Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings aren’t the first musicians to name an album after a favorite studio—or, in their case, the one they own and run in East Nashville. But “Woodland” isn’t just any old title—it truly reflects the hardships and triumphs that have played out over the years at the eponymous recording studio, the roof of which was blown off by Tennessee’s famous tornado in 2020, just before the lockdown made things even harder. With that adversity serving as the backdrop for their new material, the desire for no more hard times is as ingrained in these 10 songs as it is in the four-year rebuilding process of the studio that’s produced much of the past 25 years’ worth of acclaimed roots music.

“Woodland” marks the first album of new studio material to be released jointly under both Welch and Rawling’s names, though that fact might almost go unnoticed considering the two have been touring together for decades and fans know that every album from either of them to date has been an in-depth collaboration. Those fans haven’t been short on material, as the two created a Grammy-winning covers album together during the pandemic, and retrospective projects spanning eras back to Welch’s 1993 breakthrough with the T Bone Burnett-produced “Revival” have filled in the gaps, along with joint releases under the Rawlings band name. Still, this is the first album of new material to be released under her name since 2011’s “The Harrow & the Harvest,” and as such, it’s considered a pretty big deal in the world of folk and Americana, though that could be said of every project they’ve gotten their hands on together.

Variety spoke to both partners in the collaboration over the phone on the day of “Woodland”’s late August release. Let’s hear from Welch first, then Rawlings: