How Jesse Welles’ folk protests songs struck a chord with millions

These days, when songwriter Jesse Welles posts a clip of himself playing acoustic guitar on social media, millions of people watch. Over the past few years, he’s become a genuine sensation by sharing socially conscious songs online, often in the woods near his home in Arkansas.

Welles started playing guitar as a kid and first appeared on World Cafe in 2018 with his band, Welles. But after a stint in Nashville, he moved back to Arkansas and began questioning whether he should keep making music at all.

Coming up, Jesse Welles talks about the moment he realized he couldn’t walk away from songwriting, and we’ll discuss his new album, Masks Off.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod.  Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe‘s engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.