BIO
From a ridge in the Ohio River Valley, on a front porch where Kentucky’s visible through the winter’s bare trees, Joe Truck Stop conspires over a smoking blend of Bluegrass, Honky Tonk, Western Swing, and whatever else finds itself inhaled and manifested by way of a wood box and steel wire...Years of digesting so much of the Country Blues lexicon and traveling the country learning the numerous styles of fiddlers, writers, and travelers alike has led to the original music that comes by way of Joe’s Truck Stop.
The songs are stories of living on the road, love, temptation, heartbreak, grandmas, banjo pickin' tobacco spittin' women, gas station sushi, and much more...
JTS has released a handful of self recorded demos and three studio albums, the Free Showers EP (2014), American Dreams (2018), and, Yonderings, released in April 2022 to much critical acclaim.
"Yonderings reflects a singular style spun from down-home celebration — earnest, engaging and rooted in actual folk tradition."
- Bluegrass Today
A year after that release, Joe's Truck Stop was invited by Arnold's Restuarant in Cincinnati and Maker's Mark to collaborate on a live album recorded in front of an audience at Arnold's. This release is only available on vinyl and is called "Truck Stop Honky Tonk." It is available at Arnold's as well as record stores around Cincinnati.
In 2025, Joe's Truck Stop released The Magnolia Sessions with Anticorp Records as part of their MS series. Recorded in 2023, it highlights Joe and a few of his close friends playing through songs of his, old and new, as well as classics by Woody Guthrie and Ola Belle Reed. These were recorded outdoors in Nashville TN.
More on The Magnolia Sessions:
"I enjoyed this album immensely...As a part of my eclectic and unbalanced musical diet, The Magnolia Sessions are vital. Recommended."
- Flying Fiddle Sticks
"It all simply falls in the right place here, you do get a feel that these four guys are jamming, beautifully, at a remote truck stop. All that is missing is the sound of a singular truck honking its horn as it passes by."
- Spill Magazine
JTS has shared bills with: Lost Dog Street Band, Town Mountain, Matt Heckler, Mandolin Orange, Wayne Hancock, The Local Honeys, Kelsey Waldon, Possessed by Paul James, Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, JP Harris & the Tough Choices, Jason Eady, Jason Dae West, Foghorn Stringband, Joseph Huber, the Urban Pioneers, the Hooten Hallers, Josh Morningstar, and many others. JTS has played on live television, radio, numerous festivals across the United States and in multiple countries in Europe.
Joe Macheret (Cincinnati, OH), bandleader and former member of Cincinnati stringbands, The Tillers and the Northern Kentucky Bluegrass Band, has also lent his instrumental skills on stage and in the studio to Possessed By Paul James, Matt Heckler, JD Wilkes and the Legendary Shack Shakers, the Urban Pioneers, Buffalo Wabs and the Price HIll Hustle, Bill Kirchen, Redd Volkaert, Justin Wells, Chelsea Ford and the Trouble, Maria Carrelli, Lenny Lashley, and many other musicians and bands.
Through Joe’s Truck Stop’s international touring effort and Joe’s work as a sideman with several other touring bands, Joe’s Truck Stop has a following that spreads throughout the United States and numerous other countries.
Community organizing and outreach has also been an important part of the Joe's Truck Stop story. Alongside many organized concerts and benefits, In 2017 Joe started and ran HAGFEST, a tribute to Merle Haggard and benefit concert for the Appalachian Prison Book Project. HAGFEST ran until the last moment it could as with the onset of Covid, Joe turned HAGFEST 2020 into an online fundraiser featuring over 20 prerecorded and edited together acts.
More recently, Joe has been organizing Honky Tonk dances in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. These started with his once a winter residencies at the Southgate House, eventually leading to two months of weekly dances (with weekly dance lessons) in Winter 2025 that grew from 15 to 100 people. In the Winter of 2026, Joe threw monthly dances that started with 100 people and ended with 250!
Photos by Angie Lipscomb
