Sierra Ferrell is the May Queen of American roots music — no matter what month it is. For her summertime stop at the Tiny Desk, the West Virginia native adorned herself in garb befitting Florence Pugh’s star turn in Midsommar, a trail of cloth pansies encircling her eyes. Ferrell, whose 2024 album is appropriately called Trail of Flowers, quickly showed that her finery wouldn’t get in the way of a stellar musical performance; her fiddling in this set’s first song, “I Could Drive You Crazy,” anchored both the band and the entire performance in the technically challenging yet boisterous, bluegrass-meets-old-timey sound that’s made Ferrell a fast-rising star alongside friends like Billy Strings and Zach Bryan. Focusing on the music, only pausing for some whimsical banter about the legendary city of tunnels that lies beneath Washington, D.C., Ferrell showed how her blend of warmth, chops and inventiveness is remaking Americana music.
A former busker who learned roots music during her itinerant 20s, Ferrell shows no fealty to any one style while honoring many in her sparkling, insightful songs. For “Dollar Bill Bar,” she switched to guitar and sang with the sexy ease of a young Bonnie Raitt as Oliver Bates Craven spooled out some Beatles-esque guitar licks. (He and mandolinist Josh Rilko have played with Ferrell off and on since she first wowed Nashvillians a decade ago on hipster nights at the American Legion Hall.) Then the band shifts to a Spanish stroll for “In Dreams,” throws in a bluegrass breakdown, and ends the set with the beautiful “American Dreaming,” a ballad that Linda Ronstadt might have recorded in her early days. No circus hoop descended for Ferrell to grab and levitate — as she did at her last Nashville New Year’s Eve show — but she’d still managed to fill the Tiny Desk with sparkle and joy.
SET LIST
- “I Could Drive You Crazy”
- “Dollar Bill Bar”
- “In Dreams”
- “American Dreaming”
MUSICIANS
- Sierra Ferrell: lead vocals, acoustic guitar, fiddle
- Josh Rilko: mandolin, octave mandolin, acoustic guitar, vocals
- Oliver Bates Craven: fiddle, electric guitar, vocals
- Geoff Saunders: bass, vocals
- Matty Meyer: drums
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Lars Gotrich
- Director/Editor: Maia Stern
- Audio Technical Director: Neil Tevault
- Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Mitra I. Arthur
- Audio Engineer: Carleigh Strange
- Production Assistant: Elle Mannion
- Photographer: Elizabeth Gillis
- Tiny Desk Team: Hazel Cills, Kara Frame, Ashley Pointer
- Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
Copyright 2024 NPR
