Appalachian-style Folk trio The Down Hill Strugglers will be releasing their first all-original album, and also their first album in seven years, titled Old Juniper, on August 16th, 2024, on Jalopy Records. They’ve also confirmed tour dates coming up.

The Down Hill Strugglers have had music featured in the soundtracks to films Inside Llewyn Davis (starring Oscar Isaac) and Dreamland (with Margot Robbie), and have played The Kennedy Center, Newport Folk Fest, The Library of Congress, Brooklyn Folk Fest, NPR Mountain Stage and more.

Their first album of all originals, Old Juniper, it’s also their first since the passing of band member John Cohen (New Lost City Ramblers).

Formerly on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (under the band name The Dust Busters), The Down Hill Strugglers carry forward the sounds of the old, rural America. Eli Smith, Jackson Lynch, and Shepard harmonize and the band plays an array of instruments, including fiddle, banjo and guitar, as well as harmonica, banjo-mandolin, and old fashioned pump organ.

For the new album, the band “wrote songs that are true to the deep and diverse roots of the old time string band style where they feel most at home but that also reflect the experiences and feelings of the band members living modern lives.”

However, “The Girl I Left Behind Me” is a bonus track that appears on the LP and will be released at a later date as a single. Instead of using the traditional tune, they paired the words with a fiddle tune from Zambia that they heard from an old 78rpm record reissued on the Secret Museum of Mankind series. The album was recorded live to tape with the band playing around one microphone.

The band’s confirmed tour dates:

September 5 – Kingston, NY – house concert

September 6-7 – Hillsdale, NY – Oldtone Music Festival

September 8 – Putnam Valley, NY – Tompkins Corners Cultural Center

September 10 – Durham, NC – house concert

September 11 – Floyd, VA – Floyd Country Store

September 12 – Thomas, WV – The Purple Fiddle

September 14 – Baltimore, MD – The Red Room (at Normals Books and Records)

September 15 – Takoma Park, MD – School of Musical Traditions

September 18 – Louisville, KY – B-Side

September 20 – New York, NY – house concert

September 21 – Brooklyn, NY – Jalopy Theater (with Jerron Paxton)

November 8-10 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Folk Fest