eTown Live Taping with The Deslondes and Special Guest

Date and Time

• Thursday, Oct 8, 2026  7pm - 9:30pm

Location

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Details

When the Deslondes recorded their new covers album, they didn’t want to simply exalt their heroes and catalog their influences. They wanted to give their friends a boost as well. The poignant and powerful Don’t Let It Die Vol. 1 includes new interpretations of old songs by artists who’ve guided the band for years, including Swamp Dogg, Johnny Cash and Clifton Chenier, alongside new songs by peers, tourmates and collaborators, including Nick Woods, Pat Reedy and the Kernel. “We have so many friends who are songwriters, and we just love their music so much,” says John James Tourville, who plays guitar and occasionally the fiddle. “Riley and Dan are always kicking around awesome, inspiring old songs for us to do, but for this album we really wanted to do some friend songs, too.”

Don’t Let It Die maps out a community of likeminded musicians given to hopping trains, crowding tour vans and blurring the lines between styles and scenes. “These songs are very much a close part of our lives,” says Riley Downing, who sings and usually plays guitar. “They’re all part of our circle, this big organism that keeps influencing itself. It’s mysterious, though, which musicians get heard and which ones don’t. I think we’re in a good position to tip our cap to the friends we look up to, and hopefully it will benefit our buddies. Hopefully this album will encourage people to go down those rabbit holes.”

Opening with the nuclear-fallout lament “The World Beyond” and ending with the pleading “Don’t Let It Die,” the album feels like a full-circle moment, reconnecting the band with the spirit that first brought them together. More than a typical covers record, Don’t Let It Die is filled with departures, reunions and reflections on life spent between the road and home. Songs like Kiki Cavazos’ “I’m Gone,” Clifton Chenier’s “I’m Coming Home” and Nick Woods’ “Family” speak to restlessness and belonging in equal measure.

The album also traces the band’s roots back to New Orleans and Deslonde Street in the Ninth Ward, where their community of musicians first took shape. “We’d all hang out around the fire in the backyard and trade songs,” says Sam Doores. “Deslonde became a hub for our little misfit community of traveling musicians.” Years later, the band reunited there in January 2025 to record these sessions, finally making music on the very street that gave them their name.

Recorded to tape during a rare New Orleans snowstorm, Don’t Let It Die carries a warm, live-in-the-room feeling throughout. The sessions stretched late into the night, with performances captured whenever inspiration struck. “We were all stuck inside together, but everything felt very cozy and comfortable,” says Dan Cutler. That closeness runs through the album, which balances intimate performances with a wider reflection on uncertainty, community and survival. “Ending with ‘Don’t Let It Die’ felt hopeful,” says Tourville. “We’re not an overtly political band, and we’re not trying to preach to anybody, but that felt like the right vibe.”