We got another good one, folks.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: The best country music isn’t coming out of Nashville right now, it’s coming out of Appalachia. Artists like Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Emily Scott Robinson, Charles Wesley Godwin, Kelsey Waldon, Sundy Best… I could go on and on.
Well it may be time to add Logan Halstead to that list too.
I’ll admit I just discovered Logan recently after seeing his videos posted on Reddit, but holy shit, this kid is GOOD.
At only 17 years old, Logan hails from Boone County, West Virginia – home of Jesco White, coal mines, and…not much else. He’s got a sound and songwriting ability that’s eerily reminiscent of guys like Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan, in the best possible way.
After doing a session with RadioWV, Halstead’s song “Dark Black Coal,” a haunting look at life for many who work in the coal mines of southern West Virginia, has already racked up almost half a million views on YouTube.
And he talked about that song with our friends over at Hippies and Cowboys:
“Man, I wrote that song just based on my experience growin’ up in these parts. You know what I mean? Growing up here, you really do feel trapped sometimes. You feel like there’s no escape.
Like you don’t have nothin’ but coal mines and drugs. You have to drive 30 miles if you want to work at a damn Kroger or something like that. There’s nothing here. So the coal mine is all we got.
It’s a love/hate relationship with the mines, it really is. That song is really about that experience growing up, that trapped feeling.”
Here’s another song from that same session with RadioWV, “Far From Here.”
And here’s Logan covering a song from (who else) Tyler Childers, “Pray Over the Moonshine Still.”
Hot DAMN.
It doesn’t look like Logan’s music is on Spotify yet, but according to his interview with Hippies & Cowboys, it sounds like he may be working on a full-length album soon.
And if it’s as good as these songs, I can’t wait to listen.
Appalachia just keeps on cranking out these incredible country singers. And as a native southern West Virginian myself, I couldn’t be happier about it.