There’s a kind of clarity and calm in Joan Shelley’s music that feels especially welcome in these fractious times. Her crystalline voice, with just a touch of vibrato, glides over soft finger style guitar, with melodies and imagery that seem to spring from traditional folk yet are her own. “Rest up baby, lay back now / Here the hands, here the mouth,” she sings in the opening track of her new album, Joan Shelley. “If you were made for me . . . then we’d be home.”
In spite of what its self-titling might suggest, the album Joan Shelley, produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, is not a debut—it is Shelley’s fourth solo release since 2012. She comes from Louisville, Kentucky, and is deeply connected with the music community there, with regular collaborators including Cheyenne Mize and Julia Purcell, with whom she formed the old-timey trio Maiden Radio; singer-songwriters Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) and Joe Manning; and guitarist Nathan Salsburg, her main accompanist these days on record and onstage.
On her breakthrough album, Over and Even (2015), and on Joan Shelley, Salsburg’s guitar lines blend so seamlessly with Shelley’s that the collective sound is like one instrument played by four agile hands. One reason they match so well is a shared love of British Isles folk—in her case, particularly singers such as Vashti Bunyan and Sandy Denny, and in his, guitarists such as Dick Gaughan and Nic Jones .
Where I’ll Find You – Later… with Jools Holland – BBC Two
The Fat Angel Sings 