Pony Bradshaw

Similar to his previous two offerings, the tracks on Thus Spoke the Fool feel less like songs you hear, and more like places you go, odes to the land and language of Appalachia, lyrical topographies paying faithful homage to the region where Bradshaw put down roots. The songs are lush with mountain laurel and tobacco leaves, taking listeners to mill towns, American Legions, and Mineral Bluff.

Recorded in part in the sanctuary of an old church outside of Athens, Georgia, Thus Spoke the Fool is a taut,10-song collection, and the third and final installment in a trilogy that began with 2021’s critically lauded Calico Jim. What began as a bluegrass record alchemized during recording sessions in Nashville to create a more hybrid, textured sound, heavy on fiddle and pedal steel.

Beyond any strict genre classifications, however, it’s mountain music that bears witness to a misunderstood region by a songwriter forever contending with the notion of what it means to call a place home.