Carsie Blanton

Few protest singers arrive with back-up vocals for a touring funk band and a turn as one of the Fates in Hadestown on their CV, yet Carsie Blanton's route explains much about her work. Raised on a former cattle farm in Luray, Virginia, where her education involved unschooling, she began piano at six and guitar at thirteen. Fresh Air described her as a hard-headed, open-hearted protester who can make revolution sound desirable to the body, even when the mind resists.

Her first studio album, Ain't So Green, was self-released in 2005, and she moved to Philadelphia in 2006 to pursue music full-time. Support slots with The Wood Brothers and Paul Simon's So Beautiful or So What tour followed, and in 2021 she made Love and Rage, a collection of anti-fascist anthems. Body of Work arrived one song a month through 2022 and 2023. Red Album Vol. II, released in 2026, includes Hello, Comrade, a song begun in an Israeli prison after she spent a week there following her participation in the Global Sumud Flotilla.