounts her time playing at a nursing home trying to connect with the residents one of whom – Elsa – was simply gone one week. A real tearjerker, it was co-written with Courtney Patton.
Staying with Buddy’s, the next act on stage was Lola Kirke who found country/americana rather than growing up with it. From opener ‘Karma’ the songs are pleasant enough, but the set really lights up when Kirke is joined by Kaitlin Butts for their duet ‘Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?’.
On the way to see my final full set of the weekend I catch a piece of UK based Australian expat Georgia van Etten‘s set at the Front Porch. Fronting a five-piece band, including a pedal steel player, van Etten’s sound is more suggestive of R&B than country/americana. ‘Deep Black Water’ the title track of her 2021 album sounded good.
Having been blocked out by the massed chairs and trailers at the Interstate stage once too often, I got there early enough to get a decent spot for Flatland Cavalry‘s set. The Lubbock, TX six piece are led by singer and acoustic guitarist, Cleto Cordero but the stars are guitarist Reid Dillon and fiddler Wes Hall. The highlights of the show came when Dillon and Hall let rip either consecutively or simultaneously.
The band started out with a one-two of ‘The Provider’ and ‘Some Things Never Change’ both with a Southern country rock feel. On third song ‘Getting By’, the sound was redolent of Old Crow Medicine Show. After an upbeat ‘Country Is What Country Means To You’ – another of the weekend’s comments on industry tramlines – we got the first of the set’s covers, John Denver’s ‘Thank God I’m A Country Boy’.
Cordero is married to Kaitlin Butts and took us through their times apart from one another with the plaintive ‘Sleeping Alone’. After another cover – Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Landslide’ – Butts joined the band for their duet ‘A Life Where We Work It Out’. Her appearance added a shot of stardust to the set. Once Butts had left the stage, having relieved Cordero of his jacket, the Flatland Cavalry rode off into the sunset with ‘Humble Folks’ and ‘Stompin’ Grounds’ before returning for an encore of ‘Traveler’s Song’.
Although, there was time for the first part of Jake Vaadeland’s set, this marked the end of The Long Road 2024. A lot of great performances and an atmosphere that is as friendly and welcoming as any festival.
The music on the final day was exceptional – this review confirms that.