South Austin Song Circle: J.D. Graham, Ryan Culwell, Ben Danaher & Mike McClure

About

JD Graham is an Americana singer-songwriter whose raw, soul-baring music weaves tales of redemption, faith, and hard-won sobriety. An Oklahoma native , Graham’s early life was marked by a 25-year battle with drug addiction, beginning with a prescription for anxiety at age 11 and spiraling into a world of reckless living. His journey took a pivotal turn in 2017 after a catastrophic car accident led to a five-year prison sentence in Arizona. There, stripped of distractions, Graham confronted his demons, found solace in faith, and rediscovered his purpose through music. In an unprecedented move, he recorded his debut album, Razor Wire Sunrise, within the walls of Arizona State Prison, inspired by the stark beauty of his cell’s view and the weight of his past decisions.Graham’s time in prison also sparked a transformative music program that he taught alongside other inmates raising over $20,000 in donations and leaving a lasting impact on inmate population through a curriculum that fostered purpose and self-expression. Since his release, he has channeled his experiences into a prolific songwriting career, blending the raw honesty of influences like John Moreland, Brandon Jenkins and Jason Isbell with his own confessional style. His 2023 album, Pound of Rust, recorded at Skinny Elephant in East Nashville with producer Neilson Hubbard and songwriter Ryan Culwell, is a haunting testament to accountability and resilience. The album’s unadorned, guitar-driven sound captures the essence of a man with nothing left to hide, earning him a place on the national touring circuit making appearances at Mile 0 Festival and Born & Raised Festival. In July 2024, Graham released his highly anticipated album Sergeant of Sorrow, further cementing his reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter. His performances, whether in intimate listening rooms or at songwriter festivals, hold audiences captive with their sincerity and emotional depth. For Graham, music is about connection—reaching a stranger’s heart through a song or a conversation at a barstool. Fueled by faith, sobriety, and an unwavering commitment to truth, JD Graham’s music is a powerful reflection of his journey from darkness to redemption, resonating with listeners seeking hope and human connection. -- Walk around throwing punches everywhere and you’ll earn yourself an almighty ass whooping. Keep your hands in your pockets all day, though, and you’ll start to feel like you’ve already whooped your own. It’s a paradox that Ryan Culwell finds himself wrestling with frequently on his extraordinary new album, Run Like A Bull. Recorded with longtime collaborator Neilson Hubbard (Mary Gauthier, Kim Richey), the collection is raw and magnetic, cutting close to the bone as it searches for a middle ground between release and restraint, recklessness and responsibility. Culwell faces down his own worst instincts here, grappling with weighty, existential notions the way Flannery O’Connor might, conjuring up images of alternating beauty and brutality set against a distinctly American backdrop. “We all laugh when a young calf struggles to his feet,” Culwell sings in his gritty rasp. “When an old bull falls down on his ass I guess it ain’t so sweet.” Born and raised in the Texas panhandle, Culwell earned widespread acclaim with his first two albums, 2015’s Flatlands and 2018’s The Last American, which prompted Rolling Stone to hail his writing as both “gorgeous and bleak” and NPR to rave that his songs “wring grace from plain and often dark details.” The music earned Culwell dates with Patty Griffin, Billy Joe Shaver, Hayes Carll, Patrick Sweany, and Ashley Monroe among others, alongside a full calendar of his own headline shows around the country and millions of streams across platforms. -- Ben Danaher writes songs like he’s lived every line—and most of them, he has. The newly Texas based songwriter has spent the last decade turning personal truth into timeless songs, carving out a space where country, soul, and Americana meet with grit and grace. His new EP, Strangers, out August 8th, is Danaher at his most raw and revealing. Across five hauntingly honest tracks, he explores distance—between people, within ourselves, and from the lives we thought we’d be living by now. Anchored by the standout single “Professional Stranger,” the EP captures the quiet ache of feeling disconnected in a world that’s always performing. Danaher’s voice—both literal and lyrical—has earned comparisons to Jason Isbell and Chris Stapleton, but his perspective is uniquely his own: shaped by loss, sharpened by years on the road, and softened by hard-won self-awareness. With Strangers, Ben Danaher doesn’t just share songs. He holds up a mirror—and somehow makes the loneliness feel a little less lonely. -- To look at the last few years of Mike McClure’s life is to understand that there has been a life-altering awakening. It’s been a time of reckoning, renewal and growth for the singer, songwriter, artist and producer — a five-year span that’s resulted in Looking Up, 10 tracks that find him getting sober, wrestling with insecurity, finding a new love for both himself and others, and working to understand the new light he’s found in discovering that the best moments in life come from being present. Within these tracks, it’s clear that every piece of Mike McClure’s life is in the midst of changing — and he’s finally seeing that as a good thing.

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