Jake Xerxes Fussell announces new album, The Old Beloved Path

The North Carolina singer returns two years after the release of When I'm Called, his most recent full-length album of original material. The announcement arrives alongside lead single “Rock Island Line”, a classic American folk song that Fussell has reimagined in his own style.

In the past, Fussell says that he might have avoided “Rock Island Line” because many folk singers had already offered their takes on the song. But after listening to a recording by Lonnie Donegan, he had a change of heart. “The song struck me as very beautiful, but just singing the verses wasn't working for me. I couldn't relate,” he says. “So, I wound up putting it together with an old English nursery rhyme that I had been kicking around. Marrying those two things, I felt like something worked, it felt like a song to me.”

As the son of two artists and documentarians, Fussell grew up in Georgia surrounded by people dedicated to preserving traditional culture and craftways. “For people in the folk music world, songs are their religion,” he states. “But traditional music is not a bee stuck in amber. I tend to think of everyone who plays traditional music as being on a spectrum from conservative to wildly creative. I don't always present these songs in a historical context. I have to relate to them personally.”

The Old Beloved Path was recorded in North Carolina and mixed by producer Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station), the album features contributions from Dominic Billett, Isa Burke, Wayne Horvitz and Ken Whiteley. Fussell and Whiteley intentionally kept things simple in the studio, focusing more on capturing musicians playing live together in a room rather than atmospherics.

“Traditional music gets more intense the older I get,” says Fussell. “The way that I see the world is through these songs. The world of traditional music has been such a gift to me. If nothing else, a lifelong companion.”

The Old Beloved Path artwork

The Old Beloved Path tracklist

“No. 1”
“Rock Island Line”
“Every Time I Go to Town”
“Rosin Some”
“Boney”
“Early Early in the Spring”
“Boll Weevil”
“Sandy Land”
“Of All The Beast-es in the World”