Hurray for the Riff Raff

The rootsy, Americana act Hurray for the Riff Raff was less a solid band than it was a loose collective fronted by the folk-minded, idiosyncratic singer/songwriter Alynda Segarra. Born in New York, Segarra relocated to New Orleans in 2007, where she first began to use the name Hurray for the Riff Raff and issued the self-released albums It Don’t Mean I Don’t Love You in 2008.  Young Blood Blues followed in 2010. She cherry-picked her favorite tracks from those albums for her debut on the British indie label Loose Records, 2011’s Hurray for the Riff Raff. 2012’s Look Out Mama continued to gain the group critical praise, and they played the celebrated Newport Folk Festival in 2013 before releasing My Dearest Darkest Hour that same year. Segarra then signed with ATO Records and released 2014’s Small Town Heroes, an album of folky, almost Woody Guthrie-like tales of struggle and strife. For 2017’s loosely autobiographical The Navigator, Segarra wrote a song-cycle about a Puerto Rican musician shaped by a New York City upbringing. The LP introduced more varied instrumentation and musical styles than any previous Hurray for the Riff Raff album without ever denying her Dylan-esque roots. Life on Earth followed in 2022, reaching number 19 in Scotland and number 28 on the UK Album Downloads chart. The Past Is Still Alive followed in 2024, featuring contributions from artists like Conor Oberst and S.G. Goodman.