“How is our consciousness changing?” is the question Maddy Ringo grapples with throughout her record People of the Earth and Sea, released March 28. The Toronto-born singer-songwriter has established herself as a beacon of Ann Arbor’s music scene, adding her voice to the cultural howl for another folk-music revival, but one that reflects the current reality.

“I think you also have a lot of people who can’t really relate to folk and country songs about plowing the fields or working on the railroad," Ringo said. "That’s not our lives, and I think a lot of people in my space are taking that folk tradition and those things that feel really grounded and familiar and then writing about our modern life.

“I think people are very hungry right now in the aftermath of the pandemic and also in the face of AI. People really want live music, and they’re responding to things that feel real.”

People of the Earth and Sea feels real. The album spans 10 songs and chronicles Ringo’s attempt to parse the modern world and its increasingly digital and artificial aura. The guitarist and banjo player is a college-aged troubadour, capturing the lessons she learns as she drives around the country playing gigs.

“For my whole sophomore year, I was writing a lot about the post-industrial milieu and my weird consciousness in this internal world within a very alienating digital society,” Ringo said. “I was feeling a lot of those [emotions] moving out and living on my own. I spent a lot of time in really big cities and then on a farm in Ohio. I had a lot of time on the highway to think about America and all of these ecologies that I was encountering.”

Ringo welcomes listeners into the album with “Preamble,” a jazzy spoken monologue of her late-night travels back home to Toronto. While some drivers might blast the radio or talk aloud to stay awake, Maddy Ringo writes a song: the second on the album, “Big Ol’ City":

"When the rain goes down / on the big ol’ city / I’ll miss the sound of the early morning / I’m up at dawn and I’m on the highway / I won’t be back here for a month or two,” rings the chorus.

Ringo has the skill all great songwriters must have: a keenness for identifying truths that will resonate with people beyond herself. A simple scene of driving home for a holiday is a profound experience to Ringo, one illustrated through a mix of humor, imagery of a “man in the sky” watching her drive, and a somber reminder of the passing of time.

Tracks like “Chicago” and “Mother Tongue” are sculpted by warm string sections and piano, allowing Ringo to soften her consistently strong and steady vocals. “If I’m not moving, I’m dying. Summer’s hot in old Chicago/ sun sears through a crowded car,” Ringo sings.

Ringo is skilled at skipping around genres, open to the ongoing transformation of her sound. With People of the Earth and Sea and future projects, she’s expanding her sonic palette to include jazz elements.

“‘Chicago’ on the album is a favorite, for everyone and for myself,” Ringo said. “That one feels very me. I’m leaning into the groovier stuff. I don’t want to force any ‘I want to do jazz,’ but it’s like the evolution of Joni Mitchell. It’s like folk stories and a folk format, but with other arrangements that hit other genres, like jazz. It’s less high folk and a bit more fun.”

Others like “American Cars” and the title track are foot-stompers, Ringo taking center sonic stage with boldness and grace. People of the Earth and Sea ends with a live performance of “Medicine Man” recorded live at a holiday fundraiser with Detroit nonprofit, Focus Hope.

Ringo got her start on stage, performing with the Canadian Children’s Opera Company around Toronto, and was recruited to play various children’s roles in main-stage productions with the Canadian Opera Company.

“My whole childhood was being one of the gremlins in the children’s chorus of Carmen and things like that,” Ringo said. “It was crazy—a really weird way of growing up in the performing arts. When COVID happened and there was no live theater, I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

Ringo started busking and playing in bars in the Toronto area, but things picked up after her move to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan, where she found a community of other folk fans. With a mother from Detroit and a grandma still in the area, Ann Arbor became a second home.

“Things really picked up,” Ringo said. “Ann Arbor loves folk music a lot more than Toronto does.”

Ringo's gigs picked up in the usual folk-music spaces around Ann Arbor, such as The Ark, where she headlined in March, but also some unusual places, too. Recently, she performed at the Washtenaw County Juvenile Detention Centre and Cooper Street Correctional Facility.

“One of the coolest musical experiences I’ve had recently is playing [Gillian Welch’s] ‘Hard Times’ in the gymnasium of a maximum security juvenile detention center. Everyone was getting up and dancing—it was a really fascinating experience.”

And even though the inmates might not “get” the experience of being a farmer with a mule in the most literal way, “Hard Times” hit home for the inmates.

“I teach everyone the chorus,” Ringo said. “It’s just this song about a man and his mule. The chorus is really catchy, and it’s one of my favorite folk songs ever. I wasn’t really sure how it was going to go over in the prisons, but people really connected with it. They wanted to engage with the singing part. People love singing together … even if you don’t think you do. I felt like Johnny Cash.”

It is these parts of humanity to which Ringo speaks most accurately: the common threads that tangle us together, the fractured understanding of self in a digital world, and the craving for wholeness when only sold fast food.

Ringo has a sharp intellect that elevates her rich vocals. She’s a Joni Mitchell for the modern age, a budding Ann Arbor starlet, and a breath of fresh air for all folk lovers.

Ally Hall is the writer and editor of Rocka Magazine, a music publicist, and a freelance writer.

Maddy Ringo performs on June 12, 11:30 am, with The Accidentals at Sonic Lunch in Liberty Plaza, 310 South Division Street, Ann Arbor. The event is free. Find more about Ringo and her upcoming performances here.