Journal entries and weary ramblings

Within the DNA of folk and Americana duo Weary Ramblers is something inherently Iowan. As the charms of Kathryn Severing Fox and Chad Elliott shine through their tunes, they’ve made a home in the country’s heartland.

Weary Ramblers has been all over the country, but calling Iowa home and returning to the state after their journeys has grounded the duo. Their music, which Fox described as their own journal entries they’ve accumulated while traveling, has given the duo national attention with their own Americana spirit.

The pair performed in Creston August 2025, where they sat under the gazebo of Rainbow Park and played into the evening. Elliot has previously presented an art exhibit of his own paintings with Creston Arts and held painting sessions at Green Valley Lake.

Fox is an adjunct faculty member at Southwestern Iowa Community College’s School for Music Vocations, where she directed and taught students with her husband Dr. Jeremy Fox.

The two are the winners of the 2025 Josie Music Awards Americana Song of the Year (Duo/Group/Collab) for the song “Pretty Lights of Denver” and of the 2025 Iowa Blues Challenge in the solo/duo category. Fox also played on the Grammy-nominated track “All My Tomorrows” with Kate McGarry.

Elliott, originally from Lamoni, and Fox, from Wisconsin, both began collaborating during the COVID-19 pandemic. For his livestreamed painting sessions, Elliott had asked Fox to compose some songs he could play during the session, describing her music as “authentic.”

The two continued collaborating, with Elliott asking Fox to play fiddle for original songs he was writing at the time. Fox said she knew what needed to be added to the songs and helped expand the ideas further until the songs were equal parts Elliott and Fox.

“It was almost spiritual between us, where this is the thing that needs to happen here and I think he will agree with that,” Fox said. “It just worked. Then he would do stuff with my songs too, and it’s the same feeling. It just grew deeper and deeper for us with writing together.”

Fox had an idea the two could start playing concerts once venues started opening after the pandemic. That first concert took place in 2021 at Stephens Auditorium in Ames.

“We both learned each other’s songs, and I tried to accompany her on her songs and she’d add fiddle to my songs,” Elliott said. “It slowly worked into an idea that we should write together. And when we started writing together, it took off from there creatively.”

Describing themselves as two halves of what’s been created, Elliott will play guitar and harmonica on the left side of the stage while Fox, a talented fiddle player able to play multiple stringed instruments, complements on the right.

“What we do is strive to meld our energies so much to where it’s one unit, that it becomes hard to separate the two,” Elliot said.

Chemistry is a vital part to the duo’s stage presence, having good camaraderie with each other while also engaging the crowd with stories about their music. It makes for an enticing attraction made lively with the both of them.

“From the get-go, Chad and I could feel that we had personalities that could mesh,” Fox said. “We had a lot of things in common, even past music. So in some ways, it was almost like cheating that we have a good musical connection because we already had a good personal connection.”

Singing was easy for the two of them, their voices working together with the same mind for lyrical writing. Fox jokingly said she was sometimes “creeped out” with how in sync the two became whether on stage or in the songwriting process.

Working with producer Bryan Vanderpool, a fellow utility player who helps contribute additional instrumentation and harmony to the songs, the duo has been able release two full albums, a self-titled in 2024 and “Driftwood” in 2025.

Now regularly on tour across the Midwest and farther out in the country, Iowa still remains significant for the duo, committing to several performances to this day. Elliott says he follows a motto of “go deep, not wide” when describing this attachment to the state.

“Starting with a grassroots following, we’re really establishing some great relationships with our listeners,” Elliott said.

The music itself is just as beautiful as the places the Weary Ramblers have been. Coming from a place of appreciating nature and travels, merging their songwriting styles was easy.

“When I met Kathryn, as a writer, I can hear in her lyrics her love for nature as well,” Elliott said. “As writers, we’re often in these beautiful places that naturally inspire us to write about. There’s these little things where we catch each other and say, ‘that’s definitely a song lyric.’”

Through their travels, songs become remnants and memories of what they’ve experienced. When it comes time to build an album, presenting those songs becomes a challenge of thematically presenting what the two have experienced.

The same challenge applies to building a setlist, which the two have committed to creating their own storytelling experience with an audience.

“We try not to get too hung up on people understanding the meaning of the song to us,” Fox said. “Such a big part of being songwriters and connecting with people through music and lyrics is it allows them to have their own story that’s connected to what they’re hearing.”

Weary Ramblers continue to tour across Iowa throughout the year. Both albums, “Weary Ramblers” and “Driftwood,” are available on Bandcamp and other music streaming platforms.