This fall, one of country music’s most poignant new voices is heading to the Key Peninsula. Nathan Evans Fox, whose roots single “Hillbilly Hymn (Okra and Cigarettes)” has become a viral anthem of Southern liberation, will perform at the Madrona Music Festival on Saturday, October 18, at the Key Peninsula Civic Center in Key Center, WA.
Fox’s appearance is a marquee moment for the Madrona Music Festival, the annual artist-led gathering presented by Yonlander that brings together folk musicians, poets, and storytellers committed to cultural reckoning and community joy.
His upcoming set follows the release of Hillbilly Hymn on Free Dirt Records. It marks his first West Coast performance since the song catapulted him from underground acclaim to viral notoriety.
A Viral Song Rooted in the Sacred and the Subversive
The story behind Hillbilly Hymn is as unvarnished as its sound. While balancing life as a new father, Fox uploaded a short acoustic version of the song online — two verses about a just and joyful world “when the Lord gets back.”
Within days, it struck a deep chord with listeners across TikTok, Instagram, and beyond. The song’s unapologetic mix of gospel storytelling and Southern wit carried it across social feeds and through the hearts of those craving a different kind of country music.
Now reimagined as a studio track, Hillbilly Hymn blends Appalachian rhythms with piano, fiddle, foot-stomping percussion, and a makeshift choir of friends. Its lyrics imagine a world with no police, no bosses, and plenty of queer joy: “All the boys gonna wear the purty things,” Fox sings, smiling through layers of reverb and organ chords.
He enlisted fellow musicians Lizzie No, Emily Hines, Silas Lowe, Graciela, and co-producer Zachary Hamilton to help create a choir reminiscent of a rural church where “nobody cares if you’re off-key.” Fox encouraged them to sing with feeling instead of perfection — capturing what he calls “one of the few uncomplicated things I appreciated about my fundamentalist upbringing.”
“It’s a beautiful thing to hear folks who can’t hold a tune belt a song in a space where no one will judge their performance,” he says.
The Hymn as Resistance, the Song as Celebration
Fox’s songwriting is part of a growing tradition of rural Southern artists who reject sanitized, corporate country in favor of something stranger, funnier, and more honest. With roots in theology, grief care, and folk storytelling, he weaves together Bible verses and economic critique like patchwork quilting. Hillbilly Hymn doesn’t just imagine a better world — it laughs and cries its way there.
“His songs bring a reverence to the working class, give thanks in the value supermarket, demand divinity by the kitchen sink, and recite prayer at the gas pump,” Free Dirt’s announcement put it.
It’s this blend of reverence and rebellion that makes Fox a defining voice of a new generation of country music — and a natural addition to Madrona Fest’s mission of uplifting artists who build bridges between the personal, the political, and the poetic.
From Nashville to the Northwest: The Road to Madrona Fest
Fox’s musical mission isn’t just about art — it’s about action. To celebrate the release of Hillbilly Hymn, he collaborated with Edgehill United Methodist Church and the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) for a benefit concert that raised over $1,600 to support immigrant communities in Tennessee. The event replaced the usual merch table with “Immigrants Belong” yard signs and literature on how to respond to ICE encounters.
Held under clearing skies after a Nashville rainstorm, the release show embodied everything Fox’s song represents: radical inclusion, community-led joy, and the sacred act of singing together.
“I hope this song feels like church in a cinderblock building with a water-stained drop ceiling where the potluck is greasy and the message is about getting everybody free,” Fox said at the event.
His performance at Madrona Fest will extend that same spirit to the Pacific Northwest. Hosted in the timber-framed Key Peninsula Civic Center, the festival is a homegrown celebration of art and solidarity under the towering trees of the Key Peninsula. For Fox, it’s a natural fit — both geographically new and thematically familiar.
What’s Next for Fox
With his debut single on Free Dirt Records now out in the world, Fox is currently on a short tour that includes 2050 Fest in Pennsylvania, Rambling House in Ohio, and of course Madrona Fest.
His full-length album is slated for spring 2026, and fans can follow along via his newsletter, Nathan Evans Fox & Comrades, where he shares essays, song drafts, and reflections on faith, family, and the work of liberation.
For those attending Madrona Fest this year, his set is likely to be one of the most memorable: not just for the music, but for the way it gathers people — in grief, in resistance, and in shared hope — under a canopy of sound and trees.
