Fussell announces new album The Old Beloved Path with September release
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Jake Xerxes Fussell has announced a new album, The Old Beloved Path, due for release on 18 September via Fat Possum, and unveiled “Rock Island Line” as its lead single. The news matters because it marks the follow-up to When I’m Called, his fifth album and first for the label, while showing him taking on especially familiar folk material in a way he has generally avoided. Fussell said the song only came together for him after he combined it with lines from an old English nursery rhyme, giving his version a more personal shape.
The album was made in North Carolina with producer Ben Whiteley, who also plays bass, and features contributions from Dominic Billett, Isa Burke, Wayne Horvitz and Ken Whiteley. Its nine-track listing includes “No. 1”, “Every Time I Go to Town”, “Rosin Some”, “Boney”, “Early Early in the Spring”, “Boll Weevil”, “Sandy Land” and “Of All the Beast-es in the World”, alongside “Rock Island Line”. Fussell said he was inspired to record the song after hearing Lonnie Donegan’s version, and the announcement also comes with a run of summer dates ahead of broader North American and European touring in the autumn.
- Jake Xerxes Fussell’s new album arrives on 18 September.
- “Rock Island Line” leads the record.
- The nine-track album precedes autumn touring.
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Jake Xerxes Fussell is a folk musician known for reworking traditional and archival songs into his own arrangements, drawing on old blues, ballads and field recordings rather than writing original material from scratch. He records for the label Fat Possum, and his most recent album was When I'm Called. His work sits within a broader American folk revival tradition that treats old, sometimes obscure songs as living material to be reinterpreted rather than simply preserved.
"Rock Island Line" is a well-known American folk song with a long history of prior versions, including one by British skiffle musician Lonnie Donegan that helped popularise it decades ago. Fussell has generally steered away from tackling such widely recognised songs, preferring lesser-known material, which is part of why a new take from him on this one is notable within his body of work.
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Originally published by Pitchfork as “Jake Xerxes Fussell Lines Up New Album The Old Beloved Path”.