Dave Rawlings Machine’s folk roots tour de force, Nashville Obsolete, described by Acoustic Guitar Magazine as a “stark and stunning masterpiece,” will be released for the first time ever on vinyl via Acony Records on June 14th. Recorded on analog tape at Woodland Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, DRM’s much lauded second full length studio album features seven classic David Rawlings and Gillian Welch compositions, including the perennial “The Weekend”, all newly mastered through custom Ortofon amplifiers to a Neumann VMS-80 cutting system then plated and pressed on 150-gram audiophile-quality vinyl at Quality Record Pressing. This deluxe vinyl gatefold edition includes a new lyric insert and fold-out photo collage and is available for pre-order here.
Produced by Rawlings, Nashville Obsolete highlights the brilliant musicianship of David Rawlings and Gillian Welch on lead vocals and guitar, Paul Kowert (Punch Brothers) on bass, Willie Watson on vocals and guitar and guest appearances from Brittany Haas (fiddle) and Jordan Tice (mandolin). Nashville Obsolete is the third album in Welch and Rawlings’ back catalogue to be pressed to vinyl, with more forthcoming. No Depression said of the initial two: “The two most outstanding recent LP releases have to be Gillian Welch’s The Harrow & The Harvest and Soul Journey. They are not just in your living room, you can touch them.”
Recently, Welch and Rawlings performed their song, “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings,” which was nominated for “Best Original Song”, at the 91st Academy Awards. Watch it here. Welch and Rawlings wrote the song for the Coen brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” and it was originally performed therein by dueling gunslingers Tim Blake Nelson and Willie Watson.
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings have recorded 8 studio albums and have lent their talents to countless fellow artists’ recordings. Their rich and remarkable careers span over twenty years, and they are pillars of the modern acoustic music world. Most recently, the pair garnered the Academy Award nomination for “Best Original Song” for their song “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” at the 91st Academy Awards. Gillian Welch was also awarded 2001’s Album of the Year GRAMMY Award for the eight times platinum O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack. She was simultaneously nominated that year for her own Time (The Revelator) which Rolling Stone called one of the best albums of the 2000s. Additionally, 2011’s The Harrow and The Harvest was nominated for the Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Engineered Album GRAMMYs. In recognition of their remarkable career, Welch and Rawlings were honored with the Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting in 2015, the Berklee American Masters Award in 2016, and Welch was awarded University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s prestigious Thomas Wolfe Prize in 2018, the first songwriter to ever receive the award.
Nashville Obsolete Track Listing
- The Weekend -5:29
- Short Haired Woman Blues -6:44
- The Trip -10:56
- Bodysnatchers -5:56
- The Last Pharaoh -3:38
- Candy -4:10
- Pilgrim (You Can’t Go Home) -7:58
