Blog
Live for Live Music Highlights Jesse Welles at Farm Aid 40
Farm Aid 40 Unites Generations Of Artists: Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Billy Strings, Jesse Welles, More For four decades, Farm Aid has stood as both a concert and a cause. Founded in 1985 at the height of the farm crisis, the benefit has helped support America’s family farmers through recessions, droughts, and floods, reminding us year after…
Jesse Welles Interview on CNN at FarmAid 2025
John Berman: Bill, I know you have a special guest, someone who performed earlier in the day. Bill Weir: That’s right, John. It’s rare to be scrolling through your feeds and find what you think may be the next Bob Dylan. Uh, that is definitely the case. I’m not singular in that observation. Many other…
Jesse Welles feature NPR Weekend Edition
SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Farm Aid will hold its 40th annual concert later today in Minneapolis. The nonprofit was founded by musicians Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Cougar Mellencamp back in 1985 to support family farms across America. One of the newer voices taking to the stage this year is Jesse Welles, a musician whose…
Farm Aid Bio
From the middle ages up to the modern era, society has leaned on its traveling troubadours for truthful commentary on the times. These folks trek from one town to the next, relaying the news, putting pain into words and healing with a little humor. Jesse Welles unassumingly upholds and continues this tradition. Fearless, he reports…
People on Jesse and John Fogerty
The “War Isn’t Murder” singer, 32, tells PEOPLE at the 2025 Americana Honors & Awards that teaming up with Fogerty, the lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival, is an “unbelievable” feat that he will need to take some time to process.
The 2025 Americana Music Honors & Awards
Jesse Welles was honored with the 2025 Spirit of Americana Free Speech in Music Award at the 24th annual Americana Honors & Awards in September 2025, in addition to being recognized as a Lifetime Achievement Honoree by the Americana Music Association. He received the Spirit of Americana Award from the First Amendment Center for his commitment to free speech in…
Grateful Web Praises Welles’ Truth
Jesse Welles Is Singing the Truth. Who Else Will Join Him? Music has always been a compass in dark times. From Dylan and Seeger to the Dead and beyond, artists have held a mirror to power and refused to let lies go unchallenged. Today, as Donald Trump doubles down on authoritarian tactics, mocks science, and…
Reviving Protest Song on Rolling Stone
Can Jesse Welles Revive the Protest Song? With a slew of topical grenades about everything from ICE raids to opiates, the Arkansas troubadour sure sounds like the voice of the Resistance. But he’s not as simple as that It happened earlier this month the same way it always happens. Jesse Welles was scrolling on his cell at…
Jesse’s Interview with Acoustic Guitar
Meet Jesse Welles, Fiery Folksinger on the Rise Welles, 32, is a genuine phenomenon—an internet-era troubadour clearly in the tradition of Guthrie, Dylan, Prine, and Ochs (and Cobain, too), yet also very much of this moment. In some ways the Jesse Welles you’ve likely seen online, the shaggy young folksinger with the sandpaper voice picking…
Moments of Truth from Relix
Jesse Welles: Moments of Truth Midway through Jesse Welles’ recent show at a sold-out Atlantis in D.C., a fan shouted out, “Tell ‘em Jesse!” “Tell ‘em what?” he asked back. “Tell ‘em what they need to hear.” He waited for a beat and cracked a sly smile: “No one asked for this.” The thing is, millions…
NME Article About TikTik Folk Hero Jesse Welles
TikTok folk hero Jesse Welles: “I’m trying to find a through-line that’s honest” NME meets the Arkansas singer-songwriter who’s become a viral sensation by “singing the news”, delivering songs about Gaza, capitalism, tariffs and United Healthcare in bite-sized videos on social media Jesse Welles looks into his phone, fiddling with it for a moment as blue…
Complete Unknown – Jefferson Public Radio
Recordings – Jesse Welles: A Complete Unknown In the academy award winning Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, Timothèe Chalamet, (portraying Bob Dylan) suggests that to truly create something new, you have to destroy the past. The British writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch referred to this as “killing your darlings.” David Lowery of the band Cracker…
Tedium on Waking Protest Songs
The Protest Song Wakes Up A buzzy protest song about the definition of war, timed perfectly to public protests against the Israel–Hamas War, shows that there’s room for social media and protest singers to coexist. Last year, we saw the unlikeliest of pop stars emerge from the backwoods of Virginia with an acoustic-folk turn—a protest song…
Dallas Show Review at KXT
Modern protest singer Jesse Welles blows Dallas away at sold-out Kessler show Jesse Welles is something like a time-traveler. From his 70s-style hair to his poignant songwriting, to his poetic spirit that seems to be timeless—he is connecting people from all walks of life and at every age. Last week, Welles completed his Fear is the Mind…
Battlegound Substack Highlights Jesse’s Folk Songs
A Populist for Progressives Jesse Welles Finds New Life in Folk Songs The stunning success of American folksinger Jesse Welles testifies to the rich afterlife of authenticity. Rather than hammering the last nail into its coffins, as many pundits feared, AI opened the lid. Evidence of this increasingly forceful haunting abounds. Despite the fact that…
Under the Powerlines, Saving Country Music
Why Jesse Welles Just Released a 63-Song Album If you need any further illustration of the creative explosion that Jesse Welles has been the catalyst and accelerant for over the last year or so, appreciate that he just released a 63-song album encapsulating a six month time period between April of 2024 to September of…
Vulture – Will the Revolution Start at a Jesse Welles Concert?
Will the Revolution Start at a Jesse Welles Concert? At a sold-out Bowery Ballroom on Friday night, fans were stressed. They had been reading the news. Drowning in it. They’d made a separate group chat to keep the headlines away from the joy. They were watching Maddow and reading the AP for 20 minutes daily before law…
Jesse Welles Receives 2025 John Prine Songwriter Fellowship from Newport Folk
We are thrilled to announce that our 2025 John Prine Songwriter Fellowship recipient will be Jesse Welles. Founded in partnership with John’s family, the Fellowship celebrates the legacy and impact that John had, and continues to have, on the Newport Folk community. Each year, one songwriter who embodies John’s spirit is chosen as the recipient.…
Jesse Welles in New York Times
Jesse Welles, a Folk Musician Who ‘Sings the News,’ Is Turning the Page The 30-year-old known for strumming his guitar to tunes about hot topics is releasing a new album, “Middle,” that avoids current events. In a small home recording studio on a Monday afternoon in January, Jesse Welles sat with a guitar on his…
