Episode 280: It's taken decades for the nature and impact of Jerry Garcia’s formative years as a musician and band leader to emerge and become semi-common knowledge, because for many, his devotion to old-time string band and bluegrass music between 1961 and 1964 doesn’t square with the quantum jams he’d be leading just a few years later. But because of the Dead, and Garcia's side projects like Old And In The Way, we have jamgrass, a popular branch of the family tree where instrumental...

Episode 278: Suzy Bogguss started playing and performing on a hand-me-down guitar from her sister in small-town Illinois. After a few years making a living out west playing at ski lodges, she moved to Nashville, where she carved out a special place in 1990s country music. Amid a time of diversity and vibrancy in the format, her sweet, folky voice took flight when she found the right songs, including the career-makers “Someday Soon” and “Outbound Plane.” She’s toured steadily ever since,...

Episode 277: Few pickers have toured harder or traveled farther than jamgrass veteran Vince Herman, who co-founded the iconic Leftover Salmon 34 years ago in Colorado. Yet there are always new things to try, so he’s added the band The High Hawks to his list of collaborations. Our sit-down visit was sparked by that band’s album Mother Nature’s Show doing so well on the Americana chart and by his own recent move from Colorado to Nashville, where he’s become a hub of the picking scene and an...

Episode 276: John Leventhal is one of the quiet achievers of American roots music going back more than 30 years. Early on as a guitar player in his native New York City, he connected with Jim Lauderdale and Shawn Colvin, co-writing and producing their debut albums. He met his wife Rosanne Cash as they worked on the pivotal album The Wheel (see Episode 269). He’s produced some epic albums since then for William Bell, Sarah Jarosz, and others, winning numerous Grammy and Americana awards in the...

Episode 275: This week's show begins with an ode to the studio and stage musicians who come up with parts and make the singers and stars sound great, while being relegated to the sexist, ungenerous title of “sidemen.” Recently, I got to thinking about a musician - a bass player - who’s been on more big sessions and done time with more impactful artists than most in roots/Americana music over the past 35 years, including the Chicks, Robert Plant, Nickel Creek and Kathy Mattea. So I invited...

Episode 274: Beyond his skills as a guitarist and singer, Clay Ross is what I like to call a Musical Instigator. Since heading to his current base in New York 20 years ago from his home town of Charleston, SC, he’s conceived and organized three brilliant groups that bring a new global consciousness to American roots music. First it was Matuto with its infusion of Brazilian melodies and rhythms. Then with old college-era friends from South Carolina he launched Ranky Tanky, a Grammy-winning...

Episode 273: Thirty years ago, legendary R&B singer Delbert McClinton proved he was ahead of his time by launching his Sandy Beaches Cruise, a January festival at sea that featured his friends and associated artists from the bluesy side of Americana. Since then, the music cruise business has flourished across many genres. A company called Star Vista Live bought Sandy Beaches from Delbert a few years ago and now does the management while Delbert himself acts as host. I got a fortunate...

Episode 272: Lola Kirke got on America’s cultural radar as an actress - starring in the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, along with roles in Gone Girl and Mistress America alongside Greta Gerwig. But during those years, she was also quietly nurturing her passion for songwriting and music - specifically country music. The pandemic brought her to Nashville where her album Lady for Sale was released by Third Man Records to great acclaim. Now she’s about to release the new EP Country Curious...

Episode 271: In just five years, including the pandemic shut-down, Nashville native Gabe Lee has grown from an unknown “hometown kid,” as one of his titles proclaims, to a debut last year on the Grand Ole Opry. Working independently with the boutique Torrez Music Group, Lee has released four albums, earning the admiration of critics and a grassroots fan base that’s adding up to something special and sustainable. The most recent opus is Drink The River, which Lee took in a more acoustic and...

Episode 270: In an episode that revisits the netherworld between Americana and jazz, I speak with two extraordinary female drummer/composers who are at the peak of their creative powers. My featured guest is Allison Miller, a renowned New York artist who's led her own band Boom Tic Boom and joined in with the supergroup Artemis. For her newest album Rivers In Our Veins, she studied rivers and their ecosystems to inspire a 12-song cycle for jazz ensemble and tap dancers. It's utterly original...

Episode 269:  Rosanne Cash says she’s a forward-looking artist and thinker, not prone to looking back. But when she regained control over the master recording of her 1993 album The Wheel, it prompted an idea. She’s launched the new label Rumble Strip Records with John Leventhal, the producer and guitarist she fell in love with while working on it with him. Cash, one of the most fascinating and sophisticated roots musicians and a founding figure of the Americana movement, calls The Wheel a...

Episode 268: The late John Prine’s team at Oh Boy Records in Nashville put the little-known west coast songwriter Tré Burt on the national Americana/folk radar by signing him to a deal and re-releasing his debut album Caught It From The Rye in 2019. He grew up between the Bay Area and Sacramento, where, after being exposed to the guitar by an older brother, music became a focal point. He grew as a songwriter through the open mic scene and self-booked tours and some adventurous travel around...

Episode 267: When Ben Wright, then 28 years old, saw a banjo for sale in the window at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, he had no idea how far it would take him. Not just to gigs at the country’s best bluegrass festivals but to an improbable life of sharing American music with audiences young and old in more than 25 countries. Not only does Ben’s band, the Henhouse Prowlers, have a new record deal and a fine new album, the quartet has a track record of sharing bluegrass and good vibes...

Episode 266: Lindsay Lou grew up surrounded by community folk music in Michigan, and when she connected with a scene and a band in East Lansing where she completed college, she set her plans for a career in medicine aside to hit the road and connect with her original dreams. But it’s pretty clear from her ravishing voice that she was born to sing, and she made quite an impression, especially in western newgrass circles, as the lead singer and songwriter of Lindsay Lou and the Flatbellys....

Episode 265: Two great male voices in new Americana. Cruz Contreras has been a key player in the East Tennessee music scene for twenty years, steering accomplished roots projects Robinella and the CCstringband and the Black Lillies. In 2019 he wrote and recorded his first solo album only to see the pandemic upend his plans for its big rollout. He made good use of the lost years, getting married, having a son and moving to a new place. But at last he thought it was time to release Cosmico. And...

Episode 264: One might imagine that after 17 years singing country music and releasing ten albums, an artist would have shared all of her secrets with her audience, but Eilen Jewell says only in the aftermath of 2020 and a bunch of disruptive change and loss well beyond the reach of the pandemic, that she was ready to get real in ways she never had before. The result is Get Behind The Wheel, a cracking country blues album that extends the winning streak of this veteran artist, who made her...

Episode 263: Dan Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound in Nashville has been one of the key discovery points for roots music in the past decade. And thanks to them, Robert Finley has become a rare and special thing - a top tier American soul and blues artist who found a worldwide audience in his 60s. He hails from north Louisiana, and his life in music has been tenacious and adaptable and fascinating. Only after he lost most of his sight, forcing him to retire from home construction, did he push music to...

Episode 262: There's no better forum to survey what's happening at the cutting edge of roots music than AmericanaFest, and 2023's huge edition was no exception. In what's become an annual tradition, I survey three acts who are making waves in three different genre spaces in the Americana universe. Summer Dean quit her teaching job around her 40th birthday to hit the road as a honky tonk singer and songwriter and earned the support of Bruce Robison's Next Waltz Records. Caleb Elliott became...

Episode 261: She’s the hit Nashville songwriter who never moved to Nashville, staying instead in her hometown near Boston. She’s the power mom who wrote timeless country award winners like “Girl Crush” and “Humble and Kind” while raising five kids. Now she reflects on her own story more than ever before on her new album 1988. It’s the fourth in a row she’s made with producer Dave Cobb and a testament to the fact that while McKenna’s won three Grammy Awards, she’s the same humble and kind...

Episode 260: Darrell Scott emerged in the late 1990s as one of Nashville’s most complete folk/roots artists. He had the butter of James Taylor and the grease of Lowell George in his voice. He could pick numerous instruments like a practiced master. And his songs were stunning from the get go, including his widely-recorded “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” and his crowd favorite “Great Day To Be Alive” on his debut project. Now, Scott lives mostly on a farm two hours from Nashville tending the...

Episode 259: When East Nashville emerged as a nationally important music scene in the early 2000s, Amelia White was one of the reasons. Like so many others, she’d migrated from elsewhere (Boston and Seattle) to find a nurturing community full of collaborators and enablers, including her longtime recording partner and guitar player Dave Coleman. She was included on a seminal anthology of East Nashville songs. And she set up a rhythm of writing, recording and touring domestically and...

Episode 258: For a band that released its independent debut album in 2017, the Teskey Brothers have come a long way. From our perspective here in Nashville, that would be 9,700 miles, the distance to their home town of Warrandyte, New South Wales, Australia. Raised on classic soul and R&B music, Sam and Josh Teskey started making music together as kids and became staples of the Melbourne music scene. They didn’t have huge aspirations, but when their first record knocked out people close...

Episode 257: When you live in Nashville and chase the essence of country music, you find it's very much alive at residency shows like New Monday at the Station Inn. That's where master musicians Val Storey, Larry Cordle and Carl Jackson play a range of original and classic songs that connect country to bluegrass. It's magic, especially because of Val Storey's remarkable voice. She's the best country singer most people have never heard of. And after decades of singing for and with others, she...