JOE’S TRUCK STOP by Ericka Poore
COLEMAN WILLIAMS photo by Ericka Poore
Anti-Corp Music’s beloved series The Magnolia Sessions arrives with new albums from COLEMAN WILLIAMS and JOE’S TRUCK STOP, both out today and streaming everywhere.
Launched in 2020, The Magnolia Sessions showcases bluegrass, dark country, and folk singer/songwriter acts, recorded live in an intimate outdoor setting by a large magnolia tree at the Anti-Corp/Black Matter Mastering headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, by owner Dan Emery. The series has delivered albums from the likes of Lost Dog Street Band, The Hill Country Devil, Joe Wunderle, Cooper McBean, The Resonant Rogues, Matt Heckler, Jason Dea West, Johno Leeroy, Cristina Vane, Nick Hans, Casper Allen, Jeff Loops, Angela Autumn, Tyler Hood, Jade Brodie, Douglas Francisco, Ivan McLeod, Austin Stambaugh, and Willi Carlisle, many of which have debuted on the Billboard Bluegrass Charts.
Following three seasons of monthly releases in the series, The Magnolia Sessions had been hibernating from late-Summer 2022 until late 2024 when it sprung back to life with Willi Carlisle’s installment, released to benefit victims of Hurricane Helene. Now, November 2025 sees The Magnolia Sessions delivering two new installments of The Magnolia Sessions, from COLEMAN WILLIAMS and JOE’S TRUCK STOP.
Stream both new albums from The Magnolia Sessions now; COLEMAN WILLIAMS’ album HERE and JOE’S TRUCK STOP’s record HERE.
Watch for updates on additional installments of The Magnolia Sessions to be issued over the months ahead.
As the fourth generation of the Williams family dynasty – preceded by Hank Williams, Hank Williams Jr., and Hank III – COLEMAN WILLIAMS is an independent musician with a very specific dream. To love and show pride of where he comes from without doing it just because he could.
Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee COLEMAN WILLIAMS strives to have everyone come out and get a little strange at his shows. Not as a gimmick, but because this world, if anything, is the same. He sings about his dog, things lost in life, and the others we gain because of it. Touring over the years, while fronting IV And The Strange Band, there were months at home where he began to experiment with somber song ideas and lighthearted stories, occasionally venturing alone onto the stage as well. To travel and learn, performing a bit more intimately with a different sound but still very much his own. His first recorded material arrived in the form of IV And The Strange Band’s album Southern Circus, released in 2022 on Megaforce Records, which was followed by the 2023-released Hang Dog LP which was produced by Shooter Jennings.
On a hot, muggy, Summer evening, COLEMAN WILLIAMS sat beneath a tree in Nashville, Tennessee and recorded some songs. This is that session; The first official release to be recorded under the name COLEMAN WILLIAMS. Delivering ten heartfelt tales on guitar and lead vocals, WILLIAMS was joined on several songs by Ethan Salad on guitar and backing vocals and Hunter Mellish on upright bass, with the remainder of the album performed solo. As with the entire series, the session was engineered, mixed, and mastered by Dan Emery, and the album completed with photography by Ericka Poore.
“Doing one of The Magnolia Sessions is something I honestly never thought I would do,” he reveals. “It took me time to believe in myself without a band behind me. I love spinning yarns and telling stories with music. This old tree has heard a couple now and didn’t complain. I hope y’all like them too.”
Dan Emery of Anti-Corp Music and Black Matter Mastering, who conceived and conducts The Magnolia Sessions, states, “I cannot put into words how completely honored I am to be able to introduce the world to COLEMAN WILLIAMS’ solo material. As an artist he stands on his own and creates from his vision, despite the more predatory aspects of the music industry, drooling like cartoon coyotes at the thought of cashing in on his family name and making him do some song and dance. For him to do this project with my humble ass is speaking truth to the spirit that is the foundation of what Anti-Corp was created on!”
Hailing from Cincinnati Ohio, JOE’S TRUCK STOP is the musical outlet of songwriter, folk musician, storyteller, traveler, organizer, and generally alright guy, Joe Macheret. His original work is inspired by his weird and eventful life, as well as folk music from around the world, especially that of Appalachia and the Western United States. Having toured as a collaborator with Possessed By Paul James and Matt Heckler, Joe is no stranger to the road and has been immersed in the Folk and Bluegrass world as a former member of both The Tillers and The Northern Kentucky Bluegrass Band.
On their installment of The Magnolia Sessions, Joe Macheret led the charge on guitar and vocals, joined by fellow musicians Stephen “Tebbs” Karney on dobro and backing vocals, Ilya Portnov on harmonica, and Joe Wunderle on guitar and backing vocals.
Macheret reveals, “These sessions were recorded at a pretty tumultuous time in my life. Getting over a vocal cord injury and maneuvering career changes amongst other circumstances had me in a rough spot. I’m ever grateful to my collaborators, Joe Wunderle, Tebbs Karney, and Ilya Portnov, who helped keep the spirits high, and I’m grateful to Dan Emery, who two years later insisted we get these recordings out in the world. These are songs I’ve written from my last fifteen years of songwriting, plus two covers by a couple of my heroes, Ola Belle Reed and Woody Guthrie.”
Dan Emery of Anti-Corp Music and Black Matter Mastering, who conceived and conducts The Magnolia Sessions, states, “We recorded this session twice. The first time we did it, Joe had been just outside the wildfires out west and as a result of all the smoke in the region, his vocals suffered. When we came back and recorded it again, he had recently recovered from another vocal injury but was still working through some issues. It just so happened that when we recorded this second one, I was starting to feel the burnout that was looming from the aggressive schedule of the first two years of The Magnolia Sessions recordings, which caused me to put the project on hiatus. After sitting on these recordings for almost two years, I came back to them and was amazed at how well they sounded. Given Joe’s apprehensiveness about how his voice may have sounded due to his injury, we were all pleasantly surprised at how everything turned out.”
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