William Elliott Whitmore

Growing up on a 160-acre horse farm in Lee County, Iowa, William Elliott Whitmore absorbed the rhythms of the land before he wrote about it. His roots-folk music, which also takes in blues and country, is often shaped by the hills of south-eastern Iowa and by a family history tied to that ground, the farm having been in the family since his third great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant. Charley Pride and Willie Nelson were early touchstones, and the guitar and banjo he took up as a teenager carry a voice that is deep and baritone.

Iowa City's punk and DIY scene shaped him, and he toured as an opener for Ten Grand before Southern Records signed him. Three Southern releases, Hymns for the Hopeless (2003), Ashes to Dust (2005) and Song of the Blackbird (2006), formed a trilogy about death and grief after losing his parents and grandparents. A move to ANTI- in 2009 brought Animals in the Dark, a concept album that reached number 50 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. Radium Death (2015) included "Civilizations", about an oil pipeline that threatened his grandmother's land. Kilonova, a covers album, followed for Bloodshot Records in 2018.