Craig Havighurst

A few years ago, Colorado’s Tyler Grant was twanging an electric guitar and touring with his band Grant Farm. After the pandemic, he joined the world of river guiding and entertaining customers on trips through some of the West’s most beautiful and important canyons. Now Grant has circled back to the music that propelled him into the spotlight as guitar player in the Emmitt-Nershi Band - bluegrass guitar. His new album Flatpicker is a mix of instrumentals and songs, but they’re all about the places and stories of the western land he cherishes.

Over a 15-year career that began in Boston’s jazz and old-time scene, Nashville-based Miss Tess has distinguished herself with a hybrid blend of contemporary songwriting and vintage, swinging Americana. On her newest, the widely traveled artist taps a long love affair with Cajun country in Louisiana, yet it’s her own blend rather than a traditional homage. Our conversation spans her upbringing in Maryland, her passion for early blues and jazz, her fascinating musical relationships and her annual immersion in the Blackpot festival in Lafayette, where she made the new Cher Rêve.

As the new year dawned, the first emerging artist that started buzzing on our radar was a California native living in Nashville with an emotional country-noir debut album called Silver Rounds. She was Olivia Wolf, and now months later, her album has proven its staying power, with critical acclaim and a long run on the Americana chart. She’s no youngster, so our conversation dives into her background and her long, patient journey to fully committing herself as a songwriter/artist. That story includes coming of age at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival and a tragic event in her life that inspired many of her best songs.

Last year, the biggest-ever study of the health of Nashville music venues found a scene full of challenges. “Real estate and other costs are becoming increasingly expensive, making new venues hard to start,” it said. But you can’t keep a good Music City down, and recent months have seen several openings, conspicuously Skinny Dennis in East Nashville and The Pinnacle downtown, with more in the planning. Others have considered moving. With all the flux and rumors, we decided to take our own survey of the venues that feature roots music on a regular basis and that have a fresh story to tell.

Eddie Adcock grew up in rural Virginia, left home at age 14 to evade farm work, and wound up boxing and playing music with regional bands. He sold a calf to buy his first banjo and learned to play the instrument in a couple of weeks before his first gig. That’s just part of Eddie’s amazing story, whose most famous chapter is his decade-plus with the classic lineup of the Country Gentlemen. The beloved musician died in March at 86 years old, and we pay tribute to the bluegrass hall of famer this hour with a couple of jaw dropping instrumentals included in a special set. Also this week, the first single on Sun Records for the Steeldrivers and new sides by Mason Via, Ashby Frank, and Special Consensus. Amy’s own Golden Shoals duo has a new one featuring Mark Kilianski’s masterful guitar picking as well.

Sean McConnell was born to do this. His parents were working songwriters who helped him get started as a teen in Atlanta. He landed a long-term song publishing deal while still in school at MTSU and earned cuts by Tim McGraw, Martina McBride, Brett Young, and the TV show Nashville. Over 15 recordings - his latest is the lovely and agonizingly honest Skin - McConnell has become a beloved troubadour on the indie folk circuit and an honorary red dirt Texas poet through extensive touring there. Now he’s grown as a producer working out of his unique studio in Nolensville. I made a trip down there to interview Sean in his cozy working habitat.

Max Wareham spent the last few years playing banjo in the hot bluegrass band of “Uncle” Peter Rowan. Except when Sam Grisman calls him that it’s a term of endearment. With Max, it’s literally true! But he got the job because he’s good, not family. The Boston musician also tends to the archives of bluegrass, because a couple of years ago he published an impressive book documenting the career and music of little-known but important banjo player Rudy Lyle. This month Max released his debut album, a scintillating mix of instrumentals and vocal tunes called Daggomit! with a goofy cartoon cover, so the guy clearly has a sense of humor too. Also this hour, the first single with her new record company by bass player and singer Vickie Vaughn, who cut a great tune by Bruce Robison, plus more new music from Pitney Meyer, Joe K. Walsh and the exciting duo of Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson. Stick around to the end for a fiery “Roll On Buddy” by Del McCoury and Tony Trischka.

How appropriate for our third birthday edition of The Old Fashioned that the most newsworthy album in the bluegrass and fiddle band business is one dedicated to our patron saint, John Hartford. To recap, Hartford’s family and local musicians authored the Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes book in 2018. Then in 2020 came the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 1, which brought to life some of those original compositions. Now, Vol. 2 has arrived – a collection of instrumentals and beloved songs played and produced by an all-woman team that includes Megan Lynch Chowning, Sharon Gilchrist, Alison Brown, Missy Raines, and others. It’s a lovely and important set - part of an ongoing effort to preserve and amplify the Hartford legacy. He’s always in our hearts. Also this week, music by artists that Amy and I think have been vital to the Nashville trad music scene and central to our programming of this show. You’ll see the names and tunes below. We appreciate each and every one of them and more we couldn’t squeeze in. We are blessed to enjoy their work and we are grateful to you for your patronage of this show.

Gary Louris of The Jayhawks kicks off the first episode of WMOT's annual 30A Songwriters Sessions, where we invite artists to perform acoustic sets in a beach house turned studio near Santa Rosa Beach, Florida during the 30A Songwriters Festival. Louris performed "Getting Older" and "Couldn't Live a Day Without You" from his latest solo record, Dark Country, and The Jayhawk's tune "All the Right Reasons.” Plus a warm conversation with Jessie Scott.

Adam Wright is one of the most thoughtful wordsmiths in the Nashville songwriting community, one who’s seen all sides of the Music Row machine. Working for a dozen years with Carnival Music, he’s carved a niche for himself, scoring a couple of Grammy Award nominations and landing cuts by Lee Ann Womack, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Brandy Clark and Bruce Robison, among others. When he sets aside time to write songs purely for himself as an artist, remarkable things happen, and now he’s releasing an epic 18-song collection called Nature Of Necessity, a masterwork that could only have been realized in Music City.