Erin Rae McKaskle is singer.
Born and raised in Tennessee — first in Jackson, where she grew up watching her parents perform folk songs at coffee shops and country fairs, and later in Nashville, where she began playing gigs of her own as a teenager — McKaskle has long since secured her country credentials. Soon Enough, her breakout release, blended fiddle, pedal steel, and Telecaster twang into a sound that doubled down on her Southern roots.
Her voice, though, always seemed to hint at something broader, evoking the cascading melodies of Joni Mitchell one minute and the dreamy swoon of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval the next. McKaskle’s band was top-notch, but her vocals stole the show.
That voice takes center stage on Putting on Airs, whose songs reshape the lush, lilting influence of 1970s singer-songwriters into something modern. It’s music for Sunday afternoons, for the first days of fall, for rainy mornings spent inside. Although McKaskle began writing the album in her East Nashville home, she also credits the band’s touring schedule — both in America and abroad — for widening her tastes.
