The String

Episode 113: Allison Moorer emerged around the year 2000 as one of the most profound and beautiful voices in true country music. As she grew in stature and acclaim, it emerged that she's suffered an extraordinary loss as a 14-year-old when her troubled, alcoholic father murdered her mother and then took his own life. The time emerged for Moorer to grapple with the trauma in public, and she worked in prose and song. This fall, she released a book and song-cycle album, both called Blood. We talk about the parents she lost and the sister (the artist Shelby Lynne) who helped her move forward. 

Episode 112: Michaela Anne went to New York City to study jazz vocals and emerged a full on convert to country music. She built a career in Brooklyn then moved to Nashville to see it through. She's recently released her fourth album and a label debut with Yep Roc. There's a serenity in her voice and a sensitivity in her lyrics. She talks about her background and the courage it takes to live, as one of her songs says, by her "own design." Also in the hour, the game changing country-grass duo of Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley. 

Episode 111: This week, one last round of visits with great artists visiting Nashville to showcase during AmericanaFest 2019. My guests include two songwriter artists from the United Kingdom who’ve made American music their own - veteran New Orleans piano man Jon Cleary and Northern Ireland’s soul-singing dynamo Foy Vance. Up first, an absolutely amazing songwriter from Portland, OR, Anna Tivel. Her album The Question is widely seen as one of the finest of the year. 

Episode 110: Ideal Man, the fourth full-length album from Nashville songwriter Andrew Combs has been praised by major outlets including Rolling Stone Country. Is it a country album? Is Combs a country artist? Well he undoubtedly was when his first records emerged. His debut album Worried Man had steel guitar and a snapping rhythm section and songs that got right to the point about loss and love. With 2017’s Canyons of My MInd, a swooning lush atmosphere wafts in, and Combs voice - always full of emotion and carefully wrought - stepped up a few levels. It’s one of the more seductive and involving male voices in Americana, in the same zone as John Paul White and Combs friend Dylan LeBlanc. It marked real growth and refinement, and Ideal Man does too. Also in the hour, Music Row songwriting success Erin Enderlin leans harder than ever into her artist career with the moving and deeply country Faulkner County. 

As I browsed World of Bluegrass in Raleigh last September, I caught up with four artists who make for a pretty good cross section of the genre circa 2019: Tim Stafford of Blue Highway, an iconic band celebrating its 25th anniversary, Irene Kelley, a veteran songwriter who's on top of the charts as an artist, Appalachian Road Show, a new super-group with a cultural mission and The Dead South, a young band of Canadian folk rockers who represent the adventuresome edge of bluegrass music. Notes and full versions of these edited interviews can be found at WMOT.org. 

Episode 108: The album Steady On in 1989 marked the pivot in Shawn Colvin's life between playing bars to make the rent and being a leader in the singer songwriter movement. Through a string of albums, including the hit-producing A Few Small Repairs, she became a multi Grammy winner and an Americana Lifetime Achievement Award winner. This year, she's revisited Steady On, recording and performing it in her signature solo acoustic guitar style. Stripped to its essence, the songs speak as clearly now as they did 30 years ago. Also, an introduction to new Rounder Records artist Logan Ledger, a Nashville transplant with a voice so arresting, his demo led to a production deal with T Bone Burnett. 

Episode 107 features three conversations held on the run during AmericanaFest 2019 in Nashville, Sept. 10-14. Billy Strings represents the cutting edge of bluegrass and improvisational acoustic music. He's a breakout bandleader and a guitar player's guitar player. His second album is recently out, called Home. Jontavious Willis is another guitar-playing youngster, but his thing is traditional country blues. He's been mentored by Taj Mahal and Keb Mo. Kevin Russell is the songwriter and band leader known as Shinyribs - a legend of the Austin scene and a wildly entertaining showman. 

Episode 106: Ketch Secor is the fiddler and front man of the uncanny success story Old Crow Medicine Show. As they enter their third decade as a band, they can claim to have revived and re-imagined old-time string band and blues music for new generations. They've added at least one hit song to the country music repertoire in "Wagon Wheel" and reached millions with a show full of passion and classic country music values. Their latest, Live At The Ryman, is a collection of hand-picked tracks from roughly a decade of live recordings at the Mother Church. Ketch talks about the band's origins, the legacy of its forty-odd shows at the Ryman and being part of Ken Burns' Country Music documentary. 

In her new song "1988," Kelsey Waldon tells the story of the year she was born in Western Kentucky and what happened after that. What music fans know is that she brought her songs to Nashville and found community among the top emerging figure in East Nashville, including Margo Price and Erin Rae. She's just released her third album and it's special because White Noise/White Lines is a debut for John Prine's Oh Boy Records, part of a renewal of that decades old indie label. He's her songwriting hero, and their relationship is at the core of this conversation. Also in the hour, Raleigh NC writer Tommy Goldsmith talks about his new book, the definitive account of Earl Scruggs and his famous bluegrass instrumental "Foggy Mountain Breakdown." 

Del McCoury is a bluegrass hall of famer and repeat host of the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. Jim Lauderdale is a beloved Nashville songwriter whose wide range of projects and songs includes Grammy Awards in bluegrass. Their personalities are as big as their resumes, so they'll make memorable co-hosts of the 2019 IBMA Awards in Raleigh. In a joint interview in front of a live audience, Jim and Del talk about the World of Bluegrass and their past and potential future as banjo players. You never know what might happen. Also in the hour, the next wave of the genre with Bluegrass Ramble showcase artist Jaelee Roberts. The 18-year-old is a new voice and songwriter who's being welcomed by leading musicians into her first steps as a recording artist. IBMA's World of Bluegrass runs Sept. 24-28 in Raleigh, NC.