Jesse Welles sat with a guitar on his lap, dressed head-to-toe in black. He has risen to recent prominence posting videos to social media of himself alone in the woods near his home in northwest Arkansas, performing wryly funny, politically engaged folk songs. The song he was recording in that basement in East Nashville, “Simple Gifts,” is a different beast. He delicately plucked his acoustic guitar, singing its earnest opening lines. The new album, “Middle,” is similarly minded. The producer, Eddie Spear, rose from behind a mixing board and adjusted the microphone in front of Welles. Most of the songs on “Middle” are recorded with a full band, but for “Simple Gifts” and the album’s title track, the setup was pared down to a solitary microphone. At 30, Welles has already lived a full life in the music industry. Growing up in Ozark, Ark., he latched onto music, devouring homemade cassettes of Beatles albums his grandfather recorded for him from his collection, and listening to an oldies radio station that spun classic rock, Motown and old country songs. At 11, he used money he’d saved to buy a guitar at Walmart that became his near-constant companion.
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