Gillian Welch – “Strange Isabella” & “Mighty Good Book”

Gillian Welch – “Strange Isabella” & “Mighty Good Book”

Gillian Welch has been keeping us fed during isolation. Last week, we got a whole new covers album from her and David Rawlings called All The Good Times and a couple months before that we got the holiday-tied “Happy Mother’s Day.” Today, she’s announcing the release of Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs, Vol. 1, the follow-up to her 2016 double album Boots No. 1: The Official Revival Bootleg — it’ll be out in two weeks. A press release says to expect two more volumes of Boots No. 2 in the months to come, making up 48 unreleased recordings in all.

The songs on Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs, Vol. 1 were written between 2001’s Time (The Revelator) and 2003’s Soul Journey. “We stashed these recordings away years ago. Their shortcomings, real or imagined, technical or compositional, no longer seem bothersome today,” Welch and Rawlings said in a statement. “Hearing them now is like seeing snapshots that captured moments the more formal portraits missed. So here we are hurrying them for release before the next tornado blows the whole shoebox away.”

Today, Welch and Rawlings are sharing two songs from Boots No. 2, “Strange Isabella” and “Mighty Good Book.” Listen to both of them below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Johnny Dear”
02 “First Place Ribbon”
03 “Give That Man A Road”
04 “Mighty Good Book”
05 “Chinatown”
06 “Fly Down”
07 “Shotgun Song”
08 “Apalachicola”
09 “Strange Isabella”
10 “Little Luli”
11 “Valley Of Tears”
12 “Blind On The Inside”
13 “Back Turn And Swing”
14 “Roll On”
15 “Honey Baby”
16 “Here Come The News”

Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs, Vol. 1 is out 7/31 via Acony Records. Pre-save it here.

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