Kelsey Waldon back in the Netherlands in January for one show
Tue 14 Oct 2025In the six years since joining John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, Kentucky native Kelsey Waldon has carved out a reputation for her fearless honesty and unflinching self-reflection. Her new album, Every Ghost, recorded in Memphis with her longtime band The Muleskinners, finds her confronting addiction, grief, and generational wounds — and coming out the other side with grace and grit. “There’s a lot of hard-earned healing on this record,” Waldon says, describing songs that show compassion for both her past self and others who stumble along the way. Whether in “Falling Down,” which faces the ache of addiction, or the tender “Comanche,” inspired by her old 1988 Jeep truck and the emotional miles she’s driven, Waldon’s writing brims with empathy and resolve.
Rooted in the rural roads of Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky, Waldon has learned to find strength in her lineage, honoring both the beauty and burdens that shaped her. She pays tribute to her late grandmother in “Tiger Lilies,” a song that celebrates tradition, resilience, and the idea that “life goes on, beauty can grow from anywhere.” The record closes with a stirring cover of Hazel Dickens’ “Ramblin’ Woman,” a nod to independence and womanhood that mirrors Waldon’s own evolution. Named a Kentucky Colonel and featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s American Currents exhibit, Waldon stands as one of Americana’s truest voices. “True outlaw shit is sticking to your guns,” she says. “I’m not saying I’m unbreakable, but I’ve already hurt the worst I could — and lived to tell the story.”
In January Kesley Waldon will be over for one Dutch show: