Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest

Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest is a studio album by American musician Bill Callahan, released on June 14, 2019, by Drag City. It is the sixth studio album released under his own name, and seventeenth overall when including LPs released as Smog.
Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest is a double album with twenty tracks and over sixty-three minutes in length, making it Callahan's longest album to date. The album received favorable reviews, with Pitchfork contributing editor Jayson Greene referring to it as a "highlight of his career".

Release and promotion

The album was announced on May 2, 2019. The first three sides of the album were released digitally weeks apart before the album's release. The first side was released on May 23, 2019, the second side on May 30, 2019, and the third on June 6, 2019.
The album was premiered for early streaming through NPR's First Listen series starting on June 6, 2019.

Critical reception

Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest received positive reviews from critics upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 88, based on 22 reviews.
Laura Snapes of The Guardian praised the album as a "brilliantly sly celebration of family and the infinite". In his review for Pitchfork, Jayson Greene called the album "his warmest, his most generous, possibly his most profound. It is his longest, for sure, lounging comfortably across four sides of vinyl, none of it wasted. It is a high note, fond and deep and sustained."

Personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes.
Musicians

Bill Callahan – vocals, acoustic guitar, Moog synthesizer, percussion, bowed psaltery, bowed banjo, harmonica, Wurlitzer electric piano, Casio SK-1, drum machine, mellotron, piano, kalimba, organ, bells
Brian Beattie – upright bass, acoustic bass, electric upright bass, percussion, piano, pump organ, Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer, mellotron, celesta, marimbula, bells
Matt Kinsey – acoustic guitar, percussion
Adam Jones – drumkit
Dony Wynn – drumkit
Gary Newcomb – lap steel guitar
Hanly Banks Callahan – backing vocals
Tori Olds – backing vocals

Technical

Brian Beattie – recording, mixing
JJ Golden – mastering

Packaging

Joanna Skumanich – front and back cover drawings
Dan Osborn – layout