Album features special guests: Corduroy Brown, Wes Hager of Fletcher’s Grove, Megan Paullet of HR Department, Osage Gospel & Soul Community Choir, and West Virginia legend Al Anderson
New Single “Appalachian Soul” arrives August 10, 2026
OSAGE, WV / MusicWire / Aug. 10, 2026 — Long before America put neat labels on Soul, Rock & Roll, R&B, Folk and Country, those sounds were already meeting in the mountains, coal towns, churches, front porches and juke joints of Appalachia. Award-winning singer, songwriter and storyteller Aristotle Jones brings that musical inheritance across time with Appalachian Soul Power, his new album exploring the sounds, stories and people that shaped him. The album arrives September 22, 2026, alongside Mountain Alchemy, a companion book that expands on the project’s themes of Appalachian identity, resilience and community.
The album’s first single, “Appalachian Soul,” arrives August 10, offering the first glimpse into the sound and spirit of Appalachian Soul Power. Driven by Jones’ percussive guitar and a warm, roots-oriented, genre-mixing blend of Americana, “Appalachian Soul” serves as both an introduction and a declaration. The track captures Jones’ musical identity in concentrated form, pairing the immediacy of his performance style with a sound that feels grounded without being bound to the past. Jones chose “Appalachian Soul” as the album’s first single because it captures the spirit of Appalachian Soul Power, bringing together the sounds, influences, and experiences that have shaped his musical identity.
Known as the “Appalachian Soul Man,” Jones approaches Appalachian Soul Power not as an exercise in nostalgia, but as living music. Rooted in West Virginia, the album moves across musical boundaries while remaining grounded in Jones’ unmistakable sense of place. His influences reflect a lineage that includes Appalachian-born music figures such as Bill Withers and Johnnie Johnson, whose work with Chuck Berry helped shape early Rock & Roll. At the same time, his own family history reaches back to coal miners, farmers, and a grandfather who carried Gospel and Soul music into segregated coal camps.
“Appalachian Soul Power is about where I come from, but it’s also about what I’ve carried with me from that place,” says Jones. “I grew up hearing all of these different sounds, and I never thought about where one ended and another began. They were simply part of the world around me. With this album, I wanted to capture some of that feeling and share an Appalachia that people may not always get to see or hear. You don’t have to be from here to recognize the joy, the struggle, the love, and the way people come together. That’s Appalachian soul to me.”
Rather than recreating another era, Appalachian Soul Power explores what happens as those traditions continue to move, mingle, and evolve across generations. The album also serves as a musical companion to Mountain Alchemy, with its songs providing a soundtrack to many of the ideas at the heart of the book. Exploring Black Appalachian culture, resilience, and the power of community, Mountain Alchemy considers how creativity, collective action, and cultural memory can help communities navigate adversity, preserve identity, and carry their experiences forward. Together, the album and book create an interconnected portrait of Appalachia shaped by its past but very much alive in the present.
Across Appalachian Soul Power, Jones draws freely from Soul, Gospel, Folk, R&B, Rock & Roll, and Country, weaving them together without regard for traditional genre lines. Percussive guitar, piano, horns, layered vocals, and a tightly connected rhythm section give the record its character, shifting easily between intimate moments that place Jones’ voice and songwriting at the center and expansive, high-energy arrangements built for the stage. Throughout, the album retains the warmth, spontaneity, and connection that define Jones’ live performances.
It is music deeply rooted in place without being confined by it. Appalachian Soul Power is American music with an Appalachian address.
Collaboration adds another dimension to Appalachian Soul Power, bringing together artists whose voices and experiences reflect the musical communities surrounding Jones. Pittsburgh-based singer-songwriter Megan Paullet joins Jones on “Perfectly Clear” and contributes background vocals to “Keep On Climbing.” At the same time, Huntington, West Virginia artist Corduroy Brown takes the second verse on “Fool,” a song Jones revisited from earlier in his career as part of his idea of “going back to move forward.”
The album also reaches directly into Jones’ Osage community. West Virginia musician Al Anderson appears on “Ain’t No Day Worth Crying” (Momma’s Hymn), while the Osage Gospel and Soul Community Choir lends its collective voice to “Call Me,” “Ain’t No Day Worth Crying” and “First Flowers of Spring.” Guitarist Wes Hager of Fletcher’s Grove rounds out the featured collaborations with a guitar solo on “So Close,” bringing a thread of West Virginia’s jam-band tradition into the project.
Together, the collaborations reinforce one of the ideas at the heart of Appalachian Soul Power: music grows through exchange. Different generations, communities and musical traditions meet throughout the album, creating a record that feels both deeply personal to Jones and connected to the larger musical world that shaped him. That perspective arrives at a pivotal moment in his career.
Jones releases Appalachian Soul Power amid a significant period of recognition and momentum. He was named a 2026 United States Artists Fellow and selected for the 2026–2027 Central Appalachia Living Traditions Emerging Artists Cohort, funded by Mid Atlantic Arts. Jones was also featured on the Summer 2026 cover of Morgantown Magazine. In July, he and his band were named International Blues Competition Affiliate Challenge winners. They will represent West Virginia at the 43rd International Blues Challenge, taking place January 19–23, 2027, on historic Beale Street in Memphis.
The connection between Appalachian Soul Power and Jones’ forthcoming novel, Mountain Alchemy, extends the project beyond the album itself. Conceived as companion works, the music creates a sonic landscape for the themes and world explored in the book, with Jones envisioning the album as a soundtrack to the reading experience. Future plans include bringing the two together in a collectible edition pairing Mountain Alchemy with the album on vinyl.
With Appalachian Soul Power, Jones is not trying to place Appalachia inside an established American musical narrative. He is reminding listeners that Appalachia has been part of that narrative all along. The album draws from that inheritance while pushing it forward, offering a distinctly contemporary expression of what Appalachian music has been, what it is, and what it can become.
Appalachian Soul Power will be released on September 22, 2026 via Jonesin’ Records. https://linktr.ee/appalachiansoulman
About
Aristotle Jones is an award-winning singer, songwriter, and storyteller known as the “Appalachian Soul Man.” Rooted in West Virginia, Jones draws from Soul, Folk, Gospel, R&B, Rock & Roll, and Country traditions while creating contemporary music and stories shaped by the people, places, and culture of Appalachia.
A descendant of coal miners and farmers, Jones carries a musical inheritance that includes his grandfather, a regional Gospel and Soul singer who traveled to segregated coal camps performing for Black coal miners during the mid-20th century. Jones cites Appalachian-born music legends Johnnie Johnson and Bill Withers among his influences and has built his own body of work around music, storytelling and an enduring connection to place.
Jones is a recipient of the 2026 United States Artists Fellowship and the National Association of Black Storytellers’ Black Appalachian Storyteller Fellowship and performs nationally as a musician and storyteller. For more information: www.aristotlejones.com
Contacts
Tracey Henry, Publicist, THC & IAAB
631-861-4723
tracey@th-consulting.co
Alicia Brown, Publicist, THC & IAAB
917-636-2062
influential.aabllc@gmail.com
View source version on MusicWire: press release
SOURCE: THC & IAAB
