Ten years ago this summer, Kelsey Waldon was named one of Rolling Stone Country’s inaugural Artists You Need to Know. She’s been on a roll ever since, releasing acclaimed albums like 2022’s No Regular Dog, and signing with John Prine’s Oh Boy! Records. On May 10, Waldon will release her latest project, There’s Always a Song, a duets album that finds the Kentucky native interpreting the country and bluegrass songs she listened to while growing up.

Waldon previews There’s Always a Song with the release of “Hello Stranger,” a collaboration with fellow Kentuckian S.G. Goodman, who suggested they cover the song in the manner of Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard’s 1973 version. It’s a funky bit of country soul propelled by Waldon’s fiddle player Libby Weitnauer and the easy interplay between Waldon and Goodman’s voices.

In addition to Goodman, There’s Always a Song features guests like Margo Price (“Traveling the Highway Home”) and 49 Winchester frontman Isaac Gibson (Ralph Stanley’s “I Only Exist”). Amanda Shires also lends her fiddle playing on the bluegrass staple “Uncle Pen.”

“These songs are deep. They were here long before me, and they will be here long after I’m gone, after any of us are here. They will survive the test of time,” Waldon said in a statement. “It’s like they live in some kind of universe that just survives forever. These songs know the secrets to life.”

Waldon is set to perform at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on March 2, part of the institution’s “Songwriter Session” series.