Willi Carlisle has a healthy respect for the past. He has modeled the growth of his career, in part, on the folk singers of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, people who traveled a self-made circuit of coffeehouses, clubs and theaters that catered to singer-songwriters.
Pete Seeger, in particular, is someone that he feels kinship toward, though he also looks to contemporary performers for guidance from afar — folks like Tyler Childers (more on him in a moment) and mid-career, touring lifers like Hayes Carll.
Carlisle’s interests go further back than just the ‘50s, as he’s got a collection of banjos that date back to the 1850s. So, yeah, he digs what’s come before.
But he’s also a curiously in-the-now kind of guy.
Take, as one small example, the title video for his latest album, Critterland. He posted a note to Facebook, suggesting that he was looking for someone to create a stop-motion animation video that could capture the mood of the album’s cover, while neatly reflecting the song’s lyrics. The feedback was immediate, useful and employed.
“That nicely says more about what I’m saying,” Carlisle suggested in a recent interview, staking his claim to certain modern conveniences. “I just asked the world of the internet, ‘Do you know any animators?’ And out of the hundreds of bots that also responded, there were two people who reached out and who do exactly that kind of animation, one of whom said she’d love to do it. So as the weeks tore on, I hired a friend (who’s a really good fiddle player), Julie Bates, to make the video. Julie, to her credit, works on a mid-2010s MacBook with a camera that’s 20 years old and she does it all by hand.”
He said Bates’ style is such that the video was done when it was done and that there “was no asking ‘Can you bring up the lighting there a little bit?’ What’s done was done,” he said. “And that’s more pure and interesting to me. Higher stakes, more fun.”
Again, it was a blending of times, influences, styles of working and ways to reach a collaborator.
And speed’s a part of it all, too. Critterland was recorded, Carlisle said, “in three days, with no takebacks.” It’s the kind of record that reflects Carlisle’s musical roots, based in the folk and country idioms of states like Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Illinois, places where he’s hung his hat over the years.
Critterland, from the outside, looks like the kind of thoughtful, unique work that’s going to break the artist behind it to a wider audience. Asked if, with his career in obvious ascendance, he thinks of things in the context of an annual calendar, or an album cycle, or a tour itinerary, Carlisle said he prefers to break things down to the smallest fraction possible.
“I wake up every day, work the hardest I possibly can,” he said. “If it doesn’t all work out, I can try again tomorrow. Some day, some type of clarity of organization may come to me.” Barring that, it’s all about touring as “travel and meaningful encounters with people really drive my writing. I love to practice and I love to play. The only things that kill me are publicity and logistics. Like, I have to go to the post office today. Pretty much everything else, I like. I haven’t had to plan too much as I’ve worked with people who I simply say, ‘Hey, guys, I’m ready.’ And it always works.”
It’s worked to the point that Carlisle’s touring business has grown notably. Maybe he’s had a year with more dates on the books; he’s known to be on the road for 80-90% of his days, making “home” a relative term. But having finished a busy 2024 slate with the usual clubs and festival appearances and some support slots for Childers, he’s now back out on a headlining tour in support of Critterland.
For someone who came up playing house shows, folk halls and corner taverns, the jump’s been kind of wild and awesome for Carlisle, he says. He’s worked hard for it all, of course. The performer is still putting out a quarterly zine, producing videos for pennies on the dollar and playing for all the cool, online channels that’ll have him. While performing live, he still tells stories, lots of them, on all sorts of topics.
There are times when he looks out at an audience and realizes there are a lot more people looking back at him than there were in the not-at-all-distant past.
“The growth has been exponential,” he said. “But the shows haven’t changed much between doing them for 50 people or just 10 people or 20,000. It shouldn’t. It’s my job to give my all and that hasn’t changed very much.”
A pause.
“Maybe I tell a dirtier joke in a smaller room,” he said. “But that’s about it.”
Willi Carlisle plays the Southgate House Revival on March 29 at 8 p.m. Northern Kentucky native Jordan Smart opens the show. More info: southgatehouse.com.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s March 19 print edition.
This article appears in Mar 19 – Apr 2, 2025.