The Return of Iris DeMent

With a little help from John Prine, Emmylou, David Byrne and Natalie Merchant.

Feb 25, 2023

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books and now writer/director of award-winning films. He was also a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy.

Nice, if unexpected, New York Times interview with Iris DeMent yesterday, as her (rare) new album comes out this weekend. We’ve been fans here since the beginning but like many lost track of her over the past couple of decades. Anyway, here’s the link to that piece, a cut from the new album and some past highlights below. Plus our usual cartooning and reminder that if more people don’t subscribe—for free, no less, and no need to pledge future fee—I will be cutting back the daily posts here soon (have another PBS film to finish). Here is link to home page to view past two weeks of posts.

With John Prine, live, “In Spite of Ourselves.”

Her breakthrough “Our Town,” here with Emmylou.

She became close to Merle Haggard for awhile and wrote this tough, rocking, prescient political song, rare for her, “Living in the Wasteland of the Free.”