The String

Episode 211: Not many instrumentalists have invented and spread a new technique, but Darol Anger has, and now the percussive bow and string practice called "the chop" is almost mandatory for rising bluegrass and even some classical players. This happened over a 40+ year career that's seen Anger contribute to the historic David Grisman Quintet, co-found the Turtle Island String Quartet, pursue a lo...

Episode 210: Over the past ten years, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors have become one of the most successful and beloved bands in Nashville, a kind of nice guy finishes first story in Music City. Thing is, the band is also huge in Knoxville, where he went to college and Memphis, where he grew up. And around the nation too. It's just hard to remember that local dude Drew is a roots and folk rock sta...

Episode 209: The Po' Ramblin' Boys, probably the hottest young band in bluegrass, started as a house band at a distillery in East Tennessee, where they were able to hone their sound over years of daily performing. Balancing that polish with the raw and earthy sound of traditional bluegrass music has become a signature of the band, says founder C.J. Lewandowski in this wide-ranging conversation. Al...

Episode 208: Western North Carolina has a long history in roots music, but Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters have been one of the defining sounds of the scene for the last decade or more, a no-frills, highly musical country band fronted by an exceptional singer and songwriter. On my recent trip to Asheville, I caught a Honeycutters show and then sat down with Amanda at her century-old home in...

Episode 207: Monoflora, the fourth album from Asheville, NC quartet River Whyless speaks to the musical values that have made them  cult favorites since 2012 - complex harmonies, layered textures and worldly grooves. This conversation reveals an especially deep bond of friendship that's produced creative tensions and ultimately exceptionally enthralling music. Also in this NC field trip episode, p...

Episode 206: Growing up in Florida, Joshua Hedley got his heart set on playing the fiddle at age 3 and on moving to Nashville to play in honky tonks in his teens. For years he was a sideman whose obligations ended at the end of the night or the tour. Eventually, he was moved to write and sing his own music, and as soon as he did, some heavy supporters noticed, including Margo Price and the team at...

Episode 205: An influx of superb roots artists from Michigan to Nashville has been good for Music City, with Billy Strings, Lindsay Lou, even Jack White. Rather new to the city are The Accidentals, the highly-skilled and daring roots pop trio from Traverse City. Since emerging five years ago, they've toured like crazy and built a large and loyal fan base. They got on a pandemic co-writing tear wit...

Episode 204: In a great year for bluegrass, two projects stand out. One, from our featured guest, because he's the living patriarch of traditional bluegrass music. Del McCoury has earned every honor and award one can win in his field, and he's built historic bridges from American folk and roots to the realms of jam band rock and roll, thanks to his open heart and a blazing band that for more than...

Episode 203: In another conversation with a prominent musical couple, Craig visits the home of Rachael and Dominic John Davis, artists who work together and apart, always enhancing the Nashville ideal with their attention to detail and timeless musicianship. He's most famous for years playing bass in various projects with his boyhood friend Jack White, but he's also been an in-demand sideman and r...

Episode 202: The String's look at the improv-heavy jamgrass community continues with a band at the heart of it all, Yonder Mountain String Band. Bass player Ben Kauffman and guitarist Adam Aijala talk about how Colorado became their laboratory for a new, dance-friendly, freewheeling take on bluegrass music in the 1990s and beyond. We discuss how they negotiated the departure of founding member Jef...

Episode 201: Friendly and funny, enthusiastic and energetic, Steve Poltz has released his tenth album Stardust & Satellites as he embarks on another year of intense touring. In a conversation at his home in East Nashville, Poltz speaks with Craig about his surprise embrace of Nashville co-writing, his wild experience writing one of the 90s big hits and the pot brownies that showed him the way to p...

Episode 200: Joan Osborne became a star on the strength of a controversial song and a Grammy-nominated major label debut album in 1995, but when you scan her catalog, it becomes quickly clear that she has one of the most powerful and nuanced voices in popular music. Her range and intimacy is quite clear on her new release Radio Waves, which compiles radio station performances and demos she found i...

Episode 199: Guitarist and songwriter Luther Dickinson, founder of the North Mississippi All-Stars, returns to the String to talk about two albums, each with its own story to tell about blues and roots music. Up And Rolling from 2019 was a deluxe CD package with extensive memoir liner notes by Luther and photographs of he and his brother Cody in 1996 just before the band formed. It's a celebration...

Episode 198: It's a double shot of blues from Alligator Records this week. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram is the most exciting prodigy to hit the electric blues scene in decades. It helps his narrative that the 23-year-old hails from the cradle of the blues, Clarksdale, MS, where the Delta Blues Museum's education programs gave him his start. Now he's nominated for his second Grammy Award with his 20...

Episode 197: Bay Area rock and jam hero Tim Bluhm founded The Mother Hips with Greg Loiacono 30 years ago while still students at Chico State in California. Signed right away, they made a mark with their quirky power pop and new-world psychedelia. They've had quieter phases over the decades, but now's not one of them. The team is writing a lot and working on recordings for an indie Nashville label...

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...