Rivers and Rails

ZOE & CLOYD RELEASE NEW SINGLE “RIVERS AND RAILS”

Co-Written with Grammy Winner Tim Stafford, New Single Arrives Just Ahead of MerleFest 2026

ASHEVILLE, NC — Asheville-based duo Zoe & Cloyd have announced the release of their new single, “Rivers and Rails,” available April 17, 2026. The track arrives just ahead of the duo’s appearance at MerleFest 2026 and follows their August 2025 single “The Road That Might Have Been.”

“Rivers and Rails” was co-written by Zoe & Cloyd’s John Cloyd Miller and Grammy-winning songwriter Tim Stafford. Set roughly 150 years in the past, the song tells the story of a young newlywed man who, having ventured West with his bride in search of a new life, finds his hunger for adventure ultimately stronger than his commitment to marriage and home. It’s a character study in wanderlust and regret and a gentle warning, as Miller notes, about partners who cannot be tamed.
The song takes its name from a real place: the Rivers and Rails Tavern in Dillsboro, NC, where the idea first came to Miller during a lunch stop with his wife and musical partner, Natalya Zoe Weinstein. The setting sparked a meditation on the romance and restlessness of early American travel, and the rivers and rail lines that once carried dreamers and drifters alike across the continent.

“The temptation to travel the rivers and rails is too much… As the father of a young lady myself, I couldn’t help having the song serve as a warning to be wary of no-good partners!”
— John Cloyd Miller

Musically, the track is designed to embody the journey it describes. Written in Miller’s signature style, the arrangement shifts tempo between verse and chorus, building momentum and energy that mirrors the restless spirit of its protagonist. The production features Zoe & Cloyd’s longtime collaborator Kevin Kehrberg on bass, Bennett Sullivan on banjo, and David Benedict on mandolin; a lineup that brings both precision and warmth to the material. Weinstein and Miller share vocal duties, with Miller taking the lead, and the overall tone balances forward motion with an undercurrent of melancholy that keeps the character’s regret close to the surface. The result is a contemporary bluegrass song that feels rooted in tradition while telling a story entirely its own, a hallmark of what Zoe & Cloyd have built across their career together.

About Zoe & Cloyd
Zoe & Cloyd—the creative partnership of fiddler/vocalist Natalya Zoe Weinstein and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist John Cloyd Miller—have built a reputation for music that bridges worlds: classical and folk, klezmer and bluegrass, Massachusetts and the mountains of North Carolina. Natalya brings a classically-trained background and roots in klezmer and jazz; John is a 12th-generation North Carolinian and the grandson of pioneering bluegrass fiddler Jim Shumate. Together they have released five studio albums, most recently Songs of Our Grandfathers (2023, Organic Records), and performed at major festivals including MerleFest, Grey Fox, FreshGrass, the NC Folk Festival, and the Westport Folk & Bluegrass Fest in Ireland. John is a grand prize winner of both the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest and the Hazel Dickens Songwriting Contest; Natalya has taken top honors at fiddle competitions across the country. The duo teaches in the traditional music program at Warren Wilson College and serves as artistic directors for A Swannanoa Solstice at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts in Asheville, NC. www.zoeandcloyd.com