There haven’t been more than a handful of repeat guests on The String in these six years, but with Mary Gauthier it’s a no-brainer. She’s one of the most interesting figures in Nashville - a philosopher of song and a gifted teacher and speaker. A 2021 memoir allowed her to lay her remarkable story out end to end, mingling memoir with songwriting insights and laying bare her vulnerabilities and struggles. A new album ruminates on new love and the loss of friends with radical empathy.

On a recent morning, the atmosphere at Monique Ross’s East Nashville home is high energy. She and her sister Chauntee are here for a day between tour dates, having just arrived from the Newport Folk Festival where they played to thousands with Brandi Carlile and sat on stage during Joni Mitchell’s historic performance there. Monique’s 10-year-old daughter is heading out the door for the afternoon. Two small dogs, including a Chihuahua named Cello, scamper around the Victorian house. But things quiet down. The dogs curl up to sleep, and between gales of sisterly laughter Chauntee and Monique talk about what it’s been like to be on some of folk music’s biggest stages supporting Carlile and Allison Russell in the past whirlwind year.

It’s true that for many people Friday is the end of the work week and the weekend is a chance for rest and personal pursuits. Of course that’s not true for everyone so let’s remember the servers and drivers and cops and so forth who work weekends for the good of everyone. But hopefully what we all have in common is that we can take an hour at lunch time on Friday to enjoy killer music over our video feeds, phones, radios and smart speakers. Because we’re back at it on Aug. 5 with honest songwriting from Nashville’s Mabilene and midwestern folk rock band The Damn Quails.

Nashville's Mabilene and Oklahoma's The Damn Quails share songs from their respective new albums on Finally Friday from Home.

Recorded in New Orleans, Sara Syms explores the sounds of the Crescent City through themes of survival, love and hope on her new album, The Darkest Light, out today.

Bassist, singer and songwriter Nicole Boggs and her band The Reel have released a new full length, quite fitting for the times... Dystopian Book Club is out now.

Each county's plan must include input from law enforcement, mental health and school professionals.

Businesses were closed and people skipped prayer services after the shooting deaths of four Muslim men, three of them in the past two weeks. Now, the fear has given way to confusion over a motive.

Vanessa Bryant's invasion of privacy lawsuit says a deputy showed photos of her husband's remains to bar patrons and a firefighter showed them to off-duty colleagues.