Saving Country Music’s 2017 Dark Country & Roots Halloween Playlist

Reviews 30 Comments

saving-country-music-halloween-playlist-2017

There’s nothing like the onset of fall to stoke memories as the leaves turn colors and the air becomes crisp, and the earth shifts in such a way that the light of the late evening feels like its sent from the past. And as the sun sets a bit earlier every day and October 31st nears, it gives us cause to engage in one of the most entertaining tasks each year, which is to delve a little deeper into the vast, spooky Grimoire of dark country and roots music.

From the very beginning, there has always been a Gothic side to country and roots music. From the murder ballads and ghost stories of the Ralph Peer-era pioneers of country, to tales of struggle and lunacy from more modern underground artists attempting to keep those haunting spirits alive, Gothic country never gets its due credit, nor do the scores of artists and bands who are trying to keep those traditions alive with new music bathed in the darkness and depression and unsettled minds of America’s dying agrarian landscape.

For the 2nd year running, Saving Country Music has compiled a Halloween playlist featuring many of these unheralded artists and some of their best songs to get you into the Halloween spirit. The playlist is available On Spotify, on Google Play (not all songs available), and can also be found in an embedded player below. And for those that don’t do the streaming thing, you can still find the playlist suggestions below. Also feel free to Follow Saving Country Music on Spotify, and check out SCM’s most current music suggestions on the Top 25 Playlist.

This year’s playlist is dedicated to Izzy Cox, who was one of the masters of macabre, and who passed away after a battle with Cancer earlier this year.

WARNING: Some songs may contain foul language

 

  1. “Graverobber Blues” – The Bloody Jug Band
  2. “Stab” – The Pine Box Boys
  3. “Ain’t No Grave” – Johnny Cash
  4. “Casket Lands” – The Builders and the Butchers
  5. “Killing My Kind” – Izzy Cox
  6. “Someday I’ll Fall” – Rachel Brooke, Lonesome Wyatt
  7. “Last Red Dawn” – Lincoln Durham
  8. “Snake Farm” – Ray Wylie Hubbard
  9. “Raven” – Ugly Valley Boys
  10. “The Shadow of the Undertaker” – Sons of Perdition
  11. “Behold Black Sheep” – Those Poor Bastards
  12. “Americadio” – Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
  13. “Hell Hound On My Trail” – The Slow Poisoner
  14. “Don’t Bury Me” – Slackeye Slim
  15. “Zombie Zoo” – Tom Petty
  16. “Graveyard” – The Devil Makes Three”
  17. “Rails of Doom” – Ronnie Hymes
  18. “Shake Yer Bones” – Viva Le Vox
  19. “Waiting ‘Round to Die” – Lindi Ortega
  20. “Bell On A Rope” – Joseph Huber
  21. “God’s Away on Business” – Tom Waits
  22. “Kingdom It Will Come” – The Dad Horse Experience
  23. “Straight to Hell/Satan Is Real” – Hank Williams III
  24. “Box of Pine” – Black Eyed Vermillion
  25. “The Black Bird” – Rachel Brooke
  26. “Reptile” – Bob Wayne
  27. “99 Lives” – James Hunnicutt
  28. “Blood on the Bluegrass” – Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers
  29. “Dark Was The Night” – Heathen Apostles
  30. “If The Beasts Should Hunt Us” – Lonesome Wyatt, Rachel Brooke
  31. “Killed Them Both” – Wayne Hancock
  32. “A Ghost in This House” – Heinrich XIII and the Devilgrass Pickers
  33. “Blood Sweat & Murder” – Scott H. Biram
  34. “Bugs” – O’Death
  35. “Enemy” – Phantom of the Black Hills

 

© 2025 Saving Country Music

,