Welch should stop playing with Rawlings and join a band. They eventually signed a recording contract with Almo Sounds. Following a performance opening for Peter Rowan at the Station Inn, producer T-Bone Burnett expressed interest in recording an album. Burnett did not plan to disturb Welch's and Rawlings' preference for minimal instrumentation, and Welch agreed to take him on as a producer. Revival For the recording sessions of Welch's debut, Revival, Burnett wanted to recapture the bare sound of Welch's live performance. Welch recalled, "That first week was really intense. It was just T-Bone, the engineer, and Dave and myself. We got so inside our little world. There was very little distance between our singing and playing. The sound was very immediate. It was so light and small." Later, they recorded several more songs and played with an expanded group of musicians; guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee James Burton, bassist Roy Huskey, Jr., and veteran session drummers Jim Keltner, and Buddy Harman. The album was released in April 1996 to mostly positive reviews. Mark Deming of Allmusic called it a "superb debut" and wrote, "Welch's debts to artists of the past are obvious and clearly acknowledged, but there's a maturity, intelligence, and keen eye for detail in her songs you wouldn't expect from someone simply trying to ape the Carter Family." Bill Friskics-Warren of No Depression praised the album as "breathtakingly austere evocations of rural culture." The Arlington Heights, Illinois Daily Heralds Mark Guarino observed that Revival was "cheered and scrutinized as a staunch revivalist of Depression-era music only because her originals sounded so much like that era." He attributed this to the biblical imagery of the lyrics, Burnett's threadbare production, and the plainly-sung bleakness in Welch's vocals. Ann Powers of Rolling Stone gave Revival a lukewarm review and criticized Welch for not singing of her own experiences, and "manufacturing emotion." Robert Christgau echoed Powers: Welch "just doesn't have the voice, eye, or way with words to bring her simulation off." The song, "Orphan Girl," from Revival has been covered by Emmylou Harris, Ann Wilson, Karin Bergquist of Over the Rhine, Mindy Smith, Patty Griffin, Linda Ronstadt, Tim & Mollie O'Brien and Holly Williams. Others who have recorded Welch's songs include Joan Baez, Grace Porter, Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile, Punch Brothers, Mike Gordon, Bright Eyes, Calexico, Ani DiFranco, The Decemberists, Karl Blau and Jim James.