Joan Shelley - Real Warmth (No Quarter) [Folk]

The Slow Music Movement
1 day ago
3 min read

*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's October 16th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

The cover for Joan Shelley's Real Warmth album, showing a surreal landscape with a bear by a river, vibrant flowers, a ship, and moon phases overhead. Text reads “Joan Shelley: Real Warmth.”

I almost didn’t include the Joan Shelley album as I had that nagging feeling again that she’s well known enough already and her sound is a touch too straight ahead, but damn she does what she does well. Incidentally and just for a bit of folk gossip, I found out in my quick research that she’s also the partner of Nathan Salsburg who you might remember from the last newsletter, now there’s a thing.

Originally from Louisville, Kentucky and now residing in Michigan, Real Warmth is, alongside numerous collaborations and side gigs, her ninth consistently fine album in a fifteen year long career, hence that aforementioned popularity I guess - the cream always rises, especially with such a solid work ethic to back it up. I first came across her with 2019’s stripped back yet resonating When The River Loves the Sea, before I dived back into more backroom folk folds, but I’ve returned from the roots music gloom and am smitten once more.

Close-up of folk artist Joan Shelley with windblown hair, wearing a blue jacket. She looks calmly at the camera with a blurred dark background.

Real Warmth is a fuller bodied affair than normal. Recorded in a snowy Toronto last winter, it enlisted the likes of hubby Nathan, Ben Whiteley on Production alongside local musos and mates, Matt Kelley, Karen Ng, Philippe Melanson, Doug Paisley, Tamara Lindeman, Ken Whiteley and Talya Bloom Salsburg, most of whom I’m guessing, not that you’d know it by listening, probably never worked with Shelley before; a testament to Whitely’s sensitivity and production prowess.

I was also immediately sold by the album opener, “Here in the High and Low” with it’s propulsive drums and vintage folk rock fusion vibes to it, which also sets a nice loose feel to the album, something cemented by the jazz sax licks threading through the following folk strummer, “On the Gold and Silver“. Folk jazz? Yes Please. I guess it’s Mr. Salsburg, but make sure you also marvel at the free wheeling acoustic guitar picking on the gentle but cavernously deep, “Field Guide to Wild Life” - it’s heavy.

It’s not just the musicians going deep here either. Under Shelley’s sunny side of the street vocal warmth, the topics of home, communities split apart for political ends, motherly concerns, the upper echelons of humanity’s inhumanity and that largely and oddly overlooked topic of the earth’s destruction all get a look in. Wisely she doesn’t throw her worries in your face, she’s far too poetic for that, but peel back the blankets which make this album so comforting and you’ll discover a body chilled by 2025’s news cycle.

And so the album continues along its balmy, free spirited way. Check out the meandering nursery rhyme-like course of, “Wooden Boat”, the slide guitar infused country intimacy of “For When You Can’t Sleep“, the distinctive percussion and lightly stoned contemplation of “Ever Entwine“, the vocal forward “The Orchard” and Shelley at her most intimate on the album closing “The Hum”; there’s much to enjoy. So get out of the car and hop on the bus where you’ll be well entertained, and cautiously warned, whilst hearing how to resist and thrive. There is strength in numbers, and comfort in community.