Courtney Marie Andrews
The Atlantis, Washington D.C., April 24, 2026
One of those names that was vaguely in the back of my head, but which rarely penetrated my active thoughts,
Courtney Marie Andrews has now been doing indie country-influenced songwriting for almost 20 years, but I’ve never listened closely to her music before I randomly won a ticket to see her last week at the Atlantis in Washington.
Andrews, touring for a new album called
Valentine, is an immensely poised songwriter who also plays Wurlitzer keyboard, acoustic and electric guitar, and flute in concert. Her instrumental chops are not insignificant, but her vocals are truly eye-opening. On “Pendulum Swing,” the opening track on the record, which she performed in order on Thursday night, she suddenly segues in the first verse from a middle register to a piercing soprano. She manages to do this multiple times throughout her songs, in a way that is showy, but never seems extraneous to the compositions themselves.
Maybe it’s indicative of my lack of background knowledge, but I saw threads of Andrews’ show connecting her with the murmured intimacies of Jessica Pratt and the Southern gothic romantic turmoil of Skylar Gudasz, but I gather that throughout her career, she has been compared most to Linda Ronstadt in terms of pure vocal firepower. I get it, too; Andrews has a marvelously supple and powerful voice, put to good use on songs of exquisite longing and loneliness like “
Cons and Clowns” (which also showcased her flute solos).
The set of the show was spare. There were a few, deliberately sad-looking, heart-shaped balloons floating above the stage. Andrews switched between Wurlitzer and various guitars, and memorably, sometimes played flute with a guitar hanging around her neck (honestly, way more impressive than a harmonica). She was elegantly dressed and made up, and was backed, as is every female songwriter I see, by a group of homely bearded dudes recruited for their instrumental chops rather than stage presence. The songs always edged in the direction of country — tonally, in their instrumental accompaniment, and frequently in the narrative settings — without ever feeling like they hewed remotely close to Nashville trope.
The setlist for the show is not online, but since Andrews did all of
Valentine in order to open the set, it wasn’t hard to figure out the bulk of the show. And since the ticket I won included a copy of the record on LP (“a vinyl,” as the person at the merch desk said), I expect I’ll take a close listen to this album in the coming weeks.
Opening for Andrews was a genuinely impressive young woman whose set I only saw part of: the unusually named
Aubory Bugg. Not a stage name; it seems too weird to be anything other than authentic. She’s based in Nashville, but spoke about growing up in the memorably specific Granite City, Illinois. Performing solo on an acoustic guitar, which she fingerpicked with casual expertise, she told self-deprecating stories and sang with gripping earnestness about romantic relationships, doomed flirtations with straight friends, and kind elder relatives whose good works outlive them. She reminded me most of early Lucy Dacus, whom I saw before her career blew up, but maybe I conflate queer Southern women. For a starting point, “
friends?” with its deliberate ambiguity in the title, is a good one.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2026 05:22PM by zwirnm.
