Josh Weathers: Texas Country Soul And Keeping Music Human

There’s something reassuringly old-school about Josh Weathers. Not in the nostalgic, trying-to-recreate-the-past sense, but in the fact that for Weathers, music still seems to be about people in a room actually playing it.

That might sound like a fairly obvious statement, but in 2026 it increasingly isn’t. His latest project, Niles City Sessions, was recorded almost entirely live, largely in a single day, with mistakes, breaths and imperfections deliberately left in. The aim was never to create something pristine. It was to create something human. “I didn’t want people to hear the drums,” he tells me. “I wanted people to hear the drummer.”

It’s a line that probably explains Josh Weathers better than any genre label ever could.

That label, for the record, is Texas Country Soul. Weathers admits he isn’t entirely sure who first coined it, but it fits. He grew up with country music coming from one side of the family car and classic soul from the other. His mum played the country radio staples of the ’80s and ’90s, alongside huge voices like Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, while his dad leaned towards Marvin Gaye, Anita Baker and The Gap Band. “I couldn’t help but be influenced by both things,” he says.

For Weathers, there has never been much of a dividing line between them. Traditional country, George Jones, Merle Haggard and George Strait all sit comfortably alongside Muscle Shoals and classic Southern soul. “In my head and in my heart, all those things sort of fit together because that was my world.”

That explains why Niles City Sessions feels less like someone deliberately trying to fuse genres and more like an artist simply playing the music that naturally comes out of him. Sometimes it sounds like country. Sometimes it sounds like soul. Sometimes it lands somewhere right in the middle.

For many people, their introduction to Weathers came through his enormous rendition of I Will Always Love You. Initially, that level of attention wasn’t entirely comfortable. “I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m going to have to sing this every night for the rest of my life.’”

His relationship with the song changed over time. “Now I sort of view it as, I get to sing it every night.”

In a music industry where simply getting noticed can sometimes feel harder than making the music itself, Weathers now sees being associated with one extraordinary performance as a gift rather than a burden. “Just to be known for something is a great thing.”

The performance ultimately became much bigger than a viral clip. It also helped pull him back towards a music career he had deliberately stepped away from.

Weathers and his wife had travelled to India during the process of adopting their first daughter, an experience he describes as life-changing. The couple would eventually adopt three girls from India and establish the nonprofit Love Like You Mean It International. For several years, humanitarian work became his primary focus, and music initially returned simply as a way of helping raise money for those projects.

Then I Will Always Love You exploded online for a second time. This time, on Facebook. Around 40 million views later, Weathers realised music might have other ideas for him. “I was like, well, I guess I’m playing music again.”

That journey makes the philosophy behind Niles City Sessions feel particularly fitting. Weathers recorded it with musicians he has played alongside for around a decade. There was no need to manufacture chemistry because the chemistry was already there. “We really cut that whole thing in a day.”

Most of the vocals are live, and rather than repairing every slight imperfection, Weathers wanted them preserved. “Let’s track these songs a few times and just leave all the warts in there.”

That attitude feels increasingly deliberate, particularly now. “AI has become this buzzword and this crazy thing where robots are charting. Those songs are always perfect because they can’t be anything but perfect.”

For Weathers, perfection isn’t necessarily the goal. “I miss music being imperfect.”

And that is exactly what makes Niles City Sessions work. It doesn’t sound unfinished or under-produced. Quite the opposite. It sounds huge when it needs to and intimate when it should, but crucially it sounds like people. You can almost feel the musicians responding to each other in the room.

That live mentality also explains the inclusion of Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams. It might initially look like a bold cover choice, but for Weathers it is hardly a new song at all. He has been playing it live for close to twenty years. “It’s become sort of a staple of our live show.”

When the band entered the studio, it was one of the obvious songs to start with because everybody already knew it inside out. Over the years they had slowed it down, added steel guitar and almost turned it into a Texas two-step. Weathers didn’t fully appreciate how far their version had drifted from the original until he listened back afterwards. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re dragging!’”

But that is precisely why it works. It no longer feels like a Fleetwood Mac song being covered by Josh Weathers. It feels like a Josh Weathers song that just happens to have been written by Fleetwood Mac.

Ask him for the one track on Niles City Sessions that best introduces Josh Weathers and he goes straight to the final song, You Either Love Me or You Don’t. “It’s sort of like a good blend of the country and soul that I tend to represent.”

He’s right. It also feels like the perfect closer, the kind of song that doesn’t gently finish a record so much as kick the chair back, walk out and leave the door swinging behind it. It is, as I tell him, how you leave the room.

If Niles City Sessions represents where Josh Weathers is musically, his Grand Ole Opry debut represented something rather more symbolic. Strangely, he says the magnitude of it didn’t initially sink in. He was excited, but not particularly nervous. Then he walked out for soundcheck and saw the circle. “That circle on the floor represents so much because so many people have stood in that circle and played there.”

Suddenly the history became very real. Elvis. George Jones. George Strait. Merle Haggard. Heroes who had occupied the exact same patch of stage. “That was when I was like, ‘Whoa. This is a very big deal.’”

And somehow, that moment is only one part of what has been an extraordinary year. Around 150 days on the road, multiple projects released, a Grand Ole Opry debut and a European tour. When I list it back to him, there’s a pause. “I genuinely have not stopped long enough to think about it.”

Then he laughs. “So thanks for putting that in perspective and making me feel overwhelmed.” Sorry, Josh.

That European run will bring Weathers to the UK alongside Drake Milligan, arriving at an interesting time for country music over here. British audiences have embraced country and Americana on a scale that would have felt unlikely even a few years ago.

For Weathers, authenticity might be part of the reason. “It’s real musicians playing real instruments.” It connects directly back to everything he wanted Niles City Sessions to represent. People increasingly want to know what they’re hearing is real.

Weathers is also hoping the relationship with UK audiences goes beyond one tour. “I’m hoping that it becomes a second home for me really, just all over the UK and Europe.”

Then comes another line that feels very Josh Weathers. “Go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated.” British audiences, of course, can behave a little differently. They listen. Sometimes very quietly. Which can occasionally leave visiting American artists wondering whether anyone is enjoying themselves at all.

Weathers isn’t worried. He has performed all over the world and understands that crowds behave differently from place to place, but he also has something planned. Rather than simply dropping the same cover into every show, he wants to acknowledge each city with a song connected to that area.

Bristol gets something. Birmingham gets something. Manchester gets Rick Astley. “I’m going to Rickroll everybody in Manchester.” Apparently Oasis has already been ruled out. Probably wisely.

Anyone who has watched Josh Weathers perform will know there isn’t much restraint involved. He sings like someone who has absolutely no intention of saving his voice for tomorrow. With around 150 days on the road this year alone, that seems slightly insane. His reasoning is simple. “People paid to come and see you. You owe it to those people, no matter how many there are there, to give it everything that you have.”

There is another thought that drives him too. What if this were the last show? He points to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s final performance at Alpine Valley and the mythology that now surrounds it. “I always think, I’m gonna leave it all out there because if it’s the last time, I want it to be epic.”

It doesn’t come from morbidity. It comes from urgency. That same philosophy appears in the Niles City Sessions track One. The chorus carries a simple idea that Weathers says has become something of a mantra. “Give life all you got because you only get one.”

Before we finish, I ask Weathers perhaps the most important question of the conversation. If I had one night in Texas and he had to convince me nowhere else did it better, where would we go? Straight to the north side of Fort Worth. Exchange Street. A show at Billy Bob’s Texas, the enormous honky-tonk where national acts share a building with actual bull riding. Then across the street to the much smaller White Elephant Saloon.

Barbecue follows. Then Mexican food. By the end of the evening, Weathers promises I’ll be wondering why anybody would ever leave Texas. There is only one warning. “The British palate is not ready for enchiladas.” His advice? Bring antacids.

Maybe that is the thing with Josh Weathers. Whether he is talking about family, humanitarian work, playing the Grand Ole Opry, singing until there is nothing left in the tank or simply taking a British journalist for Mexican food in Fort Worth, there doesn’t appear to be much interest in doing things halfway.

And when he arrives in the UK, that may be exactly what makes him stand out. The imperfections will stay, the band will sound like a band, the drummer will sound like a drummer, and Josh Weathers will leave absolutely everything he has on the stage.

Josh Weathers tours the UK with Drake Milligan in November 2026.

Interview with Josh Weathers by Henry Finnegan on 5th October 2026. Instagram: @finneganfoto | Facebook: @finneganfoto.

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