Willi Carlisle

Willi Carlisle is a poet, singer, storyteller, and dance caller who makes old time music for the modern world.

A self-described word wrangler, he grew up in a musical family–his dad was a polka musician–where he was raised on folk and bluegrass music. When he decided to do an MFA in poetry, he went to the University of Arkansas so he could also learn from the great banjo players around there. He now plays acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, accordion, and harmonica, writing songs that veer from wild humour to profound pathos. Indy Week wrote: “Willi Carlisle is hilarious and heart-wrenching, bluntly profane and profusely kind” naming him “a shapeshifting bard for our times.”

He views his artistic work through the lens of Woody Guthrie’s statement that “a folksinger’s job is to comfort disturbed people and disturb comfortable people” but Carlisle sees singing as a form of healing: “If we allow ourselves to sing together, there’s a release of sadness, maybe even a communal one.”

He sees his art as a way of being in service to people. “Folk music is social and it’s political, and so we’re always trying to sing anthems for things that we truly believe, even if they’re impossible,” says Carlisle. “Because demanding the impossible is what every successful populist movement has done.”

Carlisle’s fourth studio album, the self-produced Winged Victory, is releasing on June 27.

– EM