Description

Singer/songwriter Laurelyn Dossett lives and writes in Stokes County, NC. Her songs have appeared in film and television (Hell on Wheels, Ain’t In it for My Health) and have been recorded by many artists including Grammy-winning Levon Helm (Anna Lee) and Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (Leaving Eden). Her new album, How Many Moons, produced by M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger, will be released August 28, 2026, via Sycamore Road.

How Many Moons is an embarrassment of sonic riches—and Dossett has clearly been saving her 12 best for her first. There’s everything on here from arm-in-arm country shuffles, with traces of zydeco (“The Vision and the Call”), to saucy, swampy, bluesy waltzes (“Tomorrow Won’t Remember”) and back-barn country rambles (“How Many Moons”) and back-alley jazz-bar laments (“Run to the River”). “You and the Moon” has a gentle, ear-worm melody, while you could easily picture “Believe Me,” featuring producer M.C. Taylor, in a Norah Jones set (out as a single June 1). And the serene lilt of “Glory Glory,” is Dossett inviting you to church in Stokes County, N.C., where there’s a spiritual electricity.

Dossett assembled a who’s-who of N.C. and regional players to help her deliver this stunning, eclectic solo debut. Players include two-time GRAMMY winner Rhiannon Giddens, who sings and plays banjo on Dossett’s take on her own “Anna Lee.” Others include Charly Lowry, artist and activist of the Lumbee and Tuscarora, who lends her vocals to “The Vision And The Call”; Stephanie Coleman, a Brooklyn fiddler and musical partner of Nora Brown, who’s worked with everyone from Rhiannon Giddens and Aoife O’Donovan to Béla Fleck; sacred steel legend DaShawn Hickman, whose pedal steel skills have wowed millions on America’s Got Talent; jazz/folk bassist Jason Sypher, whose list of notables includes Irma Thomas, Kermit Ruffins, and Clarence Gatemouth Brown, among many others; drummer Nick Falk (Molly Tuttle, The Wood Brothers, CAAMP and Hiss Golden Messenger); Riley Baugus (Willie Nelson, Alison Kraus and Robert Plant) and Taylor, who pitches in on acoustic/electric guitars and mandolin when he’s not behind the boards.

A veteran of NC’s Americana and songwriting scene, Laurelyn has shown her intense creativity and versatility on a series of high-profile collabs and commissions in her three decades–plus career. She has written the songs for seven professional plays and a folk-song cycle for the North Carolina Symphony. Called The Gathering: A Winter’s Tale in Six Songs, the accompanying album earned spotlights in the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and USA Today.

“How Many Moons doesn’t introduce Laurelyn Dossett. It simply places her where she has always belonged: at the centre of her own story, finally spoken in her own voice.” – Sound Cafe