The String

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 means of the A Team Nashville session players and much more. Also in the hour, emerging singer songwriter Shannon LaBrie, who's about to release an album produced by the guy who brought us The Judds and SHEL among many others. 

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 push is forcing bluegrass and Americana to investigate its origins and its audience. His new album Spider Tales is a showcase of the Black roots of our shared music. 

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 independence and countless skills as a singer, writer and producer. His new one is called Once In A Lifetime. 

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 Forgot. From retooling his solo sound to his long partnership with spouse Stephanie Finch, there was a lot to talk about.

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 of Bob Dylan covers is quite special. 

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. 

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 Teer join me for a retrospective conversation, featuring music from their past and present. 

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 folk icon David Crosby. She is among my favorite artists working today, so I sought out an interview, and I was excited and loaded with questions when she said yes. Her newest album is the shiny and electric Wonderbloom. 

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 American Music, opening this Fall in Nashville. 

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 Record. Also in the hour, the prophetic and passionate folk and protest music of Eliza Gilkyson who focused on what she knew would be a pivotal year in history, producing the album 2020.