Jake Xerxes Fussell Announces New Album & Shares Folk Standard ‘Rock Island Line’

Jake Xerxes Fussell announced a new album, The Old Beloved Path, arriving on September 18 through Fat Possum Records. The folk interpreter from Georgia also shared the lead single, “Rock Island Line.”

Fussell’s sixth album, The Old Beloved Path follows 2024’s When I’m Called. Jake’s touring bassist Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station) produced the record, which was captured in North Carolina.

“As producer, Whiteley fulfilled Fussell’s desire to make an album that was more a document of musicians playing live together in a room, dwelling less in atmospherics and musical elaboration,” press materials noted. “Working together, they intentionally limited their palette – focusing less on all the things a song could be, and honing in on the essential.”

“For people in the folk music world, songs are their religion,” Fussell stated. “But traditional music is not a bee stuck in amber. I tend to think of everyone who plays traditional music as being on a spectrum from conservative to wildly creative. I am somebody who tends to sit on the edge of those two worlds. I don’t always present these songs in a historical context. I have to relate to them personally. I approach these songs through my own worldview.”

Contributors on The Old Beloved Path include Dominic Billett, Isa Burke, Wayne Horvitz and Ken Whiteley.

The record is previewed with lead single “Rock Island Line.” Along with being an American folk song captured by famed folk documentarians John and Alan Lomax, “Rock Island Line” was famously sung by Lead Belly. After hearing Lead Belly’s version, British musician Lonnie Donegan recorded it, sparking the skiffle craze in England, out of which The Beatles and other British invasion acts emerged.

Preview The Old Beloved Path with “Rock Island Line” below:

The Old Beloved Path Tracklist:

1. No 1
2. Rock Island Line
3. Every Time I Go to Town
4. Rosin Some
5. Boney
6. Early Early in the Spring
7. Boll Weevil
8. Sandy Land
9. Of All the Beast-es in the World