Two-time Grammy-nominated and multiple International Bluegrass Music Association award-winning sextet Sister Sadie returns with All Will Be Well, their boldest and most personal album to date, due out June 27, 2025, via Mountain Home Music Company. The all-female group continues to push the boundaries of bluegrass while remaining firmly rooted in its soul, navigating themes that range from heartbreak to healing. Steve Earle lends harmony vocals on their rendition of “I Wish It Would Rain,” while the album’s emotional terrain spans from the fiery “First Time Liar” to the 90s-soaked defiance of “Prodigal Daughter” to the sweet vulnerability of “If I Don’t Have You.” The album’s centerpiece, “Let the Circle Be Broken,” confronts generational trauma with searing honesty, inspired by fiddler Deanie Richardson’s personal reckoning after the death of her abusive father.
All Will Be Well opens with the track "Winnebago." The lyrics harken back to Molly Tuttle’s Crooked Tree, “Can’t you see a crooked tree won’t fit into the mill machine - They’re left to grow wild and free. I’d rather be a crooked tree.” Sister Sadies summons that familiar listener as they invite you into their musical masterpiece of a composition. “Take me somewhere I can lay low. All good things are wild & free.” Sister Sadie taps into that same wild heart. They let the wheels carry them as far as they’ll go - “Make me a feather on a southern breeze, far is never far enough.” The mandolin climbs canyon walls to see what’s on the other side. This song strides in style with their Winnebago. Inside their time travel tube, there are should be’s, could be's, more than groupies, on the woods seas of stages throughout the nation. So many of these polished versions leave me wanting breathlessly to catch them live on tour, where hopefully these songs will spill into a summer afternoon that stretches well into night.
The second song, “I Wish It Would Rain,” covers a Naci Griffith tune from 1988. Covered by many artists since then, it is no exception to the entire catalog of Nanci Griffith’s storytelling songs. It fits perfectly on Sister Sadie’s lineup of emotional expressions of longing mixed with a little bit of sweet sorrow.
“First Time Liar” follows. Like a Patty Loveless tune with grit, the band confesses and cleanses through their own unburdening song in a sinfully sweet 3 minute serenade of loss and lament. By track 3, we know exactly who Sister Sadie is: sharp, soulful storytellers with voices that cut through the noises and harmonies that hold you in their gaze.
“Make Me Stay or Make Me Go” picks up the pace and dusts off the heartache. They wash their face and get back up after a momentary knockdown with that dirty “First Time Liar” sadness. The track triumphantly returns them to their instincts with perhaps an explanation of why they lied. We’re all armed with a bag full of pretty white lies when the occasion calls for it. “Make Me Stay or Make Me Go” is a breezy summer sing-along song, “Tell me what I want to hear, or please just tell me no. Make me stay or make me go.”
Clamoring for clarity is such a relatable emotion - with a knock out hook?! That is specifically what I am talking about when I rub the genie on catching Sister Sadie perform live. The jammed-out treatment of “Make Me Stay or Make Me Go” is what I wish for when I treat myself to a Sister Sadie show, live, in real life. A jammed out version deserves to stretch beyond its run time.
Fans of Gretchen Wilson, Miranda Lambert, or (I think everyone loves) Shania Twain, you will be particularly fond of the Sister Sadie track, “Devil Don’t Care.” There is serious line dance potential here. I could easily see Shania jumping on stage to share the sisterhood as they all smiled and sang, “They say there’s a reason to this rhyme… The lord ain’t listening and the devil don’t care.” The dirty-get-down-grimy bridge lets up into pure rock n roll riffs. It’s time to blow off some steam with this tune.
Now we’re having fun, and next up is the title track, “All Will Be Well.” Riding over the ridge, no looking back while you spin this track. “Illuminating what I know is true, All Will Be Well. You can ask me how but only time will tell.” This fiddle forward funk anthem of trust and faith is a turning point, centered right in the middle of the album. A deep well of knowing, this tune inspires. It is the beam of sunshine that spills onto your dish washing hands, signaling adventure just beyond the sink. It’s easy to tell why this became the namesake of the album.
From every precipice, we must fall. “Prodigal Daughter” is where the album plummets into that deep well. This is the part of the album that speaks so clearly as we take a turn and dive into it together. Pondering the infinite mystery of life, Sister Sadie keeps the music flowing while adding their signature stamp of femininity. The times, they are a-changin. Tracks like “Prodigal Daughter," “Do What You Want,” “This is Me (You’re Not Talking To),” and the masterpiece, “Let The Circle Be Broken,” really take the listeners into brand new territory.
“Prodigal Daughter” paints the picture of “that kind of girl” betting on the long shot. With natural landscapes violently changing, it speaks to the long-shot girls out there - the ones betting on themselves despite the odds. These gals are tough as nails, but a song like this displays their glass cage, soft as silk. Their softness, their strength, their resilience - it’s all there.
The honky tonk YOLO track, “Do What You Want” follows like a whiskey chaser. It talks about how you’ll never be happy if you don’t do what you want. Whether it’s babies or dreams, the eternal conundrum from women, uniquely understood by women. Do it or don’t, the clock is ticking. Live how you need to live, create what you must - do what you want. (Maybe whenever you want to?)
“This is Me (You’re Not Talking To)” strikes a chord right from the prelude. The quiet gut punch of “All I need from you is to let me know if I should stick around. This silence won’t do. This is me, you’re not talking to.” Tale as old as time, a cry for connection in a world that too often rewards withdrawal, silence can be deadly. Suppressing emotions does not make anything beautiful. “This is Me” is a bare-all of hoping he’ll tell her to go to hell, something, anything, to keep the conversation going. Pleading not to shut her out, this tale from the heart is looking for more heart-to-hearts because we’re all just human after all. We become what we give our attention to.
Let the Circle be Broken
The album’s magnum opus is “Let the Circle Be Broken.” The juxtaposition of secular and sacred in this track is astonishing. Talking about Quiji boards and darkness in their blood in a song from a world that so often included gospel influences. Redemption is a deeply rooted Christian belief, but also one that dogmatic religious folk dole out in very limited quantities.
Will the Circle Be Unbroken is one of the most iconic American Roots songs. It took moxy to rework it and add their voice to a song like that. They stood on the shoulders of giants. Both versions, “Let the Circle Be Unbroken" and Sister Sadie’s “Let the Circle Be Broken," convey hope and unity. Especially in the context of the musical community of humans everywhere that always conspired to uplift and connect.
“Let the Circle be Broken” simultaneously burns the bridge while building a brand new one that will certainly connect to younger generations. The musical family is always alive and thriving when songs like this are being written. This song makes the listener realize that music is healing for both the sender and the receiver. Not many communication modalities these days can be so reciprocal as a song like this is. Like the tide and the shore, we all wash clean and let a little bit go.
“I won’t pay a debt that isn’t in my name.”
“Light some sage, say a prayer, let the ties come untied. Round and round, I won’t go. Take a light. Leave the bones.”
How delightfully pagan! I want to conjure in Sister Sadie’s circle.
Landscapes laid out in sound is what I love best about Americana music. All Will Be Well reaches peaks sonically and lyrically with a song like the next track, “Orphan Train.” It dips you into the echoing canyon, and you can feel the adrenaline and alertness as you travel through the tunnel of a very real story. The song concludes with a deep chill of having a new last name. It’s a deep, enveloping stillness that pushes you out the other side to the next track, “If I Don’t Have You.”
The songs on this album speak to each other, stripping away the complex layers of human emotion. “If I Don’t Have You,” answers back to track #8, “Do What You Want.” Can we really have it all if they don’t have you?
The completion of this composition is the final track, #13, “Can’t Let Go of Your Love.” “Some days I love you so much it hurts,” sings Sister Sadie as the picking party resumes. They pass breaks, and the road goes on forever. The music never stops but I’m damn glad the gals of Sister Sadie took some time to record this pure musicianship.
With All Will Be Well, Sister Sadie has recorded more than just an album - they have bottled a lifetime of truth-telling and trailblazing into 13 tracks. This is music for the long-shot gals, for the dreamers and the doers, the broken and the bold. All Will Be Well will canonize listeners. This touchstone album will firmly plant SIster Sadie’s side of the story into the ever-growing blueprint of blue collar music.
Bravo!
