The String

Episode 309: Sam Grisman, the 35-year-old son of mandolin icon David "Dawg" Grisman, grew up in a unique and supercharged musical environment, to put it mildly. Jerry Garcia was coming over all the time to the family home to pick and record old-time folk music with the elder Grisman. Bluegrass legends came and went, rehearsing and recording, and giving Sam something to aspire to when he picked up the bass as a little kid. After a decade working and touring as sideman, he's now based in Nashville leading his own collective, the Sam Grisman Project, which is nurturing the repertoire of the Grisman/Garcia partnership, with selected tunes from the Grateful Dead repertoire as well. With a remarkable concert at the Ryman Auditorium in January 2025, Sam stepped into a new phase of his musical life.

Episode 308: For country singer Kaitlin Butts, 2023 was very good and 2024 was even better, with an Americana Award nomination, praise in Rolling Stone magazine, and festival dates she'd been dreaming of. Her reputation and acclaim grew on the strength of her feisty stage temperament, her bold and cutting voice, and her fearless songs. Raised in Oklahoma on theater and country music, the iconic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical set in her state became a touchstone. Years later, she'd take the bold step of writing and recording a concept album reacting to and enlarging on the themes of the show. It's called Roadrunner!, and it was among the most impactful albums in Americana and country music last year.

Episode 307: It was 50 years ago this month that a 23-year-old Mickey Raphael felt his way through his first recording session with his relatively new band boss Willie Nelson. And it was no small thing, producing the iconic Red Headed Stranger. It was one event in a charmed life that set this Dallas musician on a path to the ultimate steady gig for more than 50 years, plus stature as the world's top on-call harmonica player. Raphael has played and recorded with Merle Haggard, Leon Russell, Don Williams, Emmylou Harris, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Norah Jones, Wynton Marsalis, and even U2 and Motley Crue. In a session taped at WMOT's East Nashville satellite studio, we talk about it all.

Episode 306: This one's personal. Eight years ago, when we launched the Roots Radio format on the historic signal WMOT 89.5 FM, a few of us knew we could have no better program director than Jessie Scott, and we were fortunate that she was in the right time and place to come on board. Her 50 years of on-air experience, her expertise in Americana music, and her warm and knowledgeable voice have become the core of WMOT's sound. She governs the deep and excellent WMOT playlist and its mix of new and legacy music, plus she's a fountain of enthusiasm on the air every weekday afternoon from 4 to 7 pm. So after all this time and hearing some of her career stories, it was time to invite her on The String for a special year-end episode.

Episode 305: Traditional acoustic blues has seen one of its periodic revivals, with more younger African American artists involved than any time I can remember. No survey of the scene would be legit without sizing up the career of 35-year-old Jerron Paxton, sometimes known as "Blind Boy" for a severe myopia that's affected his life since his teens. We should be grateful he's committed to music - as a revivalist of the old and a writer of the new in a range of styles from Delta to ragtime to stride to spiritual. His variety and vivacity bursts forward on Things Done Changed, his first album for Smithsonian Folkways Records. In a Zoom call from his base in New York City, we talk about his upbringing in Los Angeles and his approach to developing his advanced understanding of foundational American music.

Episode 304: One of my highlights of 2024 was finally getting to see Minneapolis folk rocker Humbird, an artist whose three recordings display an unusual degree of sonic imagination and bandcraft, even beyond her serene and appealing voice. On her newest, Right On, songwriter Siri Undlin conjures ghosts, protests monoculture and environmental neglect, and investigates relationships. In this conversation, taped the morning after her official showcase at Americanafest 2024, we talk about her passion for folklore, the warm embrace of the Minneapolis DIY music scene, and the benefits of bare feet when using guitar pedals.

Episode 303: "I like dark songs. I don't know why," says Grayson Capps early on in our interview. "Cheerful songs don't do much for me." The Lower Alabama bluesman and songwriter is talking about both his career in general and his seventh album in particular, with the un-cheerful title Heartbreak, Misery & Death. It's a covers collection featuring songs that shaped him as a young guy coming of age in Brewton, AL and New Orleans, where he went to school and launched his music career. It couldn't have been a better springboard for an hour with an artist who's even more fascinating for his distance from Music City and its business apparatus.

Episode 302: Joe Boyd is one of the most accomplished and eclectic record producers in the story of popular music. As an American living in London, he helped break psychedelic folk rock pioneers The Incredible String Band and worked with Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, and Fairport Convention. He founded Hannibal Records, giving a home to the solo career of Richard Thompson. He's also worked with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Toumani Diabate, Geoff and Maria Muldauer, and many more. He was also part of the small cadre of music marketers and labels that created the market category of World Music in the 1980s. Here, Boyd talks about his journey and his epic new book And The Roots of Rhythm Remain.

Episode 301: Americana music has been most conspicuously represented in the last few years by songwriting, band-leading artists, including Jason Isbell, Sierra Ferrell, and Billy Strings. Flash back to the origins of the alt-country and Americana movement, and the conversation was more often about bands, such as Son Volt, Whiskeytown, and the Old 97s. Such outfits made well-written roots music that rocked with that collective commitment that makes bandcraft so fascinating. This week I present two veteran and venerable roots rock bands that came along in the second Americana wave, bands that have weathered changes and renewed their vows - Austin's revived Uncle Lucius and Raleigh NC-based Blake Christiana of Yarn.

Episode 300: When Gaby Moreno was announced as an official showcasing artist at this Fall's Americanafest, it stirred a tingle of recognition in me, but I had to do some digging to realize what a big deal it was. The Guatemala-born, Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter became part of the Watkins Family Hour at Largo in LA and a regular on Chris Thile's Live From Here Show. She's released nine records, winning two Latin Grammy Awards - and an album Grammy Award earlier this year. She's internationally known as one of the most versatile and enthralling voices in any genre, but her latest Dusk, produced by Nashville's Dan Knobler, brings a needed Spanglish influence to the Americana community. In this magical hour, we talk about what inspired her eclectic outlook and her many collaborations, including working with the legendary Van Dyke Parks.

Episode #299: While the public has become hyper aware of Billy Strings on his rocket ride to the top of bluegrass, only a small retinue of the music's traditional veteran artists have achieved popular name recognition. I think especially of Del McCoury and Ricky Skaggs. But there's a deeper world there, and we should work a little harder to shine the light on more of the old school masters working today. That's what episode #299 of The String is about, through conversations with singer Danny Paisley and mandolinist John Reischman. Paisley, who grew up in a bluegrass family band a few miles from the McCourys is a four time IBMA Male Vocalist of teh Year. Reishman is a Californian who early on played in the first Tony Rice Unit before starting his 25-year band the Jaybirds. They are "musicians' musicians," which doesn't help them put food on the table or build their legacies.

Episode 298: Molly Tuttle is the link in common between two exceptional breakout artists during an exciting era of bluegrass music. Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is the electrifying fiddle player in Tuttle's band Golden Highway and a two time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year. We get into her journey from Charlottesville, VA to school at Berklee to Nashville and the latest chapter in her solo life, the wonderful album I Built A World. AJ Lee and Tuttle go back even farther, to the family band they shared growing up in the fertile bluegrass community of California. AJ Lee, an exceptional and original singer, has led her own band Blue Summit for nine years, and their newest album City Of Glass is one reason they were nominated as IBMA New Artist of the Year for 2024.

Episode 297: It's an immigrant story like no other. JesseLee Jones pined for something bigger growing up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He got glimpses of American music and a guitar, and with that a long journey began. After landing in the states, and getting robbed by the way, he found his way to a family in the midwest who took him in and helped him build a life. In the early 90s, destiny brought him to Nashville and a ramshackle honky tonk and boot store that he would help turn into Robert's Western World, the pivotal and most famous honky tonk in Nashville. On the 25th anniversary of owning and running this legendary club, Jones tells his story, including the formation of his own long-running band, Brazilbilly.

Episode 296: With Americanafest landing in Nashville, Craig Havighurst looked over the many artists breaking out of Music City and got especially excited about Baltic Street Hotel by rocking songwriter Sophie Gault. It'll be released on Friday, but Craig's been listening for a few weeks and finds it rich with personal details, sharp melodies, and an old school Americana spirit that evokes Lucinda Williams or Kathleen Edwards. The show features exclusive teasers of several songs from this LP, produced by Ray Kennedy at his request. Also in the hour, a rising star of acoustic Americana, 15-year-old mandolinist Wyatt Ellis, who recently released his solo debut with guest turns by some of today's best mandolin players, including Marty Stuart.

Episode 295: Stephanie Lambring's new album - her second - is called Hypocrisy, and it blew me away on first listen because of the way its crafty, understated production set up some mind-jarring and elegantly sculpted lyrics. She's a rural Indiana native whose writing talents in her early Nashville days led to a major publishing deal at 23. The Music Row machine didn't work for her ultimately, and after a hiatus she leaned into telling her own story, leading to an acclaimed debut in 2020. Now on her latest, she deftly investigates women navigating a 21st century digital panopticon of social pressure, conformity, autonomy and fulfillment.

Episode 294: Formed in Dallas in 1992, Old 97's became one of the seminal bands of the alternative country movement, alongside Whiskeytown, Son Volt, the Bottle Rockets and BR549. At its heart was the longtime friendship of bass player Murry Hammond and guitarist/songwriter Rhett Miller. Remarkably, across 13 albums and millions of miles, Old 97's remains the same quartet that broke out on Bloodshot Records three decades ago. They're still having fun and keeping company with their large base of lifelong fans. Craig made a field trip to Lexington, KY this summer to catch a show and sit down with Miller to talk about the long road and the newest album American Primitive.

Episode 293: The conversation about Black influence on and presence in country music has been intense and restorative over the past decade, and nobody has a more authoritative or informed take on the subject than writer and scholar Alice Randall. She became the first Black woman to launch a career as a professional Music Row songwriter and publisher in the 1980s. She's shared her incredible journey in her new memoir My Black Country, while a multi-artist collection of the same title features a dozen leading Black female voices in Americana singing her songs. Craig Havighurst visited Alice at her home to talk about it all.

Episode 292: When singer Madeleine Peyroux released her breakout album Careless Love in 2004, her voice and phrasing, with echoes of Billie Holiday and Joni Mitchell, had more verve than the newly famous Norah Jones and more blues than Diana Krall. Her story was more remarkable than either. She'd basically run away from school as an American teenager living in Paris and joined a touring/busking ensemble the Lost and Wandering Jazz and Blues Band. After 2004 she became a vital, critically acclaimed artist with a unique fusion of jazz, blues, country and folk. Now she's released her first entirely self-written songs, guided by the legendary producer Elliot Scheiner, called Let's Walk.

Episode 291: Thirty years into her late-blooming music career, Kim Richey feels like Americana music's favorite aunt. She's hip, youthful, incredibly kind and brimming with ideas and good words, many of which make it into fresh songs. She's been co-writing a good bit lately, with the likes of Don Henry, Ashley Campbell and Aaron Lee Tasjan. New work, mingled with unrecorded catalog, hand-picked with producer Doug Lancio, led to her first new LP in six years, Every New Beginning. Also in this hour, Oklahoma songwriter and band leader Jared Deck talks about his fascinating double life as a touring artist and, since 2020, a member of the OK House of Representatives.

Episode 290: In a bit over a decade in Nashville, Kyshona has become a figure respected for her wisdom and valued as a songwriter/artist. Her 2020 album Listen, released just before the Covid shutdown, captured the zeitgeist of that troubled and strangely inspiring year, in part because a key part of the artist's background and calling is music therapy. Her ethos of continuity and community continues on the magnificent album Legacy, where her research into her family history blossoms into songs that draw from soul, folk and gospel. This is a wide ranging talk with a woman who approaches all that she does with a desire and a plan to leave the world a bit wiser and kinder than she found it.

Episode 289: Ellen Angelico has emerged in the past few years as a go-to stringed instrument musician in the Americana and indie sectors of Nashville. Raised in Chicago, she was gigging in her teens, attended Berklee College of Music and came to Music City in 2010 with a full-time indie rock band spot. As she grew into more of a freelance life, Ellen carved out a niche and earned a ton of admiration earning an Americana Instrumentalist of the Year nomination in 2020. Her recent credits include shows and sessions with Cam, Adeem the Artist, Kyshona, Brandy Clark, Mickey Guyton and more. In this endearing hour, Ellen talks about getting established in Nashville, her high-visibility former job with Fanny's House of Music in East Nashville and a card game about bro country lyrics that has to be heard to be believed.

Episode 288: In this special edition of The String, I present an audio postcard from Athens GA, a city of about 125,000 people just east of Atlanta that for forty years has been punching above its weight as a music city. As a teenager in the mid 1980s, I loved the B-52s and I about worshiped REM, and ever since, I've wondered what kind of place could produce those wildly different, highly progressive bands. My curiosity only grew as Athens continued to be a hotbed of art-forward rock and roll and creative roots music over the next forty years. So I came to listen and ask questions. We meet label owners George Fontaine Sr. and Jr., leading producer David Barbe, 40 Watt talent booker Velena Vego, artists Spencer Thomas and Hunter Pinkston, and more. Visit wmot.org for photos and bonus content.

Episode 287: Cris Jacobs has been tagged the "King of Baltimore rock and roll" by a leading local publication, but a quick look at his catalog and certainly his newest album suggests that and more. He made his name as a guitarist, songwriter and singer with The Bridge, a soulful jam band that toured the nation and overseas between 2000 and 2010. His solo projects have been well regarded, but he's not been a force in Americana until recently. After a bit of a mid-life crisis, he turned to his first love - bluegrass - and pulled together a wonderful album called One Of These Days, with the Infamous Stringdusters as his band and Jerry Douglas as his producer. It landed Cris a debut on the Grand Ole Opry. How did he get here? We find out. Also in the hour, some of my recent catch-up with roots power couple Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams.

Episode 285: As I say in the opening of this week's show, it's one thing to get applause for your songs, and it's another to get laughs. John Craigie of Portland, OR has quietly built a robust touring career because he's an excellent songwriter who also keeps his audiences in stitches between songs. His newest album is a collaboration called Pagan Church with TK and the Holy Know-Nothings, the Portland band fronted by admired songwriter Taylor Kingman. We talk about how Craigie developed his stagecraft under the influence of artists like Arlo Guthrie and his friend Todd Snider, as well as his unlikely path to performing while getting a math degree in California. No surprise, it's a lot of fun. Also in the hour, Dave Wilson and John Teer reflect on 25 years as Chatham County Line and the new directions baked into the new album Hiyo.

Episode 284: Maggie Rose returns to the String for a full hour this time, because her new album No One Gets Out Alive marks yet another leap for this magnificent singer and songwriter from Nashville. As we heard back in Episode 180, the Maryland native was scouted by major labels while still in college, leading to a country deal in the early 2010s. She fell through the cracks in that restrictive format but regrouped as a fully indie artist working as a business team with her husband. She's built a following by working the road and a series of albums that split the difference between soul, country, pop, and rock and roll. And as the host of her own podcast, she's also a great conversationalist. Enjoy this catch-up with my favorite voice in Music City.

Episode 283: It's a split episode this week featuring a renaissance man of roots music from a "famous" background and a duo from Alabama who've been on a wild career ride since they were first discovered by producers T Bone Burnett and Dave Cobb. We start with Rev. Shawn Amos, who grew up in Los Angeles with his dad Wally, founder of Famous Amos cookies. Since launching in music, Shawn's been a shape shifting songwriter and performer, a historic A&R executive, an entrepreneur and more. His latest Soul Brother No. 1 casts him in yet another new light. And I check in by Zoom with Lydia and Laura, the magnificent Secret Sisters. On their newest, Mind, Man, Medicine, they took full advantage of the historic recording studios in Muscle Shoals, AL, just down the road from where they live. It's yet another triumph.

Episode 282: For twenty years, Duluth, MN troubadour Charlie Parr has been touring every corner of the nation, sleeping in his van and living lean, to bring his unique take on the country blues to the people. Reserved, cerebral and devoted entirely to his own vision, he's one of our finest folk artists and a lyricist well worthy of a certain other Minnesota songwriter who so famously blended poetry and the blues. He took a new tack with his latest album on Smithsonian Folkways, tapping producer Tucker Martine and his studio friends for a contemplative and immersive album of ruminations, pictorials, and stories. For someone who's not comfortable in interviews, he spent a convivial hour at my studio and left behind a remarkable conversation.

Episode 281: There are countless reasons to pay homage to the legacy of country music and almost as many different ways to do so. Both of my guests this week - the Canadian artist Bahamas and Nashville's Kelsey Waldon - are doing just that in their own ways with recent projects. At a time when country traditions are strong across the Americana landscape, Bootcut by Bahamas and There's Always A Song by Waldon demonstrate the power of devotion to a craft on one hand and celebration of heroes on the other.

Episode 280: It's taken decades for the nature and impact of Jerry Garcia's formative years as a musician and band leader to emerge and become semi-common knowledge, because for many, his devotion to old-time string band and bluegrass music between 1961 and 1964 doesn't square with the quantum jams he'd be leading just a few years later. But because of the Dead, and Garcia's side projects like Old And In The Way, we have jamgrass, a popular branch of the family tree where instrumental interplay coexists with preservation of classic songs. And at last, this connection is made, and this story is told, in a new museum exhibit set for a two-year run, Jerry Garcia – A Bluegrass Journey, at the Bluegrass Music Hall Of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, KY. Episode 280 of The String takes you there with sound and voices from its grand opening weekend in late March.

Episode 278: Suzy Bogguss started playing and performing on a hand-me-down guitar from her sister in small-town Illinois. After a few years making a living out west playing at ski lodges, she moved to Nashville, where she carved out a special place in 1990s country music. Amid a time of diversity and vibrancy in the format, her sweet, folky voice took flight when she found the right songs, including the career-makers "Someday Soon" and "Outbound Plane." She's toured steadily ever since, though recordings have been selective since 2000. During the pandemic though, she took on her first album of new material with last fall's Prayin' For Sunshine, the first where she'd written all of the songs. In this hour, we cover every key stage of this award-winning career.

Episode 277: Few pickers have toured harder or traveled farther than jamgrass veteran Vince Herman, who co-founded the iconic Leftover Salmon 34 years ago in Colorado. Yet there are always new things to try, so he's added the band The High Hawks to his list of collaborations. Our sit-down visit was sparked by that band's album Mother Nature's Show doing so well on the Americana chart and by his own recent move from Colorado to Nashville, where he's become a hub of the picking scene and an avid co-writer. We cover a lot of ground from his origins in Pittsburgh and West Virginia to the everlasting desire to play the next show. Also in the hour, progressive banjo player Kyle Tuttle calls in from a fishing trip to talk about his years with Molly Tuttle and his new solo album Labor Of Lust.

Episode 276: John Leventhal is one of the quiet achievers of American roots music going back more than 30 years. Early on as a guitar player in his native New York City, he connected with Jim Lauderdale and Shawn Colvin, co-writing and producing their debut albums. He met his wife Rosanne Cash as they worked on the pivotal album The Wheel (see Episode 269). He's produced some epic albums since then for William Bell, Sarah Jarosz, and others, winning numerous Grammy and Americana awards in the process. At last, he lent his guitar and studio skills to making the solo debut album Rumble Strip. Rosanne is there for some duo vocals, but otherwise it's warm and tuneful instrumentals that foreground some of the lovely textures and grooves that have been behind so many albums we've loved. This all made for a fascinating conversation.

Episode 275: This week's show begins with an ode to the studio and stage musicians who come up with parts and make the singers and stars sound great, while being relegated to the sexist, ungenerous title of "sidemen." Recently, I got to thinking about a musician - a bass player - who's been on more big sessions and done time with more impactful artists than most in roots/Americana music over the past 35 years, including the Chicks, Robert Plant, Nickel Creek and Kathy Mattea. So I invited Byron House on to the program. Joining the conversation is his old friend and fellow immigrant from Bowling Green, KY, Kyle Frederick. Kyle has turned to Byron as his producer for most of his albums as a Nashville based singer songwriter.

Episode 274: Beyond his skills as a guitarist and singer, Clay Ross is what I like to call a Musical Instigator. Since heading to his current base in New York 20 years ago from his home town of Charleston, SC, he's conceived and organized three brilliant groups that bring a new global consciousness to American roots music. First it was Matuto with its infusion of Brazilian melodies and rhythms. Then with old college-era friends from South Carolina he launched Ranky Tanky, a Grammy-winning outfit that reimagines African-American Gullah music for a world stage. His latest project is the American Patchwork Quartet, with members from three continents and a completely original way of updating classic folk songs. We go deep on his background and his approach to making creative space for diverse people to truly collaborate.

Episode 273: Thirty years ago, legendary R&B singer Delbert McClinton proved he was ahead of his time by launching his Sandy Beaches Cruise, a January festival at sea that featured his friends and associated artists from the bluesy side of Americana. Since then, the music cruise business has flourished across many genres. A company called Star Vista Live bought Sandy Beaches from Delbert a few years ago and now does the management while Delbert himself acts as host. I got a fortunate invitation to act as artist interviewer on this year's cruise, and they let me report my own account of this luxurious but accessible experience. In this hour you'll hear from Delbert himself, Mavericks lead singer Raul Malo, cruise lifer Marcia Ball, emerging artist Yates McKendree, singer Etta Britt, gospel great Anne McCrary, and more.

Episode 272: Lola Kirke got on America's cultural radar as an actress - starring in the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, along with roles in Gone Girl and Mistress America alongside Greta Gerwig. But during those years, she was also quietly nurturing her passion for songwriting and music - specifically country music. The pandemic brought her to Nashville where her album Lady for Sale was released by Third Man Records to great acclaim. Now she's about to release the new EP Country Curious and make her debut on the Grand Ole Opry. She's a bold, dynamic personality and this was a really fun conversation that bridges New York, Nashville and Hollywood.

Episode 271: In just five years, including the pandemic shut-down, Nashville native Gabe Lee has grown from an unknown "hometown kid," as one of his titles proclaims, to a debut last year on the Grand Ole Opry. Working independently with the boutique Torrez Music Group, Lee has released four albums, earning the admiration of critics and a grassroots fan base that's adding up to something special and sustainable. The most recent opus is Drink The River, which Lee took in a more acoustic and nuanced direction than his prior release, and which might be emerging as his career record.

Episode 270: In an episode that revisits the netherworld between Americana and jazz, I speak with two extraordinary female drummer/composers who are at the peak of their creative powers. My featured guest is Allison Miller, a renowned New York artist who's led her own band Boom Tic Boom and joined in with the supergroup Artemis. For her newest album Rivers In Our Veins, she studied rivers and their ecosystems to inspire a 12-song cycle for jazz ensemble and tap dancers. It's utterly original and enthralling. Also with water on her mind is Sofia Goodman, a Nashville-based jazz leader whose growing by leaps and bounds as she explores contemporary sounds without limits. Secrets of the Shore uses aquatic sounds as a starting point, but it's the serene and complex harmonies she writes for her brass and wind instruments that really makes this collection sparkle.

Episode 269: Rosanne Cash says she's a forward-looking artist and thinker, not prone to looking back. But when she regained control over the master recording of her 1993 album The Wheel, it prompted an idea. She's launched the new label Rumble Strip Records with John Leventhal, the producer and guitarist she fell in love with while working on it with him. Cash, one of the most fascinating and sophisticated roots musicians and a founding figure of the Americana movement, calls The Wheel a "watershed" for her in many ways beyond her new life with Leventhal. She'd moved to New York where she's lived ever since. And she branched away from the country mainstream. The re-issue of The Wheel, now out for the first time on vinyl, prompted a riveting conversation. Also in the hour, Colorado-reared newcomer Jobi Riccio.

Episode 268: The late John Prine's team at Oh Boy Records in Nashville put the little-known west coast songwriter Tré Burt on the national Americana/folk radar by signing him to a deal and re-releasing his debut album Caught It From The Rye in 2019. He grew up between the Bay Area and Sacramento, where, after being exposed to the guitar by an older brother, music became a focal point. He grew as a songwriter through the open mic scene and self-booked tours and some adventurous travel around the world. His spare acoustic folk style gives way to more rhythmic neo-soul textures on his exciting third LP Traffic Fiction, giving his personal lyrics new ways to shine.

Episode 267: When Ben Wright, then 28 years old, saw a banjo for sale in the window at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, he had no idea how far it would take him. Not just to gigs at the country's best bluegrass festivals but to an improbable life of sharing American music with audiences young and old in more than 25 countries. Not only does Ben's band, the Henhouse Prowlers, have a new record deal and a fine new album, the quartet has a track record of sharing bluegrass and good vibes with more non-Americans than probably any other band. And they've created a non-profit called Bluegrass Ambassadors to extend that mission into the future.

Episode 266: Lindsay Lou grew up surrounded by community folk music in Michigan, and when she connected with a scene and a band in East Lansing where she completed college, she set her plans for a career in medicine aside to hit the road and connect with her original dreams. But it's pretty clear from her ravishing voice that she was born to sing, and she made quite an impression, especially in western newgrass circles, as the lead singer and songwriter of Lindsay Lou and the Flatbellys. Living in Nashville since 2015 though, change was inevitable, and she processes some big life shifts and stylistic evolution on her new album Queen of Time. It's the most ambitious and enthralling release of her career, and there's a lot to talk about.

Episode 265: Two great male voices in new Americana. Cruz Contreras has been a key player in the East Tennessee music scene for twenty years, steering accomplished roots projects Robinella and the CCstringband and the Black Lillies. In 2019 he wrote and recorded his first solo album only to see the pandemic upend his plans for its big rollout. He made good use of the lost years, getting married, having a son and moving to a new place. But at last he thought it was time to release Cosmico. And I catch up with Logan Ledger who's back with his second album Golden State, a lush western-tinged album of melancholy but gorgeous songs. Both interviews took place on the same day during AmericanaFest 2023.

Episode 264: One might imagine that after 17 years singing country music and releasing ten albums, an artist would have shared all of her secrets with her audience, but Eilen Jewell says only in the aftermath of 2020 and a bunch of disruptive change and loss well beyond the reach of the pandemic, that she was ready to get real in ways she never had before. The result is Get Behind The Wheel, a cracking country blues album that extends the winning streak of this veteran artist, who made her way from her home town of Boise, ID to the top of the Boston scene and back home again. Also in the hour, the crafty roots pop of professional songwriter Jenny Owen Youngs.

Episode 263: Dan Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound in Nashville has been one of the key discovery points for roots music in the past decade. And thanks to them, Robert Finley has become a rare and special thing - a top tier American soul and blues artist who found a worldwide audience in his 60s. He hails from north Louisiana, and his life in music has been tenacious and adaptable and fascinating. Only after he lost most of his sight, forcing him to retire from home construction, did he push music to the fore and connect with a roots music network. Evidence of how great that is can be heard on his third Easy Eye album Black Bayou. This is a magical and unpredictable conversation.

Episode 262: There's no better forum to survey what's happening at the cutting edge of roots music than AmericanaFest, and 2023's huge edition was no exception. In what's become an annual tradition, I survey three acts who are making waves in three different genre spaces in the Americana universe. Summer Dean quit her teaching job around her 40th birthday to hit the road as a honky tonk singer and songwriter and earned the support of Bruce Robison's Next Waltz Records. Caleb Elliott became ensconced with Muscle Shoals label Single Lock Records as a session cello player before breaking cover as a songwriter. They liked his stuff so much they've released two albums with him. And Allison DeGroot and Tatiana Hargreaves define the cutting edge in today's old-time scene.

Episode 261: She's the hit Nashville songwriter who never moved to Nashville, staying instead in her hometown near Boston. She's the power mom who wrote timeless country award winners like "Girl Crush" and "Humble and Kind" while raising five kids. Now she reflects on her own story more than ever before on her new album 1988. It's the fourth in a row she's made with producer Dave Cobb and a testament to the fact that while McKenna's won three Grammy Awards, she's the same humble and kind woman who got cajoled into playing at her first open mic back in the early 1990s.

Episode 260: Darrell Scott emerged in the late 1990s as one of Nashville's most complete folk/roots artists. He had the butter of James Taylor and the grease of Lowell George in his voice. He could pick numerous instruments like a practiced master. And his songs were stunning from the get go, including his widely-recorded "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive" and his crowd favorite "Great Day To Be Alive" on his debut project. Now, Scott lives mostly on a farm two hours from Nashville tending the land and playing 60-80 dates a year. Recently he issued Old Cane Back Rocker, his first studio album since 2016 and his most bluegrass leaning project ever. I road tripped to Darrell's farm to record this week's atmospheric conversation.

Episode 259: When East Nashville emerged as a nationally important music scene in the early 2000s, Amelia White was one of the reasons. Like so many others, she'd migrated from elsewhere (Boston and Seattle) to find a nurturing community full of collaborators and enablers, including her longtime recording partner and guitar player Dave Coleman. She was included on a seminal anthology of East Nashville songs. And she set up a rhythm of writing, recording and touring domestically and increasingly overseas. Now she's heading back to showcase at AmericanaFest 2023 and getting set to release an album this winter produced by Americana great Kim Richey. Amelia dropped by the studio for a friendly conversation that surveys her journey, through music from across her career.

Episode 258: For a band that released its independent debut album in 2017, the Teskey Brothers have come a long way. From our perspective here in Nashville, that would be 9,700 miles, the distance to their home town of Warrandyte, New South Wales, Australia. Raised on classic soul and R&B music, Sam and Josh Teskey started making music together as kids and became staples of the Melbourne music scene. They didn't have huge aspirations, but when their first record knocked out people close to home, they took their classic Stax/Muscle Shoals sound to the world and the world replied. This year they've toured Europe for five months and played major sold out venues, including the Ryman Auditorium behind their current album the Winding Way. Guitarist, songwriter, singer and recording engineer Sam Teskey tells me about their journey.