The title track, based on the true-life story of Sam Williams, a gay West Virginia coal miner ostracized and harassed for his sexuality, evokes a side of Appalachian lives usually overlooked in bluegrass and old-time music. Gleaves’ work speaks to the long line of dedicated, progressive voices in the mountains, pushing against discrimination and parochial attitudes while cleaving to their beloved regional art forms and storytelling. “It’s made me realize there was still a need to write songs about people who face these circumstances,” he says. “Be it living under a mountaintop removal site, or fighting for equality.”