Michael Cleveland, Rob Ickes, Scott Vestal join Sheila Vee on debut solo album ‘Ride’ (out 11/6)

COSMIC BLUEGRASS SINGER-SONGWRITER
SHEILA VEE
ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF DEBUT SOLO ALBUM
RIDE
DUE OUT FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6

“THROW ME A LINE”
— LEAD SINGLE WITH MICHAEL CLEVELAND ON FIDDLE —
SET FOR RELEASE ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7

NASHVILLE, TN (October 1, 2026) — Today, Sheila Vee, the New Jersey–based singer-songwriter and guitarist, announces the release of her debut solo album, Ride, due out Friday, November 6 via Ampersand Records. Produced by longtime collaborator Bob Harris of the bluegrass band Borderline, the eight-track collection is Vee’s grittiest, wildest and most personal work yet, fusing traditional bluegrass with pedal steel, Telecaster twang and the loose, freewheeling spirit of a Grateful Dead jam.

Ride marks a bold new chapter for Vee as a solo artist. On Wednesday, October 7, Vee will deliver the album’s lead single, “Throw Me a Line,” with renowned fiddler Michael Cleveland. The track will be accompanied by an animated visualizer, offering a visual introduction to the world of Ride.

Anchored by Cleveland’s fiddle,  “Throw Me a Line” shows the album’s cosmic country heart. The song came out of pure household chaos: Vee was trying to learn new recording software while “the kids were hungry, the laundry was piling up, and I was staring at a computer wondering why nothing worked,” Vee reflects. She calls the result: “Bluegrass at its core, but with some strange little detours.”

PRE-SAVE / PRE-ADD “THROW ME A LINE” HERE.

Vee first made her mark as a founding member of the acclaimed Magnolia Street String Band, featured in Bluegrass Today, The Bluegrass Situation and The Bluegrass Standard, among others. As a woman of color in a genre where few have traditionally been visible, Vee has carved out a place in bluegrass that is fully her own.

On Ride, Vee makes room for the psychedelic, comic and deeply feminine sides of her musical personality — the parts that “didn’t always have a place in the band,” she admits. The album title works as a mantra: “Just keep truckin’ no matter how chaotic, painful and frightening everything seems,” Vee says. “It’s vulnerable in places, playful in others, and definitely not afraid of the strange.”

Ride includes nationally renowned players Michael Cleveland, Rob Ickes, Scott Vestal and Andy Leftwich, plus award-winning Swedish Telecaster “chicken-picker” Erik Holmbom, alongside musicians from Vee’s own community, including Bob Harris, Dan Whitener (Gangstagrass), Dave McDonald (The Last Whippoorwill), pedal steel player Liam Bornovski, drummers Joe McGuth and Brandon Revilla, bassist Lawrence Haber and her sister Rita Shukla on harmony vocals. “No two songs have the same players, instruments or sound,” Vee says.

RIDE TRACK LISTING:
“Roll Like Thunder”
“Ride”
“Day’s To Dust”
“Throw Me A Line”
“In My Arms”
“Hunt”
“Nowhere to Lay My Head”
“Dreamin”

Across the record, Vee writes about chaos and despair with beauty and a streak of dark humor — rising oceans, asking for help while struggling, riding until the wheels fall off. “Days to Dust” is her most personal, written during an episode of seasonal depression; she hears it as a sister song to Gillian Welch’s “Dark Turn of Mind.” “Putting something that personal into the world can be both terrifying and liberating,” she says. Opener “Roll Like Thunder” honors bluegrass musician Sav Sankaran (Unspoken Tradition) and his community’s resilience after Hurricane Helene hit Asheville, while “Nowhere to Lay My Head,” inspired by Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, grew from a folky, Dylan-style song into a dreamy ballad with pedal steel and mandolin.

The cosmic side of Vee’s sound took shape when Vee and musician and actor Gerry Rosenthal launched a monthly genre-spanning jam. She picked up a Telecaster, formed the Grateful Dead tribute band Big Foot County and also performs with Disciples of the Dead — an improvisational side that “created some healthy creative tension in the studio,” she admits. “I wanted a jammy, psychedelic vibe… while Bob exudes traditional bluegrass to the bone,” Vee laughs. The breakthrough came when she played Harris Old & In the Way’s “Midnight Moonlight” as an example of a crooked jam, “where you deviate from a predictable song structure and let the instrumental flow,” she explains. “Once he understood my vision, we were able to find a really interesting middle ground,” Vee says.

A solo album was never on her radar, but when songs “began to pour out of me in such a short period of time,” as Vee puts it, “I took it as a sign.” On stage with the Sheila Vee Band, the Sheila Vee Bluegrass Band and Magnolia Street String Band, she aims for “new old tunes — familiar enough to make you feel at home, but with something unexpected in the mix,” she reveals. At its heart, Ride is an invitation. “I’d love to see more women — and more women of color — feel empowered to step into these musical spaces and make them their own,” Vee shares.

Above: Sheila Vee; Credit: Rob Shotwell

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