Bay Area songwriter Josiah Flores returns with Doin’ Fine, his second full-length that blends country soul with Chicano roots, personal storytelling, and a poetic lens sharpened by lived experience.
A part-time poet turned full-time truth-speaker, Flores brings an unflinching vulnerability to these songs. Influenced by country greats like Stoney Edwards, Freddy Fender, and Townes Van Zandt, Josiah’s songs feel right at home in a quiet corner of a bar – honest, weathered, and rightfully spinning on the jukebox.
On Doin’ Fine, Flores explores identity, family history, and personal reckoning with a voice that shifts easily between tenderness and twang. There’s rawness here, but also wit and joy: “When I was young, my momma told me, ‘At some point, you have to laugh at the pain.’ That stuck with me. It weaves itself into my songwriting and the titles of my records.”
Backed by a stellar and understated group of Bay Area musicians – Esther Gonzales (dobro, lap steel), Sydney Peterson (bass), K. Dylan Edrich (fiddle), Ainsley Wagoner (piano, keys, vocals), Jacob Aranda (pedal steel), and Marisela Guizar (drums) – the songs bloom with depth, texture, and a classic sensibility. There’s honky-tonk energy when you need it, but also plenty of room for silence, space, and subtlety.
Produced and recorded by Alicia Vanden Heuvel at Speakeasy Studios SF on a vintage Otari 8-track, Doin’ Fine feels timeless by design – analog warmth wrapped around songs that could’ve come from any decade, but speak directly to the present.
With Doin’ Fine, Josiah Flores proves that country music doesn’t have to come from any particular corner of the world to hit hard or feel true. It just has to come from somewhere honest. And this album does – every dusty, heartfelt second of it.
– @meanwhile_in_music
