Willi Carlisle

Willi Carlisle

Willi Carlisle is an American folk singer, songwriter and poet. Born in 1989 and raised on the Midwestern plains, he develops his music from a punk-to-folk path and later lives in the Ozarks. His work sits within alternative country, country, folk and singer-songwriter traditions.

Music and style

Carlisle is known for writing in a plainspoken, narrative style that focuses on shared experience, mutual care and social connection. His songs draw on a wide range of American musical traditions, reflecting a broad interest in the history of the form. He is also associated with the influence of Utah Phillips, whose approach to phrase-making and people-centred storytelling shapes Carlisle’s own work.

Peculiar, Missouri

His second album, Peculiar, Missouri, is a twelve-track set produced in rural Louisiana by Grammy-winning engineer and Cajun musician Joel Savoy. The record includes sardonic trucker songs, queer waltz material, class-conscious writing and a cowboy border ballad about water rights. Its title track is a talkin’ blues about a panic attack in a Walmart aisle, while songs such as “Life on the Fence” and “Este Mundo” show the album’s range of subject matter.

Writing and themes

Carlisle’s lyrics often use vivid imagery and storytelling techniques associated with American folk poets and songwriters. His writing also brings together humour, politics, queer experience and working-class concerns, and he presents his music as part of a populist folk tradition.