Bonnie “Prince” Billy – “In Good Faith” (Feat. Joan Shelley) Video
American roots-music enigma Will Oldham has been keeping himself busy recording music for decades, but he hasn’t released an album of new songs in eight years. But next month, Oldham, using his Bonnie “Prince” Billy moniker, will finally follow up 2011’s Wolfroy Goes To Town with his new LP I Have Made A Place. We’ve posted the truly ridiculous video for the album’s first single “At The Back Of The Pit.” And this morning, Oldham has shared a video for another new track called “In Good Faith.”
Oldham recorded the new album with a band of fellow Kentucky travelers, and he’s got some heavy hitters in there. The singer-songwriter Joan Shelley and the finger-picking virtuoso Nathan Salsburg are in the supporting cast of I Have Made A Place. It’s a slow, tingly, gospel-inflected country song with lovely, lilting backing vocals from Shelley. Oldham and Shelley continue to sound great together; check out Shelley’s “Coming Down For You” for further evidence.
Director Timothy Morton’s video follows Sacred Harp singers — practitioners of the old-time church-music shape-note musical tradition that sounds like absolutely nothing else on Earth — as they go to different congregations around the country. Rolling Stone reports that the footage comes from Movers & Shapers, Morton’s forthcoming documentary about all these Sacred Heart singers coming together for a massive convention. Oldham and Shelley are in the video, and apparently they’ll be in the documentary, too. Check it out below.
I Have Made A Place is out 11/15 on Drag City.