Songwriter Confirms AmericanaFEST Set Sept. 16 at 5 Spot
Album Produced by MC Taylor (of Hiss Golden Messenger) & Features Guest Spots by Taylor +
Two-Time GRAMMY-Winner Rhiannon Giddens
Dossett’s Songs Have Been Covered By Levon Helm + The Carolina Chocolate Drops
After more than three decades writing songs for Grammy Award–winning artists and fostering some of the top talent in a rich North Carolina scene, Merlefest favorite Laurelyn Dossett is finally ready to step out for her debut solo album How Many Moons. The album, produced by M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger, is set for an August 28 release via Sycamore Road. Taylor says, “It’s a really beautiful record and i think everybody that hears it is going to fall in love with it.”
She shared “Anna Lee” featuring Rhiannon Giddens. Of the song, she says, “Originally written for the play ‘Brother Wolf,’ the story of Anna Lee found a home with the legendary Levon Helm on the Dirt Farmer album. I had never properly recorded it myself. M.C. Taylor encouraged me to make it my own, with the help of my sister and long-time collaborator, Rhiannon Giddens. A little part of myself is in Anna Lee, with the memory of singing to my three daughters when they were young.” Dossett has often played in Giddens’ backing band on tour and the two worked together on the 2011 seasonal album The Gathering. Hear/share “Anna Lee” featuring Rhiannon Giddens here.
She has confirmed an afternoon set at AmericanaFEST on September 16 at the 5 Spot as well as new tour dates in North Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky (at bottom).
Here’s what outlets are saying about How Many Moons:
“How Many Moons delivers folk music that is melodically and lyrically satisfying… An album of multifaceted songcraft… On each successive listen, a new facet of the song reveals itself. The same is true across all of How Many Moons.”
–Corbie Hill, No Depression, August 27, 2026
“A celebration of North Carolina riches.”
–Cindy Howes, Folk Alley, August 7, 2026
“Laurelyn Dossett has quietly established herself as one of the most respected songwriting voices in roots music while helping shape the creative fabric of North Carolina’s Americana scene.”
–Hobart Rowland, Magnet Magazine, May 27, 2026
“You gotta hear this.”
–The Bluegrass Situation, July 31, 2026
“Laurelyn’s music is grown from her life. From love songs to anthems of resistance, she is an icon of North Carolina’s music, theater, and political scene… In collaboration with many of the musicians Laurelyn encouraged, her voice and vision are lifted, proving her place as one of the most unique voices in American music.”
–Glide Mag, May 18, 2026
“What makes How Many Moons compelling is not the idea of a “breakthrough debut,” but the reality that Dossett has already spent decades building an expansive, interdisciplinary career… How Many Moons doesn’t present itself as a reinvention. It feels more like an acknowledgement, of a body of work already influential, already embedded in the DNA of contemporary Americana, and now finally voiced under her own name in full alignment.”
–Megan Routledge, The Sound Cafe, July 4, 2026
“Truly beautiful.”
–Melissa Clarke, Americana Highways, July 27, 2026
“If you’re looking for a singer-songwriter whose words and voice sit well within a tradition of honest, straightforward country storytelling, then look no further because it is Laurelyn Dossett that you are looking for.”
–Jonathan Aird, Americana UK, June 23, 2026
“An intoxicating mix of Americana, folk, country, jazz, and blues, built around Dossett’s lovely voice.”
–Mark Rifkin, This Week In New York, May 8, 2026
How Many Moons is an embarrassment of sonic riches—and Dossett has clearly been saving her twelve best for her first. There’s everything on here from saucy, swampy, bluesy waltzes (“Tomorrow Won’t Remember”) to back-barn country rambles (lead single “How Many Moons”) and back-alley jazz-bar laments (“Run to the River”). “You and the Moon” has a gentle, ear-worm melody. She previously shared the heartbreaking single “Believe Me,” featuring producer M.C. Taylor. One could easily picture the song in a Norah Jones set.
Dossett assembled a who’s-who of N.C. and regional players to help her deliver this stunning, eclectic solo debut. Players include Charly Lowry, artist and activist of the Lumbee and Tuscarora, who lends her vocals to “The Vision And The Call” (out June 29); Stephanie Coleman, a Brooklyn fiddler and musical partner of Nora Brown, whose worked with everyone from Rhiannon Giddens and Aoife O’Donovan to Béla Fleck; sacred steel legend DaShawn Hickman, whose pedal steel skills have wowed millions on America’s Got Talent; jazz/folk bassist Jason Sypher, whose list of notables includes Irma Thomas, Kermit Ruffins, and Clarence Gatemouth Brown, among many others; drummer Nick Falk (Molly Tuttle, The Wood Brothers, CAAMP and Hiss Golden Messenger); Riley Baugus (Willie Nelson, Alison Kraus and Robert Plant) and Taylor, who pitches in on acoustic/electric guitars and mandolin when he’s not behind the boards.
Dossett says, “The musicians on this project are so much more than ‘guest artists’ – they are family. Most of them have been dear friends and collaborators on multiple projects for years, it was like a reunion to get together and make these songs sing. The glue for all of it was producer M.C. Taylor’s vision and sensibility – it’s like he blew some magic fairy dust over the songs and they came to life.”
Despite Moons technically being her solo debut, Dossett has been a highly sought-after and prolific songwriter for fellow Americana artists, as well as in the classical and theatrical arts. “Anna Lee,” originally composed for 2006 play Brother Wolf, was covered by late Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Levon Helm (The Band) on his Grammy-winning Dirt Farmer album (2007), as well as his Live at the Ryman (2011). Another one of her songs, not on Moons but no less of a standout, “Leaving Eden,” served as the title track on GRAMMY-winning North Carolina band the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ swan song.
Bringing things full circle, ex-Drops banjoist/vocalist and two-time GRAMMY winner Rhiannon Giddens sits in on Dossett’s take on her own “Anna Lee,” set to be released as a single on August 28. It’s the true standout of the set. Giddens does her proud, gilding the lily of an already perfect story-song.
She previously shared the arm-in-arm country shuffle with traces of zydeco, “The Vision and the Call,” featuring Charly Lowry, the indigenous, genre-blending Singer-Songwriter fusing soul, country, folk, blues, & hip-hop, who has performed at the Kennedy Center. “Glory Glory,” an original song with a serene lift that features Taylor on electric and acoustic guitars and mandolin, was released as a single.
Speaking of the play Brother Wolf, Laurelyn has written the songs for six other professional plays, all featuring regional folklore and original music. Those include Beautiful Star: An Appalachian Nativity (2006), Bloody Blackbeard (2008), Providence Gap (2010), Snow Queen (2013), Radiunt Abundunt (2016) and Leaving Eden (2018). Both Wolf and Star have been published by Playscripts and have gone on to have professional productions in cities across the U.S.
Dossett has shown her intense creativity and versatility on a series of high-profile collabs and commissions in her three decades–plus career. In the late ’90s, she co-founded folk duo Polecat Creek with singing partner Kari Sickenberger. She’s toured with folk legend Alice Gerrard, premiered composer Kenneth Frazelle’s song cycle, Songs in the Rear View Mirror, has toured with the North Carolina Symphony numerous times. The symphony premiered her song cycle, The Gathering: A Winter’s Tale in Six Songs, a 2011 album that earned spotlights in the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and USA Today. For Giddens’ Tomorrow Is My Turn tour, Dossett sang harmony vocals, including at Big Ears Festival, The Grand Ole Opry, Town Hall in NYC, and CBS Saturday Morning.
Dossett’s even delved into protest music, penning “Vote Against Amendment One” (2012), written in response to N.C.’s marriage amendment, and “My Beloved Enemy,” released on an N.C. artists’ compilation We Are Not for Sale (2013), which also includes tracks by Giddens and Taylor.
Dossett has been a guest on award-winning NPR show A Prairie Home Companion.
How Many Moons Track Listing
1. The Vision and the Call
2. Anna Lee
3. War, WV
4. How Many Moons
5. The River’s Lament
6. The Mark of Kith and Kin
7. Run to the River
8. Believe Me
9. The Year of the Perfect Garden
10. Tomorrow Won’t Remember
11. You and the Moon
12. Glory Glory
Laurelyn Dossett Tour Dates
August 3 – Knoxville, TN – WDVX Blue Plate Special
September 2 – Greensboro, NC – The Flat Iron
September 6 – Charleston, WV – Folklore Exchange
September 7 – Lexington, KY – WoodSongs
September 10 – Oxford, MS – Thacker Mountain Radio
September 14 – Asheville, NC – House Concert (w/ Alice Gerrard)
September 16 – Nashville, TN – 5 Spot (afternoon)
September 19 – Annapolis, MD – House Concert
