Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Stripmall Ballads is the haunted, dust-blown project of Phillips Saylor Wisor, a songwriter wandering the backroads between myth and memory. Drawing comparisons to Neil Young, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Maybelle Carter, his work lives in the tension between Appalachian tradition and modern disillusionment—aching with spectral beauty, dry wit, and a bone-deep sense of longing. From early lo-fi masterworks like Since Jimmy Died to the sparse, cinematic ache of Distant, his songs are slow-burning dispatches from the heart of a fractured America—where ghosts speak in minor chords and resistance sounds like a hymn. Stripmall Ballads doesn’t just sing about forgotten places—it sings from them.
Phillips Saylor Wisor – aka STRIPMALL BALLADS – is a Maryland-based rollicking musical rambler, rife with story-songs rich in emotion and hardihood. His brand of folk music sings the heartbreaking ballads of old brick buildings, vacant lots, and rustbelt towns. Of third shift papas, flood plains, and long drives through nowhere towns. He’s boots on the ground, guitar across the body, ever observing the ugly mundane mixed with the beautiful chaos of this place we trample upon on the daily.
He’s shared stages with Tommy Prine, John R. Miller, Danny Barnes, Les Claypool, The Be Good Tanyas, Willy Tea Taylor, just to name a few.
redbarnradio #americana #rootsmusic #bluegrass #livemusic #country #folk #kentuckyradio #stripmallballads #folkband #altcountry #countryrock #guitar #flatpickin #mandolin #country #banjo
Stripmall Ballads is the haunted, dust-blown project of Phillips Saylor Wisor, a songwriter wandering the backroads between myth and memory. Drawing comparisons to Neil Young, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Maybelle Carter, his work lives in the tension between Appalachian tradition and modern disillusionment—aching with spectral beauty, dry wit, and a bone-deep sense of longing. From early lo-fi masterworks like Since Jimmy Died to the sparse, cinematic ache of Distant, his songs are slow-burning dispatches from the heart of a fractured America—where ghosts speak in minor chords and resistance sounds like a hymn. Stripmall Ballads doesn’t just sing about forgotten places—it sings from them.
Phillips Saylor Wisor – aka STRIPMALL BALLADS – is a Maryland-based rollicking musical rambler, rife with story-songs rich in emotion and hardihood. His brand of folk music sings the heartbreaking ballads of old brick buildings, vacant lots, and rustbelt towns. Of third shift papas, flood plains, and long drives through nowhere towns. He’s boots on the ground, guitar across the body, ever observing the ugly mundane mixed with the beautiful chaos of this place we trample upon on the daily.
He’s shared stages with Tommy Prine, John R. Miller, Danny Barnes, Les Claypool, The Be Good Tanyas, Willy Tea Taylor, just to name a few.
redbarnradio #americana #rootsmusic #bluegrass #livemusic #country #folk #kentuckyradio #stripmallballads #folkband #altcountry #countryrock #guitar #flatpickin #mandolin #country #banjo
