April 25, 2025 — Following the contemplative, inward-looking “Paris,” Organic Records’ Aaron Burdett is back with “Honeybees,” an essay on the vagaries of fate cast as a straightforward bluegrass romp.
“In the summer of 2024,” the singer-songwriter recalls, “I was talking with my friend Bob, who’s kept bees and has family who does the same, and he said something about noticing ‘two honeybees on my sleeve.’ He was remarking about the time of season and wondering what their deal was. And it got me thinking about the ambiguity of any given moment in time. Anything could have brought them there and they could be going on in any number of directions after. I like taking note of noteworthy moments, and any moment can be noteworthy if I look at it in just the right way.”
Indeed, with its distinctive construction — though its choruses are easily recognizable as such, each contains a different lyric that advances the narrative — “Honeybees” is vintage Burdett, layering a philosophical meditation over bedrock bluegrass chords and melody. Backed by the award-winning Kristin Scott Bensonon banjo; Carley Arrowood on fiddle; ace mandolinist Tristan Scroggins (Missy Raines & Alleghany) and bassist/producer Jon Weisberger, with harmony vocals provided by Wendy Hickman and Travis Book (Infamous Stringdusters), the track moves along insistently. Still, the virtuosity of the band serves to underline, rather than distract from, Burdett’s finely-crafted meditation on those “noteworthy moments”:
Was it planned or chance that you’re here with me
Will you move on together or fly off separately
Delicate and fragile, that we’re crossing paths
And it’s more than coincidence to me
Let’s revel in the sunshine and beauty of the day
We are all old tomorrow, we were young yesterday
What fortune brought together we can hold to our hearts
It’s time we spend together and memory when we part
Like “Paris” and “Second Best” before it, Aaron Burdett’s “Honeybees” offers compelling proof that, in the right hands, the simplicity of bluegrass can be a powerful vehicle for conveying messages of complexity and depth.
Listen to “Honeybees” HERE.
About Aaron Burdett
Aaron Burdett’s lyrics are soul-touching, intelligent, witty, and poetic all at once, while his music style is a seamless blend of Americana, country, blues, bluegrass, and folk.
Aaron is listed as one of the Top 10 most important musicians of western North Carolina by WNC Magazine, alongside such greats as Doc Watson, Steep Canyon Rangers, and The Avett Brothers. He has also received critical acclaim as a songwriter, most recently winning the Chris Austin Songwriting contest at MerleFest for the bluegrass category for his song Rockefeller. His latest album “Dream Rich, Dirt Poor” (2021) debuted at #8 on the Billboard bluegrass charts and has had 4 top 10 radio songs to date.
Burdett took home the grand prize in the folk category of the USA Songwriting Contest with “A Couple Broken Windows” in 2018 and was also the winner of Our State Magazine’s Carolina Songs Competition in 2012 with “Going Home to Carolina.” Aaron’s song “Magpie” won third place bluegrass song in Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest in 2013. Over the years Aaron has been a finalist in numerous other songwriting competitions, including The Mountain Stage Songwriting Contest, The NC Songwriter’s Cooperative Songwriting Contest, and the Hank Williams Songwriting Contest.
As a child, Aaron discovered John Hiatt, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, The Beatles, The Band, and Rickie Lee Jones on vinyl records in his parents’ living room in the mountains of North Carolina. As a budding guitarist and songwriter, he was drawn to powerful communicators of the time like David Wilcox and Tracy Chapman and John Gorka. In his late teens, he discovered John Prine on a cassette tape dug out of a workshop drawer filled with rusty sixteen penny nails on a Wyoming ranch. He re-discovered the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on that same trip in a second-hand store in Riverton, Wyoming.
In his 20s he was introduced to Doc Watson when he heard him play in the living room of an old farmhouse near Boone, North Carolina. That experience led him to Norman Blake, Tony Rice, David Grier, Tim O’Brien, Darrell Scott, and Gillian Welch.
Mix all those influences up, add time and pressure, seven full-album releases, thousands of live performances, and you get Aaron Burdett, the songwriter and artist you hear today.
Drawing heavily on both the traditions of Appalachian folk music as well as nationally known songwriters, Aaron’s music gives voice to the small rural areas of the Blue Ridge Mountains while also speaking to the working men and women throughout the country.