Episode 143: Matt Rollings says his role as the leading studio piano playing sideman in Nashville from the late 1980s onward made it hard for him to forge his own taste and sensibility as an artist. Now that he's slowed that work and broadened his projects, he's made his first album as a leader in 30 years, Matt Rollings Mosaic, with a bunch of friends and collaborators who happen to be superstars, including Alison Krauss, Lyle Lovett and Willie Nelson. Our talk covered the fascinating ways and ...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr
Episode 142: Ah, to be 25 again. Old enough to have a direction. Young enough to not know or care that the road ahead is steep and hard. This week, two remarkable emerging artists who've put in a quarter century and found unique pathways. Daniel Donato landed a plum guitar gig in downtown Nashville at age 16 and now he's building a new world of twangy jam with his debut LP 'A Young Man's Country'. Jake Blount is re-defining old-time music with banjo and fiddle out of his DC base. His anti-racist...
Sep 08, 2020•59 min
Episode 141: Two guests this show who both have careers straddling Nashville's hit-driven Music Row and art-driven Americana scenes. Heidi Newfield had a run of country hits in the 2000s w a band and as a soloist. Now she's reinventing and going gritty with her songwriting and blues harp on her first new album in more than a decade, The Barfly Sessions, Vol 1. Mac McAnally is a legend on the Row - a Hall of Fame songwriter and a 10-time CMA Musician of the Year. His own music displays real indep...
Aug 25, 2020•59 min
Episode 140: Chuck Prophet is a lifer who at 57 says he's just getting the hang of it - it being crafty, intelligent songs that feel good even when they're downers, songs that rock and twang in balanced proportions. Since going solo after a decade with the psych garage band Green On Red, Prophet has given us a vast body of work that sits easily on the shelf next to Rockpile, Elvis Costello or Tom Petty. Now he's releasing a reflective, sardonic and political album called The Land That Time Forgo...
Aug 18, 2020•58 min
Episode 139: Reaction to Joshua Ray Walker's debut album was as strong and swift as any to come along in country music and Texas songwriting in quite a while. But the Dallas native had been working stages nightly for ten years by the time the world paid attention. He was ready to follow up fast and he did so to great acclaim on 2020's Glad You Made It. This self-assured, thoughtful artist has a lot to say. Also in the hour, we meet Australian emigre to Nashville Emma Swift, whose new collection ...
Aug 12, 2020•59 min
Episode 138: Adia Victoria taps the lineage and resolve of the early Blues queens with a sound made for the now on her 2019 album Silences. Her journey from South Carolina to Atlanta and then to Nashville reads like no other artist of recent memory and she works hard to set herself apart from the institutional trappings of the indie music business. Critically acclaimed and sharply thoughtful, this made for a fascinating and challenging conversation.
Aug 03, 2020•57 min
Episode 137: Raleigh NC's Chatham County Line started at the dawn of the new millennium in a surge of passion for bluegrass music, with an old-school look and feel. Now at 20 years old, they've made only one very recent personnel change and refreshed their concept as a post-modern string band with drums. The new album Strange Fascination displays far-reaching vision and a warm cohesive sound, riding on the unique songwriting voice of Dave Wilson. Dave and co-founding multi-instrumentalist John T...
Jul 20, 2020•59 min
Episode 136: Just beyond the fuzzy boundaries of roots and Americana music, we find Brooklyn Based singer-songwriter Becca Stevens. And I hope you have found her. With a complex musical language drawn from folk, jazz, classical and pop, her output is searching, challenging and ever-evolving. A graduate of the NC School of the Arts and the New School in New York, she leaps from American public radio to European tours to collaborations with the likes of Jacob Collier, Snarky Puppy and recently fol...
Jul 14, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Episode 135: With ten albums and 20 years under his belt as one of the finest and wittiest songwriters working the Western end of country music, Alberta's Corb Lund is on his way to legendary status in Rocky Mountain cowboy-inspired songwriting. His newest is Agricultural Tragic, a 13 song collection that evokes the characters and colors of his home region. Also in the hour, Henry Hicks talks about Black Music Month and Black Lives Matter. Henry is the CEO of the National Museum of African Ameri...
Jul 06, 2020•58 min
Episode 134: In an era where women are marginalized on country radio, Brandy Clark is at the top of most people's list of women who should be on the air a lot more. She's written hits for others on Music Row, but her own records are beautifully produced and full of insight about people and humor that would have tickled Roger Miller. Clark's shared a Grammy Award for writing Kacey Musgraves' "Follow Your Arrow" and earned numerous nominations as an artist. Her latest is called Your Life Is A Reco...
Jun 23, 2020•1 hr
Episode 133: David Bromberg is one of the most fascinating and multi-faceted figures in roots music, a pioneer of the Americana idea decades before the term came into being. In the 1960s New York folk revival, he was a guitar player and multi-instrumental sideman who specialized in the blues. Then as an artist on Columbia Records, he made dazzling varied roots albums while supporting stars like Bob Dylan and Jerry Jeff Walker. He took nearly 20 years off the road to become the nation's pre-emine...
Jun 16, 2020•59 min
Episode 132: The timing was right to split the hour between two exceptional emerging artists making hard country music in the outlaw tradition. As you'll hear, Jesse Daniel and Jaime Wyatt have lived the life, paid the price and processed their pain and redemption in song. Both are products of the West Coast and both have dug deep into their own stories. Many are sizing up Daniel's 'Rollin' On' and Wyatt's 'Neon Cross' (produced by Shooter Jennings) as among the cream of 2020. These are candid, ...
Jun 10, 2020•59 min
Episode #131: Two of the most exceptional and provocative songwriters of their respective generations take on America's political divide and inject some radical empathy in the red/blue schism. Steve Earle addresses coal mining from the heart of a state that didn't vote like he does in Ghosts of West Virginia. BJ Barham caps off 15 years of leading American Aquarium with the amazing Lamentations, which debuted atop the Billboard Americana chart. This is a timely and complimentary pair of conversa...
Jun 01, 2020•59 min
Episode 130: She's a daughter of Grand Ole Opry royalty, but Pam Tillis found her own way to the music business and the top of the country charts in the 1990s. She's long been one of Music City's most independent-minded major leaguers, and she shows it on Looking For A Feeling, her first album in more than a decade. She works with some of Nashville's most creative musical minds too. Also in the hour, highlights from a 2008 interview in which we remember the timeless voice and humor of Joe Diffie...
May 19, 2020•58 min
Episode 129: Lilly Hiatt put in a lot of work at the local and regional level, including releasing two albums, before her third, Trinity Lane, met the moment and became a breakout work. So a lot of ears were lifted toward her 2020 release of Walking Proof, and it was quickly acclaimed as punchy, vivid and memorable. We talk about going on the road with her dad songwriter John Hiatt back in the day, the deserved success of Trinity Lane and new musical directions. Also, a get-acquainted talk with ...
May 12, 2020•59 min
Episode 128: Katie Pruitt has been known as a phenom ready for big things in Nashville for a few years now. With patience and enough maturity to get the music exactly as she intended, Pruitt has now made her debut on Rounder Records. The album Expectations is a bold, ambitious and succulent collection, and vividly honest as well, with songs documenting a difficult journey from a conservative family in Georgia to a proud out gay woman in Music City. This is a 25-year-old singer, songwriter and gu...
May 06, 2020•59 min
Episode 127: Paul Burch moved from Indiana to Nashville in 1994 when his friend Jay McDowell (BR549) told him about the burgeoning indie country music scene on sleepy Lower Broadway. In the 25 years since then, Burch has made uncompromising and original music with shades of classic honky tonk and timeless rock and soul. Here we talk about his role in the fascinating band Lambchop, the evolution of his band the WPA Ball Club and his new album Light Sensitive. Also in the hour, German-born bluegra...
Apr 27, 2020•1 hr
Episode 126: This Spring, many of the outstanding women of roots music have released new albums, and here we catch up with two of them. Jessi Alexander, native of Jackson TN, moved to Nashville at 18 and landed songwriting and record deals. She's a hitmaker behind the scenes who rarely surfaces with her own heartfelt country music, but she sure does so on Decatur County Red, anchored in stories of her Tennessee coming-of-age. Jill Andrews is more urbane and silky in her sound, but the personal j...
Apr 21, 2020•59 min
Episode 125: Recording producers are often the best people to speak with to gain extra insight into what makes some music more effective than others. And that's what we do this episode with two Nashville leaders with very different stories. Rick Clark came of age in Memphis and moved to Nashville in the 90s. He's been a DJ, a compilation curator and a music supervisor for film and TV. He's also getting back into songwriting and recording his own music. Neilson Hubbard is a key player in the mode...
Apr 07, 2020•59 min
Episode 124: Caleb Caudle grew up in rural North Carolina outside of Winston Salem, captivated by music far beyond what his school peers cared about - English punk, folk music and Bob Dylan among them. Since entering the fray as a singer songwriter in the mid 2000s, he's released seven studio albums, with a brand new one on the way later this week. Better Hurry Up was cut in 2019 just days after the artist and his wife moved to Nashville. A crack band set up at the Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, ...
Mar 30, 2020•59 min
Episode 123: Ron Pope is a case study in good indie art and commerce. He's an admired songwriter with an avid following for his cathartic, detail-laden songs and his range across a bunch of roots and rock and roll genres. Over more than a dozen albums, he's steered his own ship in a business partnership with his wife/manager and their Brooklyn Basement Records. The newest project is the sweeping album Bone Structure. A Georgia native, he got his career moving in New York and then moved to Nashvi...
Mar 23, 2020•59 min
Episode 122: Living the road life makes for tight musical couples. And in this split episode, I speak with a new mom who tours and duets with her husband and a couple that's been touring for a decade on their own and as side musicians. Nora Jane Struthers just released her fifth album, celebrating her full life, Bright Lights, Long Drives, First Words, and says it includes "Good Thing," the best song she's ever written. Then it's The Mastersons, both of them, as Chris and Elanor talk about meeti...
Mar 17, 2020•59 min
Episode 121 is a field trip to Asheville, NC, which Rolling Stone last year touted as one of the best music scenes in the country. We who visit regularly already knew that, and this week's show surveys the talent and the institutions making the region important in roots music and beyond. Featuring Amanda Anne Platt of the Honeycutters, Echo Mountain Studio, WNCW radio, Crossroads Music, Sarah Siskind, Morgan Geer and more.
Mar 08, 2020•59 min
Episode 120: Vince Herman and Drew Emmitt met in 1985 on Vince's first night in Boulder, CO and formed a lifelong musical bond. With banjo player Mark Vann they merged two bands into one and became Leftover Salmon at the dawn of 1990. And in the 30 years since they've earned the respect and partnership of the highest levels of the bluegrass and acoustic world while playing music that's as adventuresome as it is laid back. Herman and Emmitt marked the anniversary with a duo acoustic tour. Craig c...
Feb 24, 2020•56 min
Episode 119: Four virtuoso string band musicians well known for their work with other bands are taking instrumental acoustic music to new heights in the band Hawktail. They are fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Jordan Tice and mandolinist Dominick Leslie. And they recently landed on the Grand Ole Opry on release weekend of their second album Formations. Also, the delightful and clever throwback country duo of Noel McKay and Brennan Leigh. They've moved from Austin to Nashvill...
Feb 18, 2020•1 hr
Episode 118: Marcus Finnie is one of Nashville's most admired drummers, with a background spanning gospel, roots, pop and jazz. Mabel Pleasure is a lifelong Hammond organ player who rocks Sunday morning church services and the occasional R&B gig. And she's also Marcus's Mom. The String sits down with a musical family that's come from Memphis to Nashville and contributed to a brighter Music City. Marcus has a new album as leader of his jazz band. Mabel is about to make her lifelong recording/...
Feb 10, 2020•59 min
Episode 117: Often when songwriters talk process, we hear the same few nuggets about craft on repeat. Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer Beth Nielsen Chapman though has a deeply considered take on the art form and the personal work and qualities of mindfulness that truly unlock creative potential. Her workshops and lectures are in demand. And coming in 2020 she launches The Song School, a podcast that will include her wisdom and critiques of real songs in real time. Here, she invites Craig into...
Jan 27, 2020•59 min
Episode 116: Fiddler, songwriter, singer, bandleader and folk music scholar Michael Doucet is synonymous with Beausoleil the neo-traditional Louisiana band he co-founded 40+ years ago. But this artist relishes collaborations and his upcoming album with a new band, L'acher Prise on Compass Records, is a real Americana hybrid. It's Cajun at its core, but full of ideas from four other musicians a generation younger than he is. We talk about one of the legendary careers in roots music, dedicated to ...
Jan 21, 2020•1 hr
Episode 115: To start the new year, a full-hour with one of the certified icons of roots/Americana music and Nashville songwriting, John Hiatt. We cover a lot of ground, from getting launched out of Indianapolis in 1970 through a long, frustrating recording career and a breakthrough in the mid 1980s to his stature today as a Nashville leader. His long-time label New West Records has just released a limited edition 15-LP box set covering his most recent 11 albums. It's a heavyweight tribute to a ...
Jan 13, 2020•1 hr
Episode 114: They grew up in Nashville in the home of the legendary preacher and singer Rev. Sam McCrary, a key member of the Fairfield Four and a major figure in gospel music. They've sung, together and apart, on stages and in studios around the world. And they've become beloved anchors in Music City. After some work with producer/artist Buddy Miller, they answered popular demand to form their own quartet, and after several albums through the 2010s, the McCrarys have delivered their first Chris...
Dec 25, 2019•59 min
