Sierra Ferrell

One of the brightest young luminaries in roots music today, Sierra Ferrell brings a dose of
beautifully strange magic to everything she touches. Since the release of her 2024 album Trail Of
Flowers (Rounder Records), the West Virginia-born singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist took
home the Artist of the Year and Album of the Year prizes at the Americana Honors & Awards, and
earned four GRAMMY nominations Best Americana Album (Trail of Flowers), Best American Roots
Performance (“Lighthouse”), Best Americana Performance (“American Dreaming”), and Best
American Roots Song (“American Dreaming”). Ferrell has collaborated with the likes of Margo
Price, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Post Malone, and enchanted audiences all over North America
and Europe with her high-spirited and dazzling live performance. On Trail Of Flowers, the Nashville-
based artist expands her sound while deepening the urgency of her songs, often revealing a wealth of
wisdom within her wildly imaginative storytelling.

Her first full-length since Long Time Coming—a 2021 release that drew praise from outlets like
Pitchfork, Paste, Pop Matters, and No Depression—Trail Of Flowers came to life with producer
Eddie Spear (Zach Bryan, Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton) and additional production by Gary
Paczosa (Alison Krauss, Dwight Yoakam, Gillian Welch) and with such esteemed musicians as Chris
Scruggs. In keeping with a musical upbringing that included playing everywhere from truck stops to
boxcars to New Orleans street corners, the album journeys from freewheeling bluegrass to
heartrending old-time music to fantastically gritty honky-tonk and beyond, endlessly changing shape
to accommodate the immense scope of Ferrell’s eccentric musicality. Mainly recorded at Sound
Emporium Studios and featuring guest appearances from singer/songwriters Lukas Nelson and
Nikki Lane, Trail Of Flowers ultimately fulfills her longstanding mission of making music that
transcends all barriers of time. “I wanted to create something that makes people feel nostalgic for
the past, but excited about the future of music,” Ferrell points out.

Instantly proving her extraordinary capacity to merge timeless musicianship with lyrics exploring
modern concerns, Trail Of Flowers opens on “American Dreaming”: a world-weary yet soul-stirring
track that speaks to the struggle to build a good life in a culture consumed by capitalism. Another
song informed by her singular outlook on the modern world, “Fox Hunt” takes the form of a
furiously stomping epic driven by galloping rhythms and some feverish fiddle work from Ferrell. On
“Rosemary,” she delves further into her old-time roots and delivers the album’s most haunting
moment: a stark but spellbinding story-song graced with a few bars of soulful yodeling. A
profoundly gifted vocalist, Ferrell often captures an entire world of feeling in just a single line,
particularly on tracks like “Dollar Bill Bar”—a swinging but wistful number on which she cycles
from longing to regret to devil-may-care attitude with impossible ease. And on “I Could Drive You
Crazy,” Ferrell serves up one of the most joyful moments on Trail Of Flowers, sharing a harmony-
fueled and singalong-ready love song that’s both self-effacing and gloriously fun.

In selecting a title for her latest body of work, Ferrell chose to reference her deep love of flowers
and affinity for surrounding herself with gorgeously colorful blossoms—a perfect reflection of her
wondrous inner world. As a listening experience, Trail Of Flowers provides a similar sensation of all-
enveloping and off-kilter beauty—one that Ferrell hopes might lift others into a more charmed state
of mind. “I’m just trying to put words and melodies together and build it into something people can
pour their feelings too, all their happiness and sorrows, so that it changes their reality a little bit and
gives them some comfort,” she says. “To me music is like medicine. And whenever I write a song
and it feels healing to me, I know it can heal other people too.”