About
With a quarter million miles under her belt and counting, North Carolina native Emily Scott Robinson travels the dusty highways of America's wild country, capturing the stories of the people she meets and expertly crafting them into songs. Robinson received critical acclaim for her debut album Traveling Mercies-- Rolling Stone named it one of the “40 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2019.” In 2021, Robinson signed with Oh Boy records, the label founded by the legendary John Prine, and released her follow-up album American Siren. It made numerous “Best of 2021” lists including NPR, Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, and No Depression. In 2022, Robinson released a collaboration for theater called Built on Bones, a song cycle written for the Witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth, featuring artists Alisa Amador and Violet Bell.
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“There are breakup songs, and then there's the breathtaking "Let 'Em Burn," which fans out to survey the wreckage of a painstakingly curated life…
With her pure, bracing vocal set against an achingly somber piano, Emily Scott Robinson doesn't marinate in misery so much as summon the strength to venture up to a precipice and stand at "the edge of something wild.”
— NPR
“Built On Bones is more than a gateway for the Shakespeare-curious. It also ushers in a crucial reexamination of the idea of the “witch,” with its long history of misunderstanding and oppression. Robinson may not be able to rewrite this history, but her reframing of it feels like its own kind of healing potion for this current moment in which women continue to be oppressed and must battle for such basic freedoms as reproductive rights.”
— No Depression
“On her 2019 album Traveling Mercies, Emily Scott Robinson showed herself as a songwriter for the ages. It’s no wonder that John Prine’s Oh Boy Records snapped her up for the follow-up, American Siren… Whether through the simple but potent reminders of “Lost Women’s Prayer” or the life lessons of “Things You Learn The Hard Way,” she’s not so much the preacher but learning with us as we go, her poetry leading the way.”
— Stereogum
“It’s only right that John Prine’s Oh Boy Records put out Emily Scott Robinson’s album American Siren, because the Colorado songwriter has some of the late master’s flair for narrative wit and wisdom. Robinson’s pure, lilting voice is a great vehicle for describing scenes of intense conflict…Like Prine, Robinson can devastate with a simple description of something ordinary.”