Good conversation can open many doors.
For folk singer Willi Carlisle – who accompanied Tyler Childers on his 2024 Mule Pull Tour and at select shows in Australasia the following year – it was the pair’s musical discussions that led to a collaborative effort on his new double-album with Childers, who made his debut as producer.
Releasing on November 6th, The Universal Bubba was recorded in a New Orleans makeshift home studio, a true DIY effort to document the world’s noble weirdos while experimenting with genre and tradition. The Midwest native turned Ozark enthusiast continues his decade-long career of poetic ingenuity at his most brazen.
Everyone deserves folk music, and Carlisle will not rest until there’s a song for each of them.
Led by a charming fiddle and fingerpicked-banjo duo, “The Mason Jar At the Center of the World” highlights Carlisle’s knack for Appalachian imagery and his intriguing vocal tonality. It rises steadily into a four-on-the-floor choral rhythm, then concludes with a return to the first verse and satisfying instrumental resolution. The lead summer single and first track of the album is a stark reminder that we cannot escape ourselves and that which has created us. In other words: “wherever you’ve gone / buddy, there you are.”
“Gas Station,” the only co-write on the album, arose naturally and was developed on the fly as Childers’ innovative verse vernacular intertwined with Carlisle’s joyful chorus. The rambling country tune advocates for finding identity on the winding road of self-discovery and outside of advised convention. Notably, the September music video released alongside it follows the singer and Muppet-versions of Childers and his band, The Food Stamps, as they experience the tremendous joys of convenience store sustenance on their drive.
The blues-influenced and chorus-sharing sequel to the titular eighth track, “The Universal Bubba, Part Two” acknowledges a hypocritical, modern America and presents an unlikely hero as the cyclical antidote. Described by Carlisle as “somebody who can fix anything, somebody who is good for just about anything,” he explores the Universal Bubba’s impeachable spirit with entrancing narrative prowess. It is a growling anthem that the singer’s breathless delivery builds against an ambient synthesizer and melodic banjo.
Track fifteen, “Old Milwaukee Onestep,” switches gears for the back half of the album with a mid-tempo, experimental jive. The standout component of this arrangement is the accordion that transforms Carlisle’s yodeling pleas into a danceable polka. Its straightforward structure allows such engaging musicianship to shine in this discussion on how desire can feel like doom.
The Universal Bubba empathetically introduces a lovable cast of zany characters in the hopes of expanding the scope of stories included in folk canon. Willi Carlisle is currently on a North American tour in support of the new album through mid-December.
