Southern Songs and Stories

Back in 2017, I envisioned Southern Songs and Stories as a video documentary series, and pitched our pilot episode on Aaron Burdett to public television. Following Aaron’s episode, I profiled Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters , and made another go with video when I attended my first Albino Skunk Music Festival that spring, and sat with the Jon Stickley Trio. The video documentary series dre...

In this episode, you get a familiar voice to not only this podcast but to all of roots music: Ketch Secor, of Old Crow Medicine Show, with a conversation from MerleFest in late April 2026. Just days after this episode is published, get set for another alumnus of this podcast, Jon Stickley of the Jon Stickley Trio , who will tell us about what he is doing these days, including a new project with La...

Don’t let the straightforward, down-to-earth aesthetic of Jontavious Willis’ music lead you to think that there is little complexity or depth to his art. Indeed, Willis exemplifies making something that isn’t really easy at all seem like a stroll down a country road in his native Georgia hill country. He is also well versed in the history and dynamics of his style of blues. From a recent post on h...

Maggie Rose is a class act. Have you ever met someone who has incredible presence? Someone who can walk in a room and cause everyone to take a pause and notice them, even without a word spoken or any invitation to look their way? This is how people react to Maggie Rose. It is rare enough, even for professional music artists, but when you witness it happening, it is something special. That is how I...

“My mom went to Juilliard, graduated from Juilliard. She taught us all of our instruments. We performed very high-level classical music, but we never felt a connection with the audience. And that's what we really yearned for.” — Dan Fedoryka You might not guess that the Fedoryka brothers, the core of the four-piece band Scythian , would have started their musical journey in such a formal setting,...

One of the greatest things about roots music in general, and bluegrass specifically, is that it continually brings in new generations of players to the fold. These young artists cut their teeth on the classics of the genre and then, very often, branch out into new directions, pushing the boundaries of the form, and inventing new styles while reinvigorating the overall framework of the music they l...

Ask anyone who has has been there, is getting there, or maybe just realizing that it is around the bend, and they will tell you: getting older is not for the faint of heart. Not counting all the challenges with getting physically older, there are the many curveballs that life throws our way with work, family, and friendships, not to mention just maintaining mental balance in a world full of upheav...

The George Hatcher Band 08/16/81 at Main Street Music Hall, Morganton NC P.B. Scott’s documentary Central Piedmont Community College online collection of WTVI archives Rick Bowles episode on WTVI’s After Dark , recorded at O’Neills, date unknown

Charlotte has been on my mind a lot lately. Recently, I profiled the Queen City’s Emanuel Wynter in the episode “Violin’s Architect of Joyous Sound: Emanuel Wynter”, which followed a recent episode on Charlotte artist Sam Tayloe of the band Time Sawyer titled “New Stages for Time Sawyer and Their Hometown Festival”. Around the time I interviewed Emanuel Wynter, I was in Charlotte on two occasions...

Acclaimed Alabama songwriter Abe Partridge and podcaster Ferrill Gibbs return to the podcast world with their new series titled Alabama Astronaut Radio Transmission , continuing their earlier work in the podcast series Alabama Astronaut to chronicle the religious practice of snake handling in the American South, and to document the movement’s unique and largely unknown songs and often raucous musi...

When you think of the violin, or in country and roots music circles its kissing cousin the fiddle, what comes to mind? The Suzuki method, or Antonio Vivaldi perhaps? Maybe a song like “Ashokan Farewell” or “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”? But have you heard of Stuff Smith, Regina Carter, Papa John Creach, or Stéphane Grappelli? Charlotte artist Emanuel Wynter certainly has, and having grown up le...

Many times the way and artist finds their way onto this podcast is from their publicist or someone else on their team reaching out to me, or vice versa. Sometimes I might bump into an artist at a show or festival and hit them up for an impromptu interview then and there, but that is rare. Rarer still is the scenario where I came in contact with western Kentucky artist Kelsey Waldon , which was thr...

Did you know that almost three thousand years ago, before there were athletic competitions at the first Olympics, there were music competitions at Delphi in Greece, with contestants singing hymns to Apollo? Or that, in the late 19th century in America, John Philip Sousa protégé Bohumir Kryl's Bohemian Band was frequently seen on the Chautauqua circuit, and featured four husky timpanists in leather...

It is interesting to compare and contrast the genres of rock and roll with old time and string band music. In some ways, string bands can be more raw and intense than rock bands. No bridges. Odd tunings. Dancing to exhaustion. Music made for intimate social gatherings versus music made for the wide world. The stereotypes of old time musicians being country bumpkins have not been entirely erased, h...

Chalk this one up to making myself do something when I was not sure I had it in me. Have you accomplished something even though you were not feeling it that day? I bet you have. And I bet that you, too, benefited from having willed yourself into action. This episode is one of those examples for me. After a full day of interviewing artists and staff at the fall 2025 Albino Skunk Music Festival, I w...

Back in 2018, when this podcast was in its first year, I traveled to Burlington, NC, to interview the Charlotte by way of Elkin, NC band Time Sawyer . Since then, my path has intersected with Sam Tayloe and his band Time Sawyer many times, ranging from seeing them perform more shows and festivals, to emceeing for the Reevestock Festival in Sam’s hometown of Elkin. Time never stands still, even for...

Regular listeners of this series will know that there is a certain festival that is near and dear to my heart, the Albino Skunk Music Festival . It is an event that insiders love passionately, and outsiders often puzzle over. What an unusual name! What an unlikely and often under-the-radar roster of artists! As I have said many times before in introducing the festival to a newcomer, I had long bee...

Ryan Bingham never knew until he was an adult that his path would take him into music full time, much less that he would become an international star, nor did he dream of eventually reaching millions more people in film and television. He did not play guitar with much skill until his early twenties. However, he wrote one of his most enduring hits while woodshedding on guitar and harmonica, “Souths...

The fountain of youth could very well be located in a mandolin, or a fiddle. At least for Sam Bush, playing the mandolin, along with the occasional fiddle, seems to give him an energy level that many people several decades his junior would envy. There is a lot to be said for playing music, whatever the instrument, and its benefits for well being. Cognitively and psychologically, there is a lot of...

Easing up, letting things come to you, and practicing being present is a recurring theme in recent episodes of this series, and that mindset is on full display once again in this episode on The Wood Brothers . I sat with Oliver Wood, Chris Wood and Jano Rix backstage at the 2025 Earl Scruggs Music Festival, ahead of their Friday night headlining set at the award-winning event . It was one of the m...

Welcome to the latest episode of the series Southern Songs and Stories, which recently made it into the top 10 best Americana podcasts on this list . Yay! It reminds me to ask you to give the podcast a top rating and where you can submit one, a review. That’s a huge part of making this series visible on platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify and everywhere you follow podcasts. Really, it makes a h...

In mid May, 2025, I spoke with Jeff Tweedy ahead of his show with Wilco in Charlotte, NC, and have been waiting for his forthcoming solo album to publish his interview here on Southern Songs and Stories . I was fortunate to get to listen to several songs from Twilight Override ahead of my conversation with Jeff Tweedy, and was one of, if not the first person to talk with him about the album, and e...

Is there such a thing as coincidence? Recently I read an essay by Henrik Karllson, in his Substack page Escaping Flatland , titled “Almost Anything You Give Sustained Attention to Will Begin To Loop on Itself and Bloom”, and I was especially struck by his comment that "Art is guided meditation". This was, to me, a new way of thinking about paying attention and slowing down, of being in the moment....

What do the following styles of music have in common: Ragtime, New Wave, Dubstep, and Doo-wop? This group may seem quite divergent, but they all share a common characteristic: they are mostly types of music that no one plays much anymore. Then again, you could easily argue that these are simply sub-genres of larger categories like Jazz, Rock, Reggae and R&B, and live on in some form or another...

Jerry Douglas is never not entertaining. On stage, on record, or in conversation, Flux, as Bela Fleck famously dubbed him, is full of wit, joy and inventiveness. His talents have garnered him 16 Grammy Awards, 28 IBMA Awards, 3 Country Music Association Awards, 3 Americana Music Association Awards, an NEA National Heritage Fellowship, and an artist residency at the Country Music Hall Of Fame and M...