ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
November 24, 2019
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

FAVORiTE SONGS of 2019

I've never actually tried to count the number of records I've added each year, let alone tally how many songs land on our ROUTES-cast playlists. Even more elusive is trying to pin down what magic combination of lyric, tune and arrangement keep a song resonating from week to week, landing ultimately on our end-of-year favorites list.  There was a recent year when it dawned on me that most of my favorite songs fit snugly into a certain chord progression ...  Nevertheless, I prefer to think I'm far more complicated than that, driven by romantic and mysterious forces beyond our knowing.  Or what have you.

What I do know is that these are some pretty good songs.  Some are from records that will turn up on our favorite albums list on December 8, while others are outliers from projects that might not have resonated too deeply with me as a whole.  They're not in any specific order, though if pressed I'd have to say Brittany Howard's "Stay High" might take the top spot for me.  That besides the fact that, having seen the video a couple times, I have a hard time hearing the song without conjuring a mental picture of Terry Crews ...  Here's a stab at my 5 favorites:

Brittany Howard, "Stay High"
Yola, "Faraway Look"
JS Ondara, "Saying Goodbye"
Fernando Viciconte, "I Don't Know"
Leo "Bud" Welch, "I Come To Praise His Name"

But no review today, no wordy appreciation of a new record.  I'm already prepping next week's favorite albums list, and that takes a bit of time and includes a lot of words.  So make yourself a pile of toast and a pot of thick sludgy coffee, open up your Spotify, and enjoy some of the most worthy music of the past dozen months.  As always, feel free to share your own favorite songs via comment or emailed to routesandbranches@gmail.com


- Matt Woods, "Hey Heartbreaker"  Natural Disasters  (Lonely Ones, Jun 28)
- Strand of Oaks, "Ruby" Eraserland  (Dead Oceans, Mar 22)
- Alexa Rose, "Borrow Your Heart" Medicine for Living  (Big Legal Mess, Oct 4)
- JS Ondara, "Saying Goodbye" Tales of America  (Verve, Feb1)
- Joshua Ray Walker, "Canyon" Wish You Were Here (State Fair, Jan 25)
- Sturgill Simpson, "Make Art Not Friends" Sound & Fury  (Elektra, Sep 27)
- Have Gun Will Travel, "American History" Strange Chemistry  (MBurke, Jul 12)
- Steel Woods, "Rock That Says My Name" Old News  (Woods, Jan 18)
- Blank Range, "Change Your Look" In Unison  (Sturdy Girl, Feb 1)
- Anna Tivel, "The Question" The Question  (Fluff & Gravy, Apr 19)
- Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster, "Take Heart Take Care" Take Heart Take Care  (Big Legal Mess, Aug 30)
- Caroline Spence, "Long Haul" Long Haul  (Rounder, May 3)
- Chris Knight, "I'm William Callahan" Almost Daylight  (Drifters Church, Oct 11)
- Ags Connolly, "I'll Say When" Wrong Again  (Finstock, Nov 1)
- Kelsey Waldon, "Kentucky 1988" White Noise/White Lines  (Oh Boy, Oct 4)
- Shovels & Rope, "Carry Me Home" By Blood  (Dualtone, Apr 12)
- Leo Bud Welch, "I Come To Praise His Name" Angels in Heaven Done Signed My Name  (Easy Eye, Mar 8)
- Larry & His Flask, "Full Time Job (Do What You Want) (demo)" Everything Besides  (Xtra Mile, Jul 19)
- Fernando Viciconte, "I Don't Know" Traitors Table  (Viciconte, Jun 21)
- Whippoorwill, "Eventide" Nature of Storms  (Whippoorwill, Nov 15)
- Felice Brothers, "Special Announcement" Undress  (Yep Roc, May 3)
- Will Bennett & the Tells, "Rabbits" All Your Favorite Songs  (Jewel Boy, Jul 26)
- Luther Dickinson, "Superlover (feat. Birds of Chicago)" Solstice  (New West, Mar 22)
- Daniel Norgren, "Let Love Run the Game" Wooh Dang  (Superpuma, Apr 19)
- Yola, "Faraway Look" Walk Through Fire  (Easy Eye, Feb 22)
- Shane Smith & the Saints, "Whirlwind" Hail Mary  (Geronimo West, Jun 28)
- River Arkansas, "Gone In the Morning" Any Kind of Weather  (River Ark, May 30)
- Angie McMahon, "Slow Mover" Salt  (Dualtone, Jul 26)
- John Moreland, "East October" LP5  (Old Omens, Feb 7 '20)
- Brittany Howard, "Stay High" Jaime  (ATO, Sep 20)


Even though this Episode is dedicated to Songs We Enjoyed More Than Some Others in 2019, we've still be working on stuff to share with everyone as we turn the calendar pages into 2020.  You'll find it all just by clicking A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster.  This week, we found room for the January 17 release of Legendary Shack Shakers' Live From Sun Studio, as well as Gill Landry's Skeleton At the Banquet (Loose, Jan 22).  No better gift for the New Year than Drive-by Truckers' announcement that they'll be sharing The Unraveling on the final day of January.  Been awhile since we heard from Califone.  Their Echo Mine makes its debut February 21 via Jealous Butcher Records.  That same day, we'll be welcoming Bright Lights Long Drives First Words from Nora Jane Struthers.  Finally, save space for Sadler Vaden's Anybody Out There on March 6.  And here's that ROUTES-cast that wraps up our favorite songs for the year: