A week and a half ago, on Saturday November 1st, I once again made the trip North to the TakeRoot festival in Groningen, to film sessions with musicians on the line up – and some surprises. Like in 2024, we managed to film eight sessions and I’m delighted to publish the first one today: Emily Scott Robinson performed three one-takers: covers of Patty Griffin’s Trapeze and John Prine’s Paradise, and her own brand new song Dirtbag Saloon.
The Colorado-based singer-songwriter, known for her evocative storytelling and deep connection to Americana traditions, is preparing to release her fifth album, Appalachia, on January 30th, 2026 – her third with Oh Boy Records. Before diving into her own work, Robinson explores the influences that have shaped her craft, starting with two covers that reveal the foundation of her songwriting approach.
“Never underestimate your audience.”
Robinson’s first choice is Trapeze by Patty Griffin, a song that exemplifies the kind of fearless storytelling she admires most. “I love that Patty Griffin drops you into a world without doing any explaining. She just drops you into a story,” Robinson explains. “And there’s this piece of writing advice that I really love, and it is never underestimate your audience, meaning, don’t over-explain things. You can drop people right into a world, into a person, or into a story or a place without doing all this explaining on how they got there.”
She lights up when discussing Griffin’s craft, particularly her portrayal of women on the margins. “That song in particular, I mean the first couple lines of the second verse… she started with us on the back of a horse just 17 and already divorced. Like, I have chills when I think about that line. It’s like one of the greatest first lines of a verse. She’s just an incredible songwriter.”
The perspective, Robinson notes, comes from someone else in the traveling circus. “It’s somebody else, presumably a little bit older, reflecting on this young, bright talent who’s also a pretty shattered young person herself. And I don’t know, I just like I love that song. I will love it till the day I die. I often use it for sound checks because I just love to sing it.”
A Green River runs through it
For her second cover, Robinson turns to John Prine’s Paradise – a song she’s known longer than any other in his catalog. “When I was in university I worked at a summer camp and it was on the Green River in North Carolina, which is a different Green River than the one up in Muhlenberg County in the song. But the camp had kind of taken it on as their song, as Paradise, you know, down by the Green River where Paradise lay.”
Those campfire singalongs left a lasting impression. “We played that song every campfire and the kids loved it so much. And I just, you know, something I love about John is his songs were not cliche, they were not overt, but he was just there to tell a story.” That story – about strip mining and environmental destruction – connects directly to Robinson’s own songwriting, particularly her new song Dirtbag Saloon.
When the billionaires push out the millionaires
Dirtbag Saloon emerges from Emily Scott Robinson’s years living in Telluride, Colorado, where she witnessed dramatic economic transformation firsthand. “In the past five years, people started saying that the billionaires cam