Ian Noe’s third album, “Canyon Falls Trailer Band,” is now streaming, drawing on his Eastern Kentucky roots. It pairs fictionalized characters with lived experiences of hardship, humor and humanity; Noe says his late grandfather and the landscape shaped his songwriting.
The title concept follows a fictional band that plays one night in Nashville hoping to win music-industry approval. Noe describes “Leeann” as a woman who returns to Eastern Kentucky after life on the road with her husband, while “The Heidelberg Fisherman’s Ball” is a comic, upbeat song tied to the real Lock and Dam No. 14.
Noe said “Bible County” is set in an imaginary place but based on a true story: it follows a lesbian woman hiding “from herself” before she jumps from a bridge under societal pressure. He said he tries to portray Appalachian hardship respectfully rather than turn it into a spectacle.
