The String

Episode 196: The String's spotlight on the contemporary jamgrass scene continues with a career-spanning conversation with Paul Hoffman (mandolin) and Mike Devol (bass) of Greensky Bluegrass. The band formed at local bars and breweries in Kalamazoo, MI just over 20 years ago, and they've found a groove and a rapport with their instruments and audience that most bands dream of. After winning the Tel...

Episode 195: Aoife O'Donovan has one of the most beautiful and nuanced voices in popular music and she's deployed it in a lot of collaborative directions. She was the voice of Crooked Still for ten years. She's joined projects by Dave Douglas, the elite Goat Rodeo Sessions ensemble, the award-winning trio I'm With Her and more. Now she's back with her first solo album in six years, Age of Apathy....

Episode 194: Formed in the mid 2000s in Nashville, the Infamous Stringdusters executed one of roots music's most successful pivots. Their foundation was and remains traditional bluegrass music, and they have the chops to execute the real deal at any moment. But when that audience and scene proved confining, they looked west to Colorado and the broader, wider values of the jamgrass world. After tou...

Episode 193: From where we sit at WMOT, Allison Russell was the artist of 2021. Her album Outside Child, our most played disc, emerged in the summer to massive acclaim and it has now been nominated for three Grammy Awards. And she was tapped to curate the Sunday closing set at Newport Folk Festival, which she used to shine a light on a dozen extraordinary African American women who've found their...

Episode 192: Nashville-raised songwriter Aubrey Sellers returns to The String as half of the new duo Jackson & Sellers. She and Jade Jackson became Instagram friends after the 2019 AmericanaFest where they realized they liked each other's music. Then a co-writing date sparked a close friendship and a hot duo that's attracted a ton of attention and praise. Their self-titled album has country in its...

Episode 191: The Charleston, SC collective SUSTO has been a vehicle for the fertile mind of songwriter Justin Osborne since 2014. The music and his lyrics have both a grandeur and an intimacy, tackling nothing less than existence. On his newest Time In The Sun, Osborne wrote epic tracks that among other things tackled the near simultaneous passing of his father and the birth of his first child. We...

Episode 190: Veteran songwriter Bruce Robison set the pace for the alt-country/Americana format in the 1990s and wrote hit songs for George Strait, the Dixie Chicks and others. Five years ago, he widened his scope and formed The Next Waltz, a studio sessions oriented video channel and nascent record label. Now TNW has released its first full album by a solo songwriter, and that's Tony Kamel, ten-y...

Episode 189: Phoebe Hunt established herself on a national stage playing for years with her former band the Bellville Outfit out of Austin. Since pursuing a solo career in New York and now Nashville, she's come into her own as an artist with a highly developed global and spiritual perspective, expressed on the recent albums Shanti's Shadow and Neither One Of Us Is Wrong. She's also advocated for m...

Episode 188: Doyle Lawson has been mingling the holy and the down home in his blistering traditional bluegrass over a career on the road stretching back just shy of 60 years. Now at 77 he's stepping away from touring and the album cycle, leaving us with the swan song album Roundtable. In a career-spanning conversation we talk about getting hired by Jimmy Martin at age 18, about the supergroup Blue...

Episode 187: John Sebastian is most famous as the founder of and songwriter for the Lovin' Spoonful, which produced a fresh crop of folk rock hits in the late 60s. But there's much more to his story. In a full hour conversation, Sebastian talks about learning music in Washington Square in the 50s, about the great song "Nashville Cats," about Woodstock and his time with NRBQ. His most recent projec...

Episode 186: Formed as a showcase for women in string band music in 2009, Della Mae has seen lineup changes but no drift in its mission to create a new bluegrass and neo-folk sound full of ideas and heart. This episode, founding member Kimber Ludiker and decade-long vocalist Celia Woodsmith tell the story of how the band worked together at a distance during 2020 and then came together in a cathart...

Episode 185: Tim Easton is one of the most interesting guys in the Americana troubadour game. He grew up split between Akron, OH and Tokyo, Japan. He busked all over Europe for years as he formed his identity as a performer and songwriter. His albums on New West in the early 2000s are classics of folk rock, and he's also powerful as a solo artist, as you can hear on the one-take direct-to-analog t...

Episode 184: AmericanaFest returned to the clubs and yards of Nashville with a slimmer but spirited 2021 edition. Those able to come found community, diversity and great performances. I caught up with five showcasing artists to check in on their new projects and their take on today's roots scene. Included: blues veteran Sue Foley, LA protest folk artist Chris Pierce, Colorado songwriter Emily Scot...

Episode 183: He's the most gifted and innovative banjo player of all time and one of the architects of an American string band jazz tradition that's influenced generations of bluegrass musicians. And now after two decades of varied explorations in classical, world and fusion music, Bela Fleck has circled back to the music that captivated him as a teenager. My Bluegrass Heart is an epic 19-track do...

Episode 182: To spotlight the 2021 AmericanaFest, returning after a year off, I reached out to two of the most interesting artists showcasing during the week. Sierra Ferrell is a rambling free spirit from West Virginia who found her way to Nashville and its new era honky tonk scene way off of Broadway. Rounder Records heard her arresting old-world voice and feel for songs and signed her to a deal,...

Episode 181: It's a jangle pop special with two bands of brothers who are back on record after two-decade breaks. The Delevantes, Bob and Mike, are pioneers of Americana, chart toppers when the format was born thanks to their Everly Brothers harmony and country twang. Their enchanting new album will be called A Thousand Turns. Also in the hour, also with a brother named Mike, Raleigh, NC band The...

Episode 180: When Maggie Rose held her album release party in late August for her third album Have A Seat, she filled one of the city's largest music halls with wildly enthusiastic fans, testimony to her 13 years of work and resilience and acclaim. She's a bold and emotive singer who has forged a unique fusion of roots, soul and pop, and her recording sessions at FAME Studio in Muscle Shoals picke...

Episode 179: He goes by "Ferg" and he's one of the most interesting and influential creative forces in Nashville, whether you've heard of him or not. David Ferguson grew up in town, connected as a teenager with the great producer Cowboy Jack Clement and learned the mystic arts of recording and producing records. He engineered Johnny Cash's iconic comeback albums with Rick Rubin. He's worked the bo...

Episode 178: East Nashville's J.P. Harris has been a train-hopper, a logger, a shepherd, a honky tonker and a historic home carpenter. Indeed he was getting up from this early morning interview to work on an old home. It's a mix that makes him the most interesting man in roots music. And now, he's turned his attention back to the music that first drew him into country, old-time fiddle and banjo ba...

Episode 177: This year marks the 30th anniversary of Jim Lauderdale's solo debut album Planet Of Love, but he was a veteran even then of the burgeoning alternative country music scenes in New York and Los Angeles. In his Nashville decades, he's been cherished as a leader and spokesperson for Americana music, a very successful hit songwriter, a collaborator with giants and an artist who just kicks...

Episode 176: Parker Millsap burst on to the folk and roots scene in 2014 out of Oklahoma with a voice beyond his years and a bold way with drawing characters from the American heartland. Raised in the Pentecostal church, he's a rare Americana singer comfortable with celebrating and critiquing the faith community that shaped his picture of humanity. On his newest Be Here Instead, Parker turns his l...

Episode 175: Tim O'Brien is one of several roots music icons who've circled back for a second visit to The String in recent weeks, and that's a great thing. His band Hot Rize dominated bluegrass in the 1980s and since the 90s he's been a dynamo of songwriting, ensemble playing, recording and collaborating. The latest project He Walked On finds Tim reflecting on the accelerated, unnerving world unf...

Episode 174: Amythyst Kiah grew up in East TN and discovered traditional folk music at college there. Drawn to its heritage and its sound, she launched her career as a solo singer of original and traditional songs on guitar and banjo. Her low-timbred voice reminded me in her growth years of Odetta. Frustrated with her trajectory, she nearly quit but was revived by the support of folk star Rhiannon...

Episode 173: It takes a bold woman to cover "Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line," but Shannon McNally has been fearlessly facing down naysayers in the music business for 20 years. Nashville based after turns in LA, New Orleans and Mississippi, she's one of the most underrated roots singer songwriters in roots music, with a deep catalog and numerous distinguished collaborations to her name. Her lifel...

Episode 172: A sense of place pervades this split show featuring two of the most fascinating and accomplished voices in Americana music. Amy Helm is a veteran singer but a relatively new solo recording artist having released her third LP 'What The Flood Leaves Behind.' We talk about the aura and sound of her late father Levon Helm's Barn and how she keeps discovering new things there. Rachel Baima...