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Jesse’s Favorite Award
Grammys aside, name an award or honor you’ve won that means the most to you. I won a race in my hometown. A foot race. It was a 10k in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and I did it last year, around the time I was writing these albums. I spent years abusing my body with drugs,
Folksinger For Our Time
Jesse Welles: A Folksinger for Our Time For centuries, folk music has simply and clearly expressed the lived truths of everyday people, from troubadours in the Middle Ages to gospel songs among slaves in America. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was Woody Guthrie who railed against European fascists and Dust Bowl disasters. In the
Jesse Receives the Bram Stoker Medal for Outstanding Cultural Achievement
Jesse Receives the Bram Stoker Medal for Outstanding Cultural Achievement from The University Philosophical Society of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. The Phil is honoured to present Jesse Welles with the Bram Stoker Medal for Outstanding Cultural Achievement. Jesse Welles is an American singer-songwriter, known for his raw vocal delivery, socially charged lyrics and stripped-back performances
Singing for Truth and Justice
Jesse Welles Sings Out for Truth and Justice Jesse Welles is being hailed as the new voice of a generation and his milestone tour stop at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore Auditorium shows why. Jesse Welles is having a dream year for a musician in 2025, rocketing to stardom in a way that makes him seem
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
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.
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,
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
