Bluegrass Jam Along Interviews

Welcome to the first of two very special episodes of Bluegrass Jam Along. Tony Rice's classic album 'Church Street Blues' is 40 years old this year. To celebrate, I've spent the last 3 months interviewing people about it and this is part one of the results. In this episode you'll hear from people who knew, played with, worked with and spent time with Tony, including an int...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Pod news Rachel Baiman interview Sign up for  email alerts Church Street News Matt Flinner mandolin courses The Grass is New - new releases The Grass is New Spotify playlist Scroll on Buddy Billy Strings and Willie...

My guest this week is singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rachel Baiman. We chat about Rachel's new record  Common Nation of Sorrow , how she made the transition from being an instrumentalist to being a songwriter, how she re-imagined a little known John Hartford song for the new record, why it can be good to include covers on your records as a songwriter and much, much more. This was...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Pod news Sign up for  email alerts The Grass is New - new releases The Grass is New Spotify playlist Tony Rice live recordings Tony & Wyatt Rice - Together! The Tony Rice Unit - A Beautiful New Year’s Eve The T...

Hi everybody. I recently released two special episodes to celebrate Doc Watson's 100th birthday. I chatted to so many amazing people for them I ended up with almost 5 hours of content! I'm aware not everyone has the time to listen to that much content, so I've decided to pull out some of the key bits and release them as standalone episodes, for those of you who'd like to hear t...

Hi everybody. I recently released two special episodes to celebrate Doc Watson's 100th birthday. I chatted to so many amazing people for them I ended up with almost 5 hours of content! I'm aware not everyone has the time to listen to that much content, so I've decided to pull out some of the key bits and release them as standalone episodes, for those of you who'd like to hear t...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Pod news Sign up for  email alerts Church Street News Tyler Grant’s new ArtistWorks course Tyler's Facebook IBMA tickets Billy Strings tour Inside the Musician’s Brain podcast The Grass is New - new releases T...

Hi everybody. Last month I released two special episodes to celebrate Doc Watson's 100th birthday. I chatted to so many amazing people for them I ended up with almost 5 hours of content! I'm aware not everyone has the time to listen to that much content, so I've decided to pull out some of the key bits and release them as standalone episodes, for those of you who'd like to hear...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Pod news Sign up for  email alerts Church Street News Rob Ickes' Reso Summit Slide Fest DelFest lineup The Grass is New - new releases The Grass is New Spotify playlist Scroll on Buddy Chris Pandolfi's  I...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Pod news Bluegrass Jam Along is now sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins Sign up for email alerts Church Street News Blue Highway Fest The Grass is New - new releases The Grass is New Spotify playlist Scroll...

My guest this week is Noam Pikelny. Noam is probably best known as a member of Punch Brothers, but he joins me this week to talk about his new project, Mighty Poplar. He’s joined in this band by fellow Punch Brother Chris Eldridge and former Punch Brother Greg Garrison, as well as Andrew Marlin of Watchhouse and Alex Hargraves, fiddle player with Billy Strings. We chat about how the band came toge...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Pod news Sign up for  email alerts Church Street News Fretboard Summit The Grass is New - new releases The Grass is New Spotify playlist Scroll on Buddy Alison Brown and Steve Martin In my ears this week The Grass...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Pod news John McEuen interview  -  Apple -  Spotify -  YouTube Church Street News Pat Morris, IBMA’s Executive Director, has announced his  plans to resign Alan Bibey joins Balsam Range Bluegrass Situation piece on...

My guest this week is John McEuen, founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I recently put together two special episodes to celebrate Doc Watson's 100th birthday (links below in case you missed those). I interviewed over a dozen guests and John was kind enough to take part and share some memories of recording  Will the Circle Be Unbroken  with Doc. Those episodes ended up being so long...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a new weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. Pod news Doc Watson 100th birthday celebration -  part 1  &  part 2 Bluegrass Jam Along’s  YouTube channel Sign up for  email alerts Church Street News IBMA lineup and tickets Kyle Cantrell leaves Sirius XM...

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a new weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. This week we’re all about the birthdays and anniversaries. We’re celebrating Doc Watson’s 100th, as well as Telluride’s 50th…and Bluegrass Jam Along’s 2nd! Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode. News Doc Watson 100th birthday celebration -  part 1  ...

Hi everyone. Today (March 3rd 2023) would have been Doc Watson's 100th birthday, so I've put together a couple of really special episodes to celebrate.  I spent the past 3 months interviewing people who knew, played with, worked with, were inspired by or just loved Doc and his music. I ended up with hours and hours of wonderful conversation and have edited it all into two episodes. This...

Hi everyone. Today (March 3rd 2023) would have been Doc Watson's 100th birthday, so I've put together a couple of really special episodes to celebrate.  I spent the past 3 months interviewing people who knew, played with, worked with, were inspired by or just loved Doc and his music. I ended up with hours and hours of wonderful conversation and have edited it all into two episodes. This...

Welcome to the very first Bluegrass Briefing, a brand new weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass. This week we’ve got plenty of Doc Watson related content in the run up to his 100th birthday on March 3rd. I’ll be releasing two extra special episodes of the podcast on Doc’s birthday, featuring 4 hours of brand new interviews with people who knew, worked...

My guests on the podcsat this week are Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley. Rob and Trey have a fantastic new record out called 'Living in a Song' and they joined me to chat about the inspiration behind the songs, the recording process and much more. Trey has been on the podcast before, but this was my first time chatting to Rob, so that was a real treat. They're great to chat to and I love...

This is a really quick bonus episode I wanted to share with you all.  I'm putting together a Doc Watson 100th birthday episode, which is due out in March. I've interviewed lots of amazing guests for that and one of them was the wonderful Tony Trischka. At the end of our chat Tony told me a story about meeting Bill Monroe - it doesn't fit in the Doc episode but it's really cool...

My guest this week is Sierra Hull. I caught up with Sierra before the London show on her UK tour with Justin Moses.  We chatted about how spending so much time at home over the course of the pandemic changed her outlook on things and about some of the collaborations she's been part of over the past year, including touring with Cory Wong and her involvement in Bela Fleck's 'My Bluegr...

My guest this week is Jack Hinshelwood. Jack is a guitarist, fiddler, singer and winner of the Knoxville World’s Fair Guitar Championship, the Wayne Henderson Guitar Championship, and a two-time winner of the Galax Fiddler’s Convention guitar contest. He joins me to chat about  Doc at 100 , a really special set of shows he's co-producing to celebrate what would have been Doc Watson's 100...

My guest this week is guitarist Eric Skye. We covered a lot of ground, including Eric's Santa Cruz signature model guitar, the joys of playing tunes slowly, why tone is so important and, especially, his wonderful new record of fiddle tune duets with  J amie Stillway, 'Over the Waterfall', which is released on January 13th. I loved this chat. My favourite conversations on the podcast...

This episode features a short interview with Paul Kowert of Hawktail and Punch Brothers talking about his Nick Lloyd double bass. I interviewed Nick about the bass (episode 245) and thought it would be cool to chat to Paul about what makes the instrument special and why he wanted a copy of Edgar Meyer's bass in the first place. You'll also get to hear a track from Hawktail's latest...