When Randolph Thomas sings “it’s getting dark early in the hills”,  he’s inviting his listeners on a journey across a stark, complicated landscape, and inward, where equally complex emotions unfold. As writer David Huddle suggests, Randolph “knows this landscape and its people”.  Born and raised in southwestern Virginia, Randolph has been writing and performing his own songs since his teens. His earliest musical influences were folk, country, and blues, as well as classic and alternative rock.

While studying creative writing at the University of Arkansas, Randolph formed the hybrid rock/country bar band, Jackson’s Buick, performing original songs arranged for jangling distorted guitars, cello, and mandolin. He later relocated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he co-founded Flatbed Honeymoon, a band that again drew from country and rock traditions. He composed and sang six of the songs on the band’s eponymous first album, including “This Is the Life” and “The Moon Is Blue”, two bittersweet songs of separation and longing, and “Patsy Cline”, a country rock ballad about an encounter with the ghost of the iconic country singer. After leaving Flatbed Honeymoon in 2009, he focused more on fiction and poetry, publishing two prizewinning books, Dispensations, a collection of short stories, and The Deepest Rooms, a collection of poems.

In 2018, Randolph began performing and writing songs again and soon returned to the studio.  His album Between the Lines (2019) includes “You Can’t Be Her”, a tale of mistaken identity in the hills, “Slow Motion”, a folksy song about separation and acceptance, and “Money In My Pocket”, a sparse rocker about a singer who is willing to play through any apocalypse as long as someone is listening. Most of the songs on Nite by Nite (2022), written during the COVID lockdown, are darkly optimistic tales, including “This Dark Road”, a tale of migratory work and emotional displacement, the quiet ballad “In the Blink of Our Eyes”, and the blistering rocker “Don’t Ask Me Again”.

An intimate, intense performer, Randolph Thomas accompanies his soulful singing with folk and blues guitar and harmonica arrangements. His evocative, introspective songs marry lyricism and storytelling, honed by his skills as an award-winning poet and short story writer who has published two books and has placed stories, poems, and essays in such literary journals as Glimmer Train Stories, Poetry Daily, Southern Poetry Review, and The Common. His albums (Between the Lines and Nite by Nite) are available on CD and through streaming services. His songs have been featured on radio shows like The Hootenanny Café Radio Show and The Heavy Lifting and he is a member of Folk Alliance International.