Blog

  • Jesse Welles – Live at Farm Aid 40

    Jesse Welles – Live at Farm Aid 40

    Jesse Welles performs at Farm Aid 40 in Minneapolis at Huntington Bank Stadium, on September 20, 2025. Learn more about Farm Aid’s 40th anniversary festival at https://farmaid.org/2025Farm Aid’s mission is to build a vibrant, family farm-centered system of agriculture in America. Farm Aid artists and board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews…

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  • Jesse Welles plays Stephen Colbert

    Jesse Welles plays Stephen Colbert

    Viral musical sensation Jesse Welles brings his GRAMMY-nominated political folk to the Ed Sullivan Theater for a solo performance of “Join ICE,” a tune from his latest EP, ‘No Kings.’ Keep watching for a bonus song from Jesse Welles and visit his website for tour date information.

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  • New Generation of Folk Protest Singers – NPR

    New Generation of Folk Protest Singers – NPR

    The set-up for a typical Jesse Welles video is simple: the 32-year-old stands in an open field under a string of powerlines, clutching an acoustic guitar. From behind a tousled, curly mop of hair, he stares straight into the camera and starts singing. “If you’re in need of a gig that’ll help you feel big,…

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  • Jesse Receives Four Grammy Nominations

    Jesse Receives Four Grammy Nominations

    Category 45 Best Americana Performance For new vocal or instrumental Americana performance. Award to the artist(s). BoomSierra Hull Poison In My WellMaggie Rose & Grace Potter GodspeedMavis Staples That’s Gonna Leave A MarkMolly Tuttle HorsesJesse Welles 2026 Grammys – Full Nominees Listhttps://www.grammy.com/news/2026-grammys-nominations-full-winners-nominees-list Category 46 Best American Roots Song A Songwriter(s) Award. Includes Americana, bluegrass, traditional…

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  • Live at Thalia Hall

    Live at Thalia Hall

    Jesse Welles – Live at Thalia Hall – Chicago, IL – October 24, 2024 Band Members: JESSE SOLO SET 1 1. The List 2. Join ICE3. Walmart4. Whistle Boeing5. Fentanyl6. United Health7. Cancer8. The Poor FULL BAND SET 1 9. Domestic Error10. Red11. The Great Caucasian God12. Philanthropist13. War is a God14. Certain15. Change Is…

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  • Power of Jesse Welles

    Power of Jesse Welles

    The Divisive Power of Jesse Welles The folk singer will be at the Ogden for a two-night run. Some music critics, like Steven Hyden, really don’t like Americana singer-songwriter Jesse Welles. “It’s all just a pile-up of performatively plain-spoken words over a fourth-rate Woody Guthrie guitar strum, over and over,” Hyden wrote in an anti-Welles manifesto last month.…

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  • Welles Determined Not To Be Yesterday’s News

    Welles Determined Not To Be Yesterday’s News

    Protest singer Jesse Welles is determined not to be yesterday’s news In the 2020 drama News of the World, Tom Hanks plays an itinerant soul eking out a living travelling the post-Civil War West, reading newspapers aloud to crowds. The monologues not only provided information but also amusement, even if the news concerned calamities. “See all…

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  • Live for Live Music Highlights Jesse Welles at Farm Aid 40

    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…

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  • Jesse Welles Interview on CNN at FarmAid 2025

    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…

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  • Jesse Welles feature NPR Weekend Edition

    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…

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  • Farm Aid Bio

    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…

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  • People on Jesse and John Fogerty

    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.

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  • The 2025 Americana Music Honors & Awards

    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…

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  • Jesse Welles Writes Simple Protest Songs But He’s Complex

    Jesse Welles Writes Simple Protest Songs But He’s Complex

    It happened earlier this month the same way it always happens. Jesse Welles was scrolling on his cell at home in northwest Arkansas — Siloam Springs, population 21,000 — when he came across a recruitment ad for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE to most of us). “I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like a great…

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  • Grateful Web Praises Welles’ Truth

    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…

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  • Reviving Protest Song on Rolling Stone

    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…

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  • Jesse’s Interview with Acoustic Guitar

    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…

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  • Jesse Welles Guest on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast

    Jesse Welles Guest on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast

    Jesse Welles appears on Episode 2367 of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Their discussion is a wide-ranging conversation between Jesse and Joe Rogan that touches on music, social commentary, the role of art and creativity, and the business-side of the entertainment industry along with many conspiracy theory rants of Rogan. Jesse reflects on growing up…

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  • Moments of Truth from Relix

    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…

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  • NME Article About TikTik Folk Hero Jesse Welles

    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…

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  • Complete Unknown – Jefferson Public Radio

    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…

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