Josiah Flores

 

Part-time poet turned melodic storyteller, Chicano singer/songwriter Josiah Flores puts music to the parts of life most tend to hide from. From the foothills of south San Jose to the foggy avenues of San Francisco, he calls the Bay Area his home. Influenced by the likes of Stoney Edwards, Freddy Fender, Willie Dunn, and Waylon Jennings, if one were to sit in a dimly-lit corner of their local watering hole, hunched over a beer, they would find Josiah’s songs sitting down next to them.

What first started off as a solo project, Josiah has now brought some new players to join him on his second full length album, Doin’ Fine, a collection of songs that explore themes of change and transformation. The band includes Esther Gonzales (dobro, lap steel), Sydney Peterson (bass), K. Dylan Edrich (Fiddle), Ainsley Wagoner (piano, keys, background vox) Jacob Aranda (pedal steel), and Marisela Guizar (drums), musicians all based in the Bay Area. The album was produced and recorded on Otari ½” 8 track by Alicia Vanden Heuvel, at Speakeasy Studios SF, her record label and analog recording studio of the same name, in San Francisco’s Mission District.    

Flores’ songwriting on Doin’ Fine explores themes of individuality, ownership, departures, family history, personal change, and redemption through folk country songs from a Chicano perspective that range from intensely raw to joyfully playful to full on honky tonk. The band’s accompaniment propels the storytelling into a space where one isn’t alone, but where the themes come to life in song. There is a poetic beauty throughout the album, where Flores’ works through an examination in song of the central thematic questions of “How do I walk away? What does intergenerational trauma look like? Can I change? Can I return?” 

Doin’ Fine comes out May 30, 2025 on Speakeasy Studios SF.  Produced, recorded, and mixed by San Francisco’s own Alicia Vanden Heuvel (The Aislers Set), the album sits well in the folk/ country/ outlaw/ honky tonk sonic landscapes, but thoroughly rooted in life in the west. It ushers you in calmly, jangles you around a bit, sits you down to think, and ultimately leaves you feeling like you want to ride the rollercoaster again. Flores has given us a beautiful and heartfelt album that breaks new ground in the tradition of American country folk music, taking the listener on a poignant, poetic, thoroughly relevant, and well-crafted musical journey.