[Cover photo credit to joshua black wilkins]
Progressive Bluegrass band Sister Sadie has released a new single, “Marlboros in Muskogee”, that lets you in on the experience of being in the band. It’s a “true chronicle of an epic bout of touring” out West from their hometown of Nashville through Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona under a super blood moon, and then driving 30 hours straight back home to Tennessee.
Fiddle player and co-founder Deanie Richardson co-wrote the song with her bandmate, guitarist/vocalist Dani Flowers, and Nashville songwriters Jon Randall Stewart and Jessi Alexander.
She says:
We drove all of this in a van, pulling a trailer. Coming up to this trip, we were all kind of dreading it, because it was going to be so much riding and driving. And from the minute we left home, everything about this trip was magical.
In addition to being a travelogue, the song is also a “love letter to being in a band.”
Sketching the song started while Sister Sadie was still on the road. When the group got back to Nashville, Flowers and Richardson immediately called up Stewart and Alexander, headed to their house, and started writing.
Richardson says:
We told them about the entire trip, and then wrote the song with them. And they got exactly what we were looking for. When we played it for the girls, we were all sobbing because it is exactly what it’s like on the road with us. This song is the story of this band.
With new music on the horizon and a future packed full of touring, Sister Sadie is poised to have a big 2027.
Richardson couldn’t be more thrilled:
I’ve toured with Patty Loveless, Bob Seger, the Chieftains, Vince Gill. I’ve done it all; I’ve seen the world. I never thought I would be in a band with 20-year-olds doing this again. I was ready to stay home and raise my granddaughter and teach and play on the Grand Ole Opry. Famous last words.
But It’s like starting over. And it makes me super emotional to even look across that stage and see a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old just getting started, and watching them do things that I did when I was their age. I’m having the best time, and I’m so inspired musically more than I ever have been doing this through them again.
This year, Sister Sadie is nominated for eleven International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year, Vocal Group of the Year, Album of the Year, Video of the Year, and Collaborative Recording of the Year. The band made history in 2020 as the first all-female group to win the Entertainer of the Year category. This year’s IBMA Awards Ceremony will take place on October 22, 2026.
SISTER SADIE 2026 TOUR DATES
October 9 – Nashville, TN (with Deana Carter)
October 14 – Berkeley, CA
October 15 – Sebastopol, CA
October 16 – Los Angeles, CA
October 17 – Las Vegas, NV
November 5 – Ft. Collins, CO
November 6 – Denver, CO (private show)
November 7 – Santa Fe, NM
November 8 – Moab, UT
November 10 – Phoenix, AZ
November 13 – Birmingham, AL
