The String

What is tradition in music? It turns out that's a tricky but illuminating question, and this week Craig puts it to a range of folks at the World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, NC. CJ Lewandowski of the hot new Po' Ramblin' Boys (pictured) want to build bridges between fans of the inside and outside. Doyle Lawson applies it to the atmosphere he's set at his 39-year-old festival in Denton, NC. John Showman describes how the Lonesome Ace String Band produces traditional sounding music without thinking like preservationists. Multiple IBMA Award winner Becky Buller knows how to write songs from across the trad/rad spectrum. Jordan Laney brings her scholarly background to the question. East Tennessee State bluegrass music program director Dan Boner says he's seen tradition take many forms in his students. Asheville fiddler Natalya Weinstein and her husband John Miller tap their respective family histories in their music. And string music educator Happy Traum has helped pass down tradition via video lessons. It's a fascinating ramble, with music throughout. 

This week circles back one final time to AmericanaFest 2018, where a global community dedicated to American roots music gathered and networked and listened to some of the world’s best music. Amy Helm, out solo after a decade with Olabelle and working with her late great father Levon, is an exceptional singer with the new album This Too Shall Light. Veteran alt-country and bluegrass singer songwriter Robbie Fulks showcased his new rollicking boogie woogie rock and roll project with pianist and singer Linda Gail Lewis, Jerry Lee’s sister. Their duo album is called Wild Wild Wild. And rounding out the hour is emerging Canadian folk artist Kaia Kater.  She’s on a remarkable journey of identity and creativity, and she is newly signed to the iconic Smithsonian Folkways record label. Her album Grenades is out in a matter of days.

Episode #71: This week we get out of the studio for three radio field trips with some remarkable songwriter/artists. First I visit with Rayland Baxter at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum about his explosively colorful new album Wide Awake. Next it’s off to the ballpark for nine questions in nine innings with rocking country songwriter Nora Jane Struthers. Finally I sit on the upper deck of the famous Mercy Lounge taking in the Nashville skyline with Gary Louris of the venerable, always relevant Jayhawks.

Episode 70: Shemekia Copeland was born to sing, raised by blues royalty. Her dad, Johnny Clyde Copeland, took his Louisiana and Texas roots to the New York City area where he based a career that landed him a Grammy award and a spot in the Blues Hall of Fame. Shemekia sang all her life and by 18 she was on record and on the minds of everyone looking at the next generation of the blues. And she’s won a raft of awards in her genre. Thing is though, she’s a wide ranging artist who wants to see the blues evolve and expand, so in the past few years, she and Americana have found one another in a big way. She came to Nashville to make her last two albums, calling on Will Kimbrough as a guitar player and writer on both and producer on her latest, America’s Child. That album, released in September, is a pointed political and humanistic statement that features guest turns by Mary Gauthier, John Prine, and Emmylou Harris. Her showcase was one of the most anticipated at AmericanaFest 2018. Also, Austin's Band of Heathens addresses their latest politically charged release, a song-by-song cover of the 1972 Ray Charles album A Message From The People. 

Episode 69 is the first in a series of shows reporting on artists who performed at AmericanaFest 2018, the most wide-ranging and diverse convention in its 19 years. Americana continues to represent and promote classic country music, bluegrass and songwriter-driven roots music. It also has become more reflective of the blues, soul and regional folk styles. This week Craig visits with Mississippi raised blues musician Cedric Burnside, a key figure in the legacy and spread of the Hill Country blues. Also, Zach and Danielle Green, the songwriting couple at the heart of Nashville indie-folk band Birdtalker and East Tennessee's Kris Truelsen. He's the leader of throwback Appalachian string band Bill and the Belles and a mover/shaker with the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol TN/VA. The range is wide and the insights about where they are taking the music are profound. 

Episode 68: At 31 years old, Brittany Haas has been in high level touring string bands more than half her life and she's already regarded as one of the finest fiddle players in the world. As part of Crooked Still, she helped shape a new strain of traditional Americana. Of late she's been touring with the Dave Rawlings Machine, playing as part of the house band on public radio's Live From Here with Chris Thile and producing stunning instrumental music with her quartet Hawktail. We talk about her mentors, learning the innovative chopping technique that gives her music such propulsion and juggling a busy creative schedule. She's nominated as one of four contenders for the Americana Instrumentalist of the Year. Rounding out the hour, a conversation with Kentucky raised singer songwriter Leah Blevins. There's deep country in her voice and soul but a spirit of exploration and growth that she fully embraces. She is showcasing at AmericanaFest 2018 with a tour ahead of her opening for Amanda Shires. 

Since the 1980s and a golden age of Nashville pub rock and alt-country, Webb Wilder has been The Last of the Full Grown Men, a crowd-rousing, semi-campy, always hard rocking blend of SUN Records rock and roll, surf music and hillbilly twang. He was born and raised in Hattiesburg, MS - a music freak from the get go. He and a high school friend launched themselves into music by moving to Austin in the mid 70s. But in Nashville Webb fulfilled his identity and his destiny. He's just released Powerful Stuff! Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks: Previously Unreleased Recordings 1985-1993. It was a good chance to have a wide ranging conversation about a vibrant time in Music City that never really went away. Also, a visit with Will Greig, proprietor of the one-year old Layman Drug Co., an audio and video recording showplace in a meticulously restored 120-year-old building in a fast-changing downtown neighborhood. What does its first year in business say about the Nashville studio business environment? 

Episode #66: At 76 years old, Steve Cropper is in ideal position to reflect on an abundant, history making life in music, and he does so in this week’s show. It’s a special edition taped on stage in front of an eager audience at Nashville’s Who Knew at City Winery. The series features speakers from the local to the world famous, on matters of creativity, entrepreneurship and mission. And Steve Cropper and his history with Stax Records represent all of those in abundance. Cropper grew up in Memphis from the age of nine, getting his first guitar by mail order in 1955. He channeled the city’s sounds - blues, R&B, gospel and SUN Records rock and roll - into the band the Mar-Keys and then into the studio band at Stax. That history-making ensemble became the recording and touring band Booker T & The M.G.s. Cropper wrote masterworks of the American soul songbook: “Knock On Wood,” “In The MIdnight Hour” and “Dock of the Bay.” We talk about all that and his subsequent career with the Blues Brothers in this in-depth interview.

Episode 65: To understand the unique and intricate Nashville based quintet Cordovas, you’ve got to flash back to the early 2000s when a songwriter from North Carolina named Joe Firstman was tearing it up in Los Angeles. Blazingly talented, he got signed to Atlantic Records but it was a brutal time for the music industry and he went his own way in 2005. He was the bandleader for a late night network show. Then it was time for rebuilding - and over a lot of years, Cordovas became the result. With smart guitar duo parts arranged by Lucca Soria and Toby Weaver, plus a loosely grooving rhythm section, Cordovas evokes The Band, The Allman Brothers and The Grateful Dead. But they defy jam band logic with tightly constructed songs on their ATO Records debut That Santa Fe Chanel. Craig visits their home/rehearsal compound in Madison TN for a full band interview.

We’re spending much of this hour with someone who’s as thoughtful and articulate about her art as the art itself. Gretchen Peters is a lover of language. She has awe and appropriate respect for the power of words and healthy fear of their misuse. And while I would place her among the most literary of songwriters - Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan are among her heroes - there’s nothing aloof or unreachable in her work. Her reputation in country music was secured by recordings and hits for George Strait, Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hill and Martina McBride. But she set out to be a performing songwriter and recording artist, and indeed she's built a devoted following. Peters's new album Dancing With The Beast takes up a lot of time in the conversation ahead. It grapples with the shock of the 2016 presidential election, the tumult in the country and the #MeToo movement. Its stories are ferocious and candid, but as always the music is gorgeous and easy on the ears if not always the heart. Also, we get to know Gretchen's friend and frequent co-writer Ben Glover, an exceptional Nashville based songwriter from the coast of N. Ireland.