Roots Music Rambler

Fifteen years apart can give a band a lot to argue about—or a reason to remember why they started playing together. For Cody Canada and Cross Canadian Ragweed , the reunion has brought things back to the music, the friendships and the fun. That makes him a pretty fitting guest for the 100th episode of Roots Music Rambler. Canada joins Frank and Falls to talk about the years away, the Boys from Okl...

From a Cumberland Gap shed to Nashville, Oliver Sayani finds 9 Kinds of Blue Some kids discover country music on the radio. Oliver Sayani got a memorable introduction from a bearded stranger in a poncho who played John Prine songs at a hometown festival, then seemingly vanished. It’s the kind of story that belongs in a song. Fortunately, Sayani has plenty of those, too. The Cumberland Gap, Tenn.,...

Most album release parties are memorable enough without one of your musical heroes walking through the door. Randon Neeley ’s October 7 celebration at Al’s Bar in Lexington came with exactly that surprise: Tyler Childers showed up. A few days later, Neeley was opening for him at the Pinnacle in Nashville. That seemed like a pretty good reason for us to move this conversation up the calendar. The O...

A good song can start just about anywhere. For Aaron Kelly, that includes a trip to Goodwill, a dog sniffing his pants and a biology final that needed something better than a boring PowerPoint. The Chicago-area songwriter joins Frank and Falls this week with stories that make a pretty convincing case for paying attention. Kelly grew up where Chicago’s sprawl met the country, and he still keeps a f...

Jack Browning doesn’t think country music needs a particular zip code. The British singer-songwriter grew up on his dad’s records, climbed the furniture to borrow a Johnny Cash CD, and eventually found that pedal steel and fiddle fit the stories he wanted to tell. The accent might surprise you. The songs make perfect sense. Browning joined Frank and Falls this week to talk about his new album Pain...

Falls first heard David LaMotte in a Birmingham bookstore café more than 20 years ago. He was working in college sports public relations, spending much of his life on the road, and “ Northbound ” sounded like somebody understood. The song, from LaMotte’s album Corners , has been a favorite ever since. After promises to do so, Falls finally tracked LaMotte down to join Roots Music Rambler. He did s...

TICKET GIVEAWAY BONUS EPISODE The ⁠North Springs Music Festival⁠ takes place in a hayfield in Whitleyville, Tenn., October 8-10. It's 10 acts on one stage each day for ⁠30 total sets from some of Roots Music Rambler's favorite artists⁠ . Headliners Chris Knight, Taylor Hunnicutt and Silverada are the highlights, but Rambler fans will recognize a bunch of the remaining acts, making this a must-atte...

Ask Jason Eady to put a label on his music and he’ll take you to the back porch. If it works without electricity, it fits. The Mississippi-raised, Texas-based singer-songwriter has plenty of country in his catalog, but the blues and a laid-back Oklahoma groove are never far away. Eady joined Frank and Falls this week to talk about that mix, his latest album Tulsa Turnaround and what makes the Tuls...

If you’ve heard much thunder around the bluegrass space of late, it’s likely due to the growing presence of Thunder & Rain . Erinn Peet Lukes’s new grass band has been around for more than 10 years. It has shape-shifted through a few different members, inner-circle romantic relationship issues and Lukes’s move from Denver to Nashville. But now Lukes is settled in Music City and Thunder & R...

Welcome to another in our Backstage episode of Roots Music Rambler. These are short interviews Frank and Falls are able to grab backstage (or just somewhere in person rather than on our virtual, longer-form interview episodes) and catch up briefly. This week, Falls caught up with his fellow Pikeville, Ky., product Brandon Scott Coleman, a multi-genre virtuoso guitarist who plays said instrument fo...

Pardon the interruption on the podcast feed with a special announcement, but we think you're going to love this! To start the celebration of Roots Music Rambler's 100th episode (coming soon), we're launching a Patreon community to give you all kinds of member benefits. More on that in a moment, though, because in order to encourage you to join the Patreon community (we're calling it getting a Back...

Long-time listeners to Roots Music Rambler know we love to focus on the sense of place and how it impacts the songwriting and music influences of our artists. Every now and then, one comes along that brings an interesting confluence of places to the table. Julia Sanders certainly fits that bill. Based in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, but also often calling Asheville, N.C., home, Sanders creates a...

The music business has had ups and downs for Houston native Sam Morrow . He’s bounced around geographically and within his own sound through a decade or more and a half dozen studio albums. But his recent return to his home state of Texas, reconnecting with an old flame who is now his wife, and his clarity on what he wants to do musically produced a dandy of a Southern rock offering called Souther...

Welcome to another in our Backstage episode of Roots Music Rambler. These are short interviews Frank and Falls are able to grab backstage (or just somewhere in person rather than on our virtual, longer-form interview episodes) and catch up briefly. This week Falls got a chance to catch up with the rocket ship that is becoming Hunter Flynn before a recent show he did in Louisville. Falls met Hunter...

Rock, rhythm and blues band Yarn made a triumphant return to the Americana charts this spring with their new album Saturday Night Sermons . The lead single, “Good Things,” spent several weeks in the AMA’s top 20 singles chart and the band is back on the road supporting their 11th-ish album. Founder and frontman Blake Christiana joined Roots Music Rambler this week to talk all about the album, the...

Welcome to another in our Backstage episode of Roots Music Rambler. These are short interviews Frank and Falls are able to grab backstage (or just somewhere in person rather than on our virtual, longer-form interview episodes) and catch up briefly. This week, we share a recent chat Falls had with West Virginia-based singer-songwriter William Matheny . He hails from the Morgantown area of West Virg...

It normally only takes a song or two for anyone to get sentimental or teary-eyed at a Logan Mac show. Frank and Falls saw it first-hand at this year’s Crossroads Acoustic Fest in Seymour, Indiana in April. Mac’s deeply emotional music and raw reality-of-life stories are moving. Mac joined us to talk about his songwriting, songs and new album Til The Ground this week on Roots Music Rambler. And wha...

Welcome to another in our Backstage episode of Roots Music Rambler. These are short interviews Frank and Falls are able to grab backstage (or just somewhere in person rather than on our virtual, longer-form interview episodes) and catch up briefly. In this case, we wanted to make sure everyone out there knew about Flood With Love, a music festival happening on Saturday, January 25 at The Burl in L...

Adam Chaffins has spent more than a decade and a half in Nashville, playing in bands, picking up tours with other artists, writing, producing and occasionally releasing an album, several singles and, last year, an EP. Sure, he also happened upon fellow Kentuckian Brit Taylor, whom he married along the way. Adam plays in her band, co-writes and produces some of her work. But 2026 is proving to be w...

Welcome to another in our Backstage episode of Roots Music Rambler. These are short interviews Frank and Falls are able to grab backstage (or just somewhere in person rather than on our virtual, longer-form interview episodes) and catch up briefly. In this case, Falls was able to catch Kentucky singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso Shelby Lore for a virtual conversation.  He’s the man behind the S...

Noah Guthrie first made a name for himself and his music when his YouTube cover songs were noticed by producers for the Ellen DeGeneres Show. He “won” a contract with Degeneres’s fledgling record label which never manifested an actual album for the South Carolina singer-songwriter. But an appearance on America’s Got Talent started the ball rolling for Guthrie. In that 2018 season of AGT he finishe...

Heirloom, the new album from singer-songwriter Nathan Evans Fox, is out and an impressive manifestation of both creativity and almost historical documentation of an Appalachian artist. Fox joined Roots Music Rambler this week to talk about the new album, his journey to Nashville from the mountains of Western Carolina, fatherhood and more.  Like many artists today, Fox often shares little snippets...

One of the Americana voices out of Chicago that you’ve heard Frank talk about on Roots Music Rambler drops her first full-length solo album today (Friday, May 29, 2026). So you know we’re going to talk to her, right? Rachel Swain’s Neon Lullaby is out and features a solid mix of the sounds that define Americana music. She brings plenty of country influence with a hint of rock and a touch of blues,...

Jeremy Marshall, the singer-songwriter who founded and fronts the Alt-Country band Hollerhead, says he doesn’t know what to call the band’s genre of music. “We just play our music,” he told us when he joined Roots Music Rambler this week. The Western Kentucky-based band mixes a steady diet of southern rock with country, blues and even bluegrass influences, or Americana as we’ve come to say about a...

Americana/Folk artist Ismay (Avery Hellman) was in a Lucinda Williams cover band started by their father early in her adult life. As a singer-songwriter herself, the musician, rancher and self-identified “dreamer” went looking for more understanding of the legendary singer-songwriter and produced an outstanding documentary called Finding Lucinda. The film documents their journey of more self-disco...