“It’ll be a really intimate night for people who love songwriting and hearing the stories behind the songs,” says Emily Scott Robinson of the ESR Made Me Cry 2026 Tour, the trek behind Appalachia, the Colorado-based singer/songwriter’s fifth LP and third for John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, which dropped this January. The tour picks up tonight in Denver and features a stop this coming Friday, April 3rd, at The Loft at Philadelphia’s own City Winery, a musical institution that, during a recent phone chat, Robinson tells me she’s a big fan of: “I love seated listening rooms! I think they’re the best kind of environment for people to experience my music… they get to sit and relax into it. City Winery has cultivated a really good environment for listening to music for people who love songwriters.”
Robinson tells me that the ESR Made Me Cry 2026 Tour will feature solo acoustic performances of all of Appalachia’s tracks (with the possible exception of her cover of “The Water Is Wide”), the stories behind them, and a handful of fan favorites (She’s taking requests via Instagram!), along with an opening set from her good friend J.M. Clifford. The tour is currently nine dates in, with a number of short jaunts that kicked off in late January. And Emily says she’s already received a plethora of heartwarming responses to the new music, most notably the tracks “Time Traveler” and “Hymn for the Unholy” (which you may have heard on the latest edition of Philthy Radio).
“Time Traveler” is about Robinson’s grandmother, who had dementia later in her life, which has prompted fans to share with her their own stories about family members who similarly suffered with the condition, while she was told by a trans fan that “Hymn for the Unholy” had become the mantra for themselves and their group of LGBTQ friends. “I was so floored and moved. I’m straight and cisgender, so it’s hard for me to step outside of my own experience, but it’s such an honor to be able to provide that for someone,” Emily tells me, going on to explain, “I love performing for people, I love meeting people and hearing the songs that people most relate to. That’s my favorite thing about this… My real purpose as a musician is just to make people’s lives better with my music.” She also says that her show earlier this month in Minneapolis was especially moving.
“Minnesota is a place that has been through so much recently, and people came into the room with a lot of energy and the need to gather. It was such an energizing and cathartic night. We talked about community and democracy and taking care of each other and our neighbors… For me, audience interaction is a really special part of it. I love when the audience is communicative and not just totally silent.”
The songs of Appalachia were quite a long time in the making. “It took four to five years to write this album, so the material kind of grew up with me. The whole heart of this album is connecting and storytelling, just telling the stories of what it is to be a human and walk through life,” Robinson says, explaining that the songs were largely inspired by her “middle age in life” (She’s 38, for the record.) and “holding the world up” for her stepson (and the innocence of children in general) while also softening the world for your elders as they age. “I try to be therapeutic and comforting to anyone who feels lost and overwhelmed. I hope to fortify people’s spirits and faith in humanity with my music.”
Appalachia was produced by our phriend Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman (who’s also done production work for our buddies David Wax Museum, This Is The Kit, and Cassandra Jenkins), who had apparently been Emily’s first choice all along: “I absolutely loved the experience. I’m a big fan of his work and he was my dream producer for this record.” “He brought a musician’s sensibility,” Robinson says, before joking, “It’s bonkers to me that there are producers who aren’t musicians!” The album was completed in five days at Dreamland Recording Studios in upstate New York, doing two songs per day, with Kaufman also playing on the record, along with instrumentalist Duncan Wickel. “For the most part, it was a really small group, which is what I like,” Emily tells me, going on to note that the LP feels like a slight shift in her sound.
“My ethos for making a record is we really listen to these songs and see where they take us. It’s experimental, it’s flowy, it’s creative, it’s organic… I think it’s a little bit folkier and a little bit quieter than my previous releases. This lives more in the folk side of the Americana space, whereas the last album lived more in the country side of the Americana space.”
This July, Emily Scott Robinson will be celebrating a major anniversary when her debut full-length, Magnolia Queen, turns 10. And, despite recent setlists, she tells me she’s still a big fan of the album: “I love it! I think the songs still hold up. I don’t play the songs very much anymore, but I do love it and I still sell it at shows!” The LP was recorded live with Bret Nolan, who Robinson had won eight hours of studio time with from an open-mic competition. “I hear myself trying to sing more simply than I would now. I have a broader range and more mastery over my vocals now,” Robinson reflects on her first effort a decade on, before reiterating, “I love Magnolia Queen. I love the title of that album and I love the title track. And I don’t really have a hard time listening to my old music, which I think is a gift… a lot of people find it cringe [laughs].”
However, Robinson does admit that she wouldn’t want anything she wrote prior to the age of 28 still being available on the internet. “It’s just me as a young troubadour and songwriter,” she says of the eight-track collection, whose “Marriage Ain’t the End of Being Lonely,” “Thirst,” and “Mary” are apparently still cult favorites among fans, in addition to “Slaughterhouse Road,” her first-ever murder ballad, based on a newspaper story, which ultimately had to be rewritten when her narrative liberties wound up aligning with the family’s actual story to a frightening degree (But she says if you request the song, she’ll play the original version about a sheriff.)
At the moment, the ESR Made Me Cry 2026 Tour wraps April 11th in Decatur, Georgia, prior to a date later that month supporting Kelly Willis in Durango, Colorado and a performance at the Tønder Festival this August in Denmark (which also features our phriends Aaron Lee Tasjan, SUSTO, and The Felice Brothers). But Emily tells me that she has a lot more touring planned for Appalachia.
“I’m really excited about touring throughout the year and bringing these songs to people in person, which is what I love most of anything… I’ll be in Europe in August and September, in the West in the fall, and UK/Europe/Ireland in January of 2027… I spent four years making this album, and I could spend the next four years performing it and talking about it and telling stories about it, and maybe I will…”
*Get your tickets here.
