Hailing from New Mexico, roots rock singer/songwriter Michael Rudd has been around for almost four decades since he put a bag of clothes, a manual typewriter, a few notebooks and a guitar in his two-door Datsun and left New Jersey for New Mexico. His solid third studio album, Ways of the World, arrived on Invisible Roads Records (2026). Conjuring the likes of John Prine, Jim Croce and Blaze Foley, this is not your prototypical americana record. Instead, it’s a widely spun tapestry of colored lands where curious eyes and hearts roam. Songs like This Life Is Made for Me and The Water should become bedrocks of contemporary playlists.
Some of the songs were written as a direct response to his cancer diagnosis, which came a week after the recording session for the last album was done. In 2023, he began hearing songs in his sleep that would wake him up in the middle of the night. Perhaps the cancer or ageing had something to do with a fertile period, but whatever the cause, his fourth album, already recorded, will be released in late 2026, and his fifth, already written, led him back to the studio in February 2026.
At the centre of it all remains Rudd’s particular way with a lyrical narrative, which careens through the record and you can’t help but become awed by. Rudd writes and sings about people looking for meaning, searching for understanding about who they are and how they arrived at this moment in time, and seeking some kind of transcendence or even a small truth as they navigate the moments of their days. The album is without filler and rings in like portraits of lived experience. The honest, warm storytelling is sure to gain him a few more fans.
For his AUK Mini-Gig, Rudd is playing two guitars – the first a restored Silvertone that he bought from Stay Gold Guitars in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “It was made sometime in the early 1960s and sold in a Sears Roebuck catalog,” he related. “I have no idea how many owners it’s had over the years or how many miles it’s traveled, but I’m sure it’s seen a lot. The other guitar is the one I play the most. I bought it new from Iris Guitars in Burlington, Vermont. I fell in love with it the moment I held it.”
Rudd recorded the video at Frogville Studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “It has been my home away from home for the last two years,” he noted. “But for this project, we used a part of my bedroom. No real reason except the light and the space felt right.” He is playing with his son, Gabe, in their first public-facing collaboration. “He doesn’t usually play the kind of music that I write, but he feels all kinds of music, so it worked out well. He’s an accomplished instrumentalist and songwriter who has written too many songs to count, which he houses on his YouTube channel.”
Rudd supplies notes for the three songs on the video; This Life is Made for Me and The Water are on Ways of the World, and Before the Demon Came is on Going to the Mountain (2025). Fans eager to experience the songs that came fast and furious to Rudd and to hear them live should keep an eye on his website and socials: Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube – for tour date announcements.
- This Life is Made for Me: is the story of a person who overcomes the abuse and controlling behavior of another to claim her life as her own. She recognizes that she will be forced to reckon with the aftermath of the relationship for a lifetime, but she knows that the price is well worth paying. The writing of the song was inspired by many that I know, even people my age, who are still dealing with the legacy of experiences from their childhood.
- Before the Demon Came: is, in its way, a true story of when severe mental illness suddenly strikes like a flash of lightning, effectively changing that person into someone else. There is before the demon, and then there’s after. Unfortunately, I’ve had family and friends who have been forced to confront the moment it arrives and after.
- The Water: is one of my most personal songs. It’s filled with metaphors, and the few facts it offers do not represent my literal life (my mother did not tell me that I would be all alone), but its theme of struggling to make sense of the world, of desperately searching for a path forward, and of seeking redemption and clarity and peace pretty much sums up my inner world for the last 50 years.
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