The Savage Radley, S.G. Goodman - Kudzu (2017)

Shaped and inspired by the American South, The Savage Radley was the original project from S.G. Goodman, a Kentucky-raised singer-songwriter who has risen to prominence since the 2020 release of her solo debut, Old Time Feeling, and its follow-up, Teeth Marks.

Fueled by electric guitar, pedal steel, piano, and the percussion of former punk drummer and longtime band member Stephen Montgomery, the songs on The Savage Radley's 2017 debut and only full-length, Kudzu, tell the story of a modern-day South. This is raw, ragged, rock-influenced roots music, with Goodman singing about the land she knows — a land nearly forgotten, tucked away along the banks of the Mississippi River — in a voice caught halfway between a wail and a warble. Kudzu was recorded in western Kentucky, with producer Skylar Wilson (Justin Townes Earle, Caitlin Rose, Andrew Combs) traveling from Tennessee to work with the band.

"I'm a real farmer's daughter, singing about the things I know," she explained when the record was originally released. "It's not hard to share my sense of place when I know figuratively and literally how a patch of land holds a world together.”