featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
October 13, 2026
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
IF YOU ONLY LiSTEN to ONE RECORD THiS WEEK
On the closing number on her sixth album, A Mile South Of Heaven (New West), Jess Williamson tells a story about "The Gem and Mineral Show". I am a tourist here, she sings, I come and I go. As she relates it, it came to her attention that Jack Antonoff really really liked her 2024 song, "Hunter". Reaching out to the uber-producer, Williamson was invited to the year's Grammy afterparty, where she rubbed sequined shoulders with a who's who of the industry (including, of course, Taylor Swift): With the queen of americana / Sipping champagne at the Chateau. At some later date, the singer was driving through Terlingua, Texas, where she stopped by a gem and mineral show, rubbing camouflaged shoulders with the locals. Upshot: Jess Williamson questioned her belonging both beneath the blinding lights of LA and in the dusty parking lot of small town Texas.
That pivotal 2024 album, Time Ain't Accidental, was structured around the dissolution of a long term relationship, one that found her making that long trip between California and Texas. Produced by Brad Cook, the project was released following her collaboration with Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) under the Plains moniker. Both records chronicled Williamson's artistic journey to devote an increasing amount of her indie-folk sound to roots music influences. Even with its programmed percussion and atmospheric textures, Time spoke clearly to this trend, and hinted both musically and thematically at the direction of her follow-up.
Produced by Shooter Jennings, A Mile South Of Heaven presents Jess Williamson fronting a band of consummate country and roots professionals, including The Mastersons (Chris Masterson on guitar and Eleanor Whitmore on acoustic guitar and mandolin), bassist Bonnie Whitmore, Jamie Douglass on percussion, and pedal steel and dobro from John Schreffler. Musically, the collection is poised with one boot each in LA and Texas, equally literate in both expressions. The opener, "Goodbye To All That", immediately strikes this balance, placing Williamson's sweetly accented voice further forward in the mix than we'd heard to date. Inspired by Joan Didion's essay of the same name in which the author weighed her decision to leave New York for California, Williamson seems poised at the brink of her own decision: Goodbye to the dreamers, the poets and their songs / I'm afraid there's so much that I still haven't done. Schreffler's pedal steel, so central to the vibe of Mile South, speaks to expanse and distance. "Hum Of the City" adds Shooter's Hammond to the fabric, in addition to Eleanor Whitmore's sturdy fiddle and Chris Masterson's banjo: I've been running out of reasons to stay, the singer notes.
Both Brad Cook and Shooter Jennings have established themselves as central craftsmen of the current americana sound, even as their expressions are quite different. On "Hum" and elsewhere, Jennings leans into the warmth of a live studio tone, clearly outlining the sound of each individual instrument. Williamson sings, Just play some old country music / Where they find true love / Or lose it, and come back home to everyone they missed. On "High Heels and Blue Jeans" she beckons for the simplicity of a night on the town with friends. Much of the new work is set in the cab of a truck, as portrayed on the album's jacket - if Williamson is equally uncertain about belonging in either locale, she finds her groove in the space between: Now I got a little money, there's gas in the car / And I can drive alone for days / Honey, it's an art.
It's there in the balance that Jess Williamson decides to remain. She finds a resolution in both/and, as opposed to either/or. As we've learned across her previous work, she is well grounded in mysticism. The writer who claimed I see God in everything recognizes that belonging can rely upon perspective. although some Alice Coltrane / On the floor by the fireplace doesn't hurt. Williamson's transition from her earlier sound to the California-by-way-of-Austin of A Mile South Of Heaven seems more of a natural evolution than her friend Waxahatchee's leap into her own pickup. "Legends Die" presents a fine example of Williamson's suitability for the roots setting, so ably suggested by Jennings and his players: Bring me flowers / Pour me wine, and trust that the rest will apparently take care of itself.
--------------------------
