How a preacher's daughter from a tiny farming town in western Kentucky turned a reedy, trembling drawl and a plainspoken gift for the truth into some of the most quietly essential Southern songwriting of her generation.
The Short Version
Who Is She?
S.G. Goodman is a singer-songwriter from Hickman County in the far western corner of Kentucky, near the Mississippi River bottomlands. She writes and sings in a high, quavering drawl that sounds like nothing else in current roots music, wrapping hard questions about faith, class, addiction, and belonging in melodies that stick.
Two things make her singular. First, the place: she has never left the rural South she writes about, and her songs carry the specific weather, dirt, and difficulty of that world without romance or apology. Second, the voice: as an openly queer woman making music inside conservative country terrain, she gives a plainspoken, deeply felt account of a South that mainstream Nashville rarely lets you hear.
Since her 2020 debut she has become a critics' favorite and a songwriter's songwriter, admired for lyricism that is both tender and unflinching. To understand where independent Southern music is going, you start here.
The western Kentucky bottomlands, the ground S.G. Goodman's songs grow from.From A Hickman County Farm to the Critics' Lists
The Story
Goodman's path is a slow, stubborn one, rooted in a place most artists leave and built on the conviction that the rural South is worth writing about honestly.
A queer voice singing plainly from inside the rural South, not from a safe distance.
Hickman County
A farming-town upbringing
Goodman grew up in a small, tight-knit farming community in far western Kentucky, steeped in church music and the cadence of Southern speech that would later shape her writing and her singing.
Murray, KY
Finding a scene
At Murray State University she began writing and playing, building a local following and the band that would help her turn regional stories into records without ever relocating to a music-industry city.
2020
Old Time Feeling
Her debut arrived produced by Jim James of My Morning Jacket. Its clear-eyed portraits of small-town Southern life drew wide critical praise and marked her as a distinctive new voice in roots music.
2022
Teeth Marks
A bolder, more electric second album about love and its aftershocks, it sharpened her sound and cemented her reputation as one of the most gifted lyricists working in independent Americana.
2025
Planting by the Signs
Named for the old Appalachian almanac practice of planting by the moon, her third album turns toward grief, community, and the rhythms of rural life, deepening the world she has spent her career mapping.
Four Songs, One Introduction
Start Here
Goodman's catalog rewards close listening. These four songs are the fastest way to grasp the range, from hushed folk confession to full-band alt-country. Watch in order.
01 · The Introduction
"Space And Time" (2020)
A gentle, aching highlight of the debut that shows the whole appeal at once: the trembling voice, the unhurried melody, and a lyric that turns everyday longing into something quietly universal.
02 · The Reckoning
"If You Were Someone I Loved" (2022)
The stark opener of Teeth Marks, a spare meditation on empathy and the opioid crisis in her community. Proof that Goodman can hold a whole town's grief in a single, plainspoken song.
03 · The Title Track
"Teeth Marks" (2022)
The song that names the record: a taut, guitar-driven account of love that leaves a mark. It shows the more electric, insistent side of her music and the bite underneath the tenderness.
04 · The Anthem
"Work Until I Die" (Live)
A rollicking, wry portrait of working-class Southern life, heard here live from the Relix studio. It captures the rowdier, communal energy of her band away from the quiet of the records.
The Records So Far
The Albums 3 to start with
Goodman's catalog is still young and remarkably consistent. These three studio albums are the whole story to date, and the blue-topped card is the best place to begin.
2020
Old Time Feeling
The debut, produced by Jim James. Warm, spare, and quietly radical, it introduces her voice and her subject: the beauty and hardship of the rural South, sung with unusual clarity and care.
The bolder, more electric second album about love, empathy, and survival. It sharpened her sound and drew year-end acclaim, widely held to be her strongest and most fully realized record.
The third album, named for an old Appalachian almanac tradition. It turns toward grief, community, and the cycles of rural life, deepening the world she has built across the first two records.
Two YouTube Music playlists: a First Listen of the songs that pull you in, and a Deep Cuts set of the quieter, headphone-reward pieces for when you want to sink in. (Ideally, though, hear these albums whole.) Hit the button on either card to play it.
Goodman is a solo artist rooted in western Kentucky, but her records are shaped by a close circle of collaborators, from a marquee producer on her debut to the touring band and independent labels that carry her music out into the world.
Songs built quietly at home, then carried out by a small, loyal band.
Jim JamesProducerThe My Morning Jacket frontman produced her 2020 debut Old Time Feeling, helping frame her voice with a warm, spacious sound
Her touring bandLive and studio playersA tight group of Kentucky-based musicians gives the records their electric, communal energy on the road and on tape
Verve ForecastLabelReleased Teeth Marks in 2022, giving the album wider reach during her critical breakthrough
Slough Water RecordsIndependent homeHer own imprint, reflecting the fiercely independent, self-directed way she has built her career from western Kentucky
Thirty TigersDistribution partnerThe artist-friendly Nashville company that has helped distribute her independently controlled releases
The Roots of the Sound
Influences
Goodman's music draws on the deep lineage of Southern and alt-country songwriting: plainspoken storytellers, ragged rock and rollers, and the indie bands that proved roots music could still take risks. Here is some of the ground it grows from.
Alt-Country
Lucinda Williams
The gold standard for gritty, literary Southern songwriting. Williams's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road maps the same rural back roads and hard-won feeling that run through Goodman's work.
The patron saint of the ragged and the honest. Young's blend of tender acoustic folk and loose, distorted electric rock is a clear ancestor of Goodman's own dynamic range.
Chicago's restless roots-rock explorers showed how Americana could bend toward the experimental. Their searching, guitar-forward records echo in Goodman's more adventurous arrangements.
The Athens, Georgia band that first proved the American South could be the home of thoughtful, jangling indie rock. Their example lit a path for a generation of Southern independents like Goodman.
Goodman is a warm, funny, and unusually candid talker, as rooted in place and plainspoken in conversation as she is on record. Her interviews and live sessions are worth seeking out.
Session · NPR Music
Tiny Desk Concert
A stripped-down NPR set that captures the whole appeal up close: the trembling voice, the easy rapport with her band, and the between-song talk that shows how deeply her music is tied to home.
Interview · Archive
Conversations and Live Sessions
From radio interviews to studio sessions, Goodman speaks openly about faith, class, queerness, and staying in the rural South to make her art. Search YouTube for her recent conversations and performances.
Once the three albums have you, Goodman's world opens into live recordings, collaborations, and the wider circle of new Southern songwriters she runs with.
The live sets. Goodman is a compelling performer, and her radio sessions and concert recordings reveal the rowdier, more electric energy her band brings to the quieter studio songs.
Planting by the Signs. Her 2025 album rewards patient listening, folding grief and rural ritual into her richest, most textured record yet.
The new Southern wave. She belongs to a generation of independent Southern artists reshaping roots music. Explore Waxahatchee, MJ Lenderman, Wednesday, and Tyler Childers to hear the wider scene.
The essays and interviews. Goodman writes and speaks thoughtfully about place, faith, and class; her longer conversations are the best window into what her songs are really about.
The Way to Listen
Do yourself one favor: put on Teeth Marks from start to finish, then go back to Old Time Feeling. Let the voice settle in. Goodman is a writer as much as a singer, and the plainspoken detail repays close attention.
