Willi Carlisle Announces New Album, Winged Victory for June 27 with First Single 'Work is Work'
By Jof Owen
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The word "timely" often feels hackneyed, but in the case of a new record from Willi Carlisle at a time when the world feels like it's falling apart all around us it feels like the only word to describe the return of one of folk music's most life-affirming and brilliantly eccentric voices.
One of Holler's all-time great true loves, the Missouri-based country folksinger has announced his highly anticipated new 11-track album Winged Victory for June 27 via Signature Sounds and given us the first taste of it with 'Work is Work.'
"With 'Work is Work,' I wanted to write a bluegrass tune, and I wanted to try to make a direct address of my own (à la the album's opening cover of 'We Have Fed You All For 1000 Years' written by an anonymous Industrial Workers of the World worker)," Carlisle explains. "I believe that after a certain point of creature comfort and stability, money doesn’t make you happier. So what are we doing with our precious time? I wrote it in a motel room along the Mississippi River. The room was full of bedbugs, and I’d just left New Orleans, a city that seems to be thriving even as it falls into the ocean. I finished the song in about an hour. I want people to know that they aren’t free from the terrible things that work does to people, from the awful transmutation of labor into money, but that the sacrifice isn’t meaningless."
Listen to 'Work is Work' below.
The album follows 2024’s widely acclaimed Critterland. It's the next chapter in Carlisle’s long-running direct address to the hope that by understanding our collective suffering we might be free of it. He is intent on creating art and a well-rounded life in a broken world.
His fourth studio album is Willi Carlisle’s first self-produced and it both indulges a few of his wildest dreams (including a version of Richard Thompson’s “Beeswing,” among several traditional folk song covers), and feels like the inevitable sequel to Critterland’s charismatic menagerie of chaos. Though occasionally raunchy, and routinely provocative, Victory is not afraid to make a spectacle for the sake of a point. Victory should be understood as a reflection. It revels in the beauty of tiny, monetarily-worthless moments and things, offering with them a consideration of our innate humanity.
“These songs feel poised on the edge of the apocalypse, or at least at the beginning of a great transformation in America,” says Carlisle. “During this borrowed time, the weirdos, cowboys, and dreamers in these songs dare to love, and often pay for it with blood.”
Winged Victory Tracklist:
1. We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years
2. Wildflowers Growin’
3. Winged Victory
4. The Cottonwood Tree
5. Cryin’ these Cocksucking Tears
6. The Cottonwood Polka
7. Work is Work
8. Sound and Fury
9. Beeswing
10. Big Butt Billy
11. Old Bill Pickett
“A good folk music response to the troubles of the First World is saying ‘what are the little things that we can do … where can we move the needle?’” Carlisle explains.
In celebration of the release, Carlisle will tour extensively across the United States this fall with 42 new headlining shows announced today. He is also touring in the UK and Netherlands this summer and appearing at multiple upcoming Folk Festivals, including FreshGrass, Winnipeg, Mariposa, Calgary, Canmore, Blue Ox, and more, in addition to an opening slot for multi-GRAMMY Award-winning folk artist Sierra Ferrell in Edmonton.
Please see below for full tour details.
April 3 — Norfolk, VA @ The Annex
April 4 — Charlotte, NC @ The Evening Muse
April 5 — Charleston, SC @ The Charleston Pour House
April 8 — Decatur, GA @ Eddie’s Attic
April 9 — Decatur, GA @ Eddie’s Attic
April 11-13 — Saint Augustine Shores, FL @ Gamble Rogers Folk Festival
April 13 — Tampa, FL @ New World Music Hall
May 16 — Bentonville, AR @ FreshGrass
May 31 — Thetford, UK @ Red Rooster Festival
June 1 — Forest Row, UK @ Hop Yard Brewing Co.
June 2 — Bristol, UK @ The Louisiana
June 3 — Manchester, UK @ Night & Day Cafe
June 4 — Chester, UK @ St. Mary’s Creative Space
June 5 — Newcastle upon Tyne, UK @ The Cluny
June 6 — Brighton and Hove, UK @ Alphabet
June 7 — London, UK @ The Lexington
June 8 — Arnhem, Netherlands @ Luxor Live
June 11 — Haarlem, Netherlands @ Patronaat
June 12 — Middelburg, Netherlands @ De Spot
June 13 — Groningen, Netherlands @ Aa
June 14 — Utrecht, Netherlands @ TivoliVredenburg
June 28 — Eau Claire, WI @ Blue Ox Music Festival
July 5-6 — Orillia, ON @ Mariposa Folk Festival
July 10-13 — Winnipeg, MB @ Winnipeg Folk Festival
July 22 — Edmonton, AB @ Winspear Centre*
July 24-27 — Calgary, AB @ Calgary Folk Music Festival
July 27 — Salmon Arm, BC @ Salmon Arm ROOTSandBLUES Festival
August 2-4 — Canmore, AB @ Canmore Folk Fest
August 23 — La Crosse, WI @ Great River Folk Festival
September 4 — Tulsa, OK @ The Vanguard
September 5 — Little Rock, AR @ The White Water Tavern
September 6 — Little Rock, AR @ The White Water Tavern
September 12 — Washington, DC @ Union Stage
September 13 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry at The Fillmore
September 15 — New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
September 17 — Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
September 18 — South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Showcase Lounge
September 19 — Portland, ME @ SPACE Gallery
September 20 — Saratoga Springs, NY @ Caffe Lena
September 22 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Café and Music Hall
September 23 — Rochester, NY @ Flour City Station
September 24 — Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
September 26 — Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s
September 27 — Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
September 28 — Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
September 29 — Wisconsin Dells, WI @ Showboat Saloon
September 30 — Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line
October 2 — Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads
October 3 — St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall
October 16 — Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
October 17 — Laramie, WY @ Gryphon Theatre
October 18 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The State Room
October 21 — Boise, ID @ Shrine Social Club
October 23 — Spokane, WA @ District Bar
October 24 — Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
October 25 — Vancouver, BC, Canada @ Fox Cabaret
October 28 — Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
October 30 — San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
October 31 — Mariposa, CA @ The Grove House
November 1 — West Hollywood, CA @ Troubadour
November 2 — Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy + Harriet’s
November 3 — Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
November 5 — Arenas Valley, NM @ Whiskey Creek Zocalo
November 6 — Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
November 8 — Fort Worth, TX @ Tulips
November 9 — Austin, TX @ Antone’s Nightclub
November 18 — Birmingham, AL @ Saturn
November 19 — Knoxville, TN @ Bijou Theatre
November 20 — Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
November 21 — Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle Music Hall
November 22 — Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
*with Sierra Ferrell
Winged Victory by Willi Carlisle is released on June 27 via Signature Sounds
