Kaitlin Butts (2025)

One Liner: Excellent story-telling Americana

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but I'd call this Americana

Home: Nashville (but originally from Tulsa, OK)

Saturday.

Thoughts:  I ran across her one time several years ago, when I was listening to an album by Flatland Cavalry.  She was featured on that album, and I was kind of enamored with her name.  "The hit on here is the one featuring the excellently named Kaitlin Butts.  Who is either an heir to the HEB fortune and therefore it makes sense that she kept that surname, or was hoping for the old Beavis and Butthead crowd to find her and push her into stardom, or has a fantastic seat.  I'm going to imagine it's number 2.  Huh huh, cool.  Butts."  She also came through Two Step in 2023.

She's not on Wikipedia, but she is mentioned in the Flatland Cavalry post because she is married to the vocalist for the band, which was formed in Lubbock in 2012.  That post says that she is a frequent collaborator with the band and an "oft-seen part of their live shows."  And you can tell, because both of the top songs on Spotify for her are Flatland songs on which she is featured.  So we should expect her on stage with them at the Fest!

I've pretty much just let these songs play for the past two days.  I really like her stuff.  Good lyrics, strong voice, fine instrumentation.  It all sounds really good, like a more Americana version of Kacey Musgraves.  "blood" is an excellent song, that she does two ways in her Spotify, a regular version with full accompaniment, and then a stripped-down version.  Lot of soul in there.  That is the top song from her 2022 album - What Else Can She Do - 1.9 million streams.  This is the stripped version.

Just a killer set of lyrics about trying to measure up to your family and the things you do for your blood.  Makes me think of the way my sister-in-law treats my wife, and then the way my wife hides her feelings about it.  Really good.  She also does a cover of Leadbelly's "in the pines" that is pretty killer.  "It Won't Always Be This Way" is another well-composed tune about tough times.

3 albums.  2015's Same Hell, Different Devil, 2022's What Else Can She Do, and 2024's Roadrunner!  She also released an EP in 2022 called Sad Yeehaw Sessions, where that stripped-down "blood" is from, that also includes a cover of Miley Cyrus's "Angels Like You" that sounds really good.  Her top single, of her solo stuff and not including the Flatland tunes, is a 2021 single called "Marfa Lights," with 5.6 million streams.

(1) nice tune.  (2) I was really hoping for a real video that would have been set in Marfa.  (3) that highway on the cover looks nothing like Highway 90.  Have you ever seen the Marfa lights?  They're pretty damn cool.  I've seen them a few times, and even with really good binoculars, I have no clue what is going on out there.  And her analogy is pretty good - "I'll chase you around, low and high, we're just out of reach, we're just out of sight."

The new album has been out since June, and doesn't appear to have just a ton of traction just yet.  Only four songs have more than 100k streams.  And the top one thus far is pretty funny - "Hunt You Down" with 646k streams.

Classic country sound, with lyrics that shift from cutesy lovey tropes right into murderous jealousy warnings.  Reminds me of my father-in-law meeting with me to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage.  As he leaked tears from behind his big aviator sunglasses, he let me know that if I hurt his little girl he would hunt me down and kill me.  Good times!  This pretty delivery is much nicer!

Dig it.  I'd love to see her play.