Aoife O’Donovan wrapped a history lesson into All My Friends and came out with a stunning album on musical merits to boot.

Drawing lyrical inspiration from suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, President Woodrow Wilson, World War I and the fight to pass the 19th Amendment, O’Donovan put down her vision for the music with assistance from the Knights and their strings; the Westerlies and their horns; the San Francisco Girls Chorus and their voices; Dawes’ Griffin Goldsmith on drums; the Punch Brothers’ Noam Pikelny on banjo; Sierra Hull on mandolin; Anaïs Mitchell on vocals; and others to seamlessly meld classical and folk music into an instant classic of a modern folk album.

O’Donovan warns the work of Catt and others is dangerously close to being lost as she and Mitchell duet on “Over the Finish Line.” The maudlin piano ballad is the last of eight original numbers on the LP and leads to the closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” featuring a bit of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in keeping with the overall theme.

“America’s bleeding/we’re watching her die/fire and blood on the screen/her headlights receding/she’s waving goodbye/the curtain comes down on the scene,” O’Donovan and Mitchell sing wistfully.

Yet, All My Friends is ultimately an album inspired by – and that inspires – the spirit of hope and democracy at America’s core and the undying work of women to bring out the best of what the country has to offer. 

Serving as omniscient narrators as much as background vocalists, the members of the Girls Chorus imbue O’Donovan’s compositions with tempered determination and celebration as work continues to get the Amendment passed on the opening title track and “Crisis” as strings and horns meld seamlessly with O’Donovan’s acoustic guitar. And as O’Donovan voices both Catt and Wilson on “War Measure,” her songwriting blossoms into full flower.

All My Friends also marks O’Donovan’s first self-produced effort and seems to signal a new phase in a career that – with three previous solo albums, plus recordings with Crooked Still, I’m with Her, Goat Rodeo and other bands – has already reached highs many singer-songwriters only hope for.