hypersongs

Hell Among the Yearlings

Their second album: eleven songs, a stark duet record with a murder ballad and a mining song, all written by the pair.
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, 1998

Hell Among the Yearlings was produced by T Bone Burnett, and Wikipedia gives no studio or recording dates. Welch plays acoustic guitar and sings throughout, with banjo on three tracks, Rawlings plays acoustic guitar and sings, with electric guitar on two tracks and snare on one, and Burnett adds piano and Hammond B3 on "Whiskey Girl". Doug Sax mastered it at The Mastering Lab in Hollywood. It reached number 181 on the Billboard 200 and nine on the Heatseekers chart.

AllMusic's Thom Owens gave it four out of five, Pitchfork's Ryan Schreiber 8.7, Entertainment Weekly's Chris Willman an A-, and Rolling Stone's Robert Santelli three of five. A 2026 KALX note calls it a stark duet record released after the Grammy-nominated Revival.

Track listing

  1. Caleb Meyer3:05
  2. Good Til Now3:56
  3. The Devil Had a Hold of Me4:30
  4. My Morphine5:53
  5. One Morning2:41
  6. Miner's Refrain3:57
  7. Honey Now1:52
  8. I'm Not Afraid to Die3:27
  9. Rock of Ages3:08
  10. Whiskey Girl4:15
  11. Winter's Come and Gone2:14

Sources

  1. Hell Among the Yearlings, Wikipedia
  2. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings interview, KALX (2026-04)