Craig Havighurst

He was an East Tennessee country guitar prodigy who was invited on the Grand Ole Opry at age 11 by Marty Stuart, and Trey Hensley has made good on that promise by emerging as one of the finest singers and pickers in contemporary roots music. His national profile took shape after forming a super-flexible duo with dobro master Rob Ickes around 2016. Now, after four albums, collaborations with Taj Mahal and a Grammy nomination, Hensley has revved up his songwriting and made Can’t Outrun The Blues, which is not his first solo album but the one he regards as his true artistic debut.

Earl Jam is back. Two years after releasing his first Grammy-nominated, multi-artist collaboration in the name of Earl Scruggs, banjo legend Tony Trischka has sent Earl Jam 2 into the world, and it continues the surprises, the old standards, the surprising songs in a match of artists and repertoire for our time. To remind you of the backstory. Tony received a gift of a thumb drive with audio recordings of John Hartford jamming with Earl in the 1980s and 90s. There were 200 songs, from classics to quirky takes on pop tunes. And Tony made a deep study of Earl’s solos, finding nuances and ideas that were novel in his life-long pursuit of all things Earl. Here we welcome the release with “Columbus Stockade Blues,” cut with Del and Ronnie McCoury. We’ll have other tracks in the coming weeks of course. Also this week, the newest collab between Jim Lauderdale and the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Joe Troop’s new folk protest band and song, and the first recording we’ve seen from North Carolina supergroup TANASI.

Just days after one of his storied shows at the Station Inn with some of the leading lights of bluegrass music, singer and songwriter Ronnie Bowman was killed in a motorcycle accident, leaving music-lovers and music-makers across Nashville and the national bluegrass community shocked and saddened. He died on Sunday afternoon at 64 years old.

Nashville’s Bob Minner has straddled the worlds of country music and bluegrass like few others in the modern era as a songwriter and guitar picker. More than 30 years ago, the Missouri native signed on with his lifelong friend Tim McGraw. More recently he’s written songs cut by The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Jim Lauderdale, Blue Highway and others. Signed now to Billy Blue Records, Minner’s releasing new music of his own, the latest being “Kentucky Bluebird,” written by Don Cook and Wally Wilson back in the 80s and released as an enhanced, posthumous demo recording by Keith Whitley. Minner and McGraw both love Whitley and have used this song as a warm-up before going on stage. So here, McGraw lends his voice, as does Lori McKenna, on a lovely new take on the song. Also this week, Jesse Smathers reworks the old jug band number “Take A Drink On Me” with old-time flair, while Joe Newberry and April Verch welcome spring with the new album and title cut “Blessing On The Wing.”

The soundtrack to the Depression-era movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? came out in the final weeks of 2000 and was certified Platinum by February of 2001, making this the 25th anniversary of the year that the multi-artist masterpiece shook up country music and became the biggest boost for old-time folk, blues, and bluegrass in decades. With a recent Grand Ole Opry special celebration as a backdrop, Craig Havighurst revisits the album’s story, its songs, and its impact on American culture.

When Emily Scott Robinson released Appalachia, her fifth album in a 10-year career and her third for Nashville boutique Oh Boy Records, it spiked up into the Americana airplay top ten, something that had never happened to her before. But she had set the table through quality songwriting, ambitious touring, and a luminous voice that embraces the dark and the light with a rare alchemy. At WMOT’s Eastside studio, Craig and Emily speak about her newest work with super-producer Josh Kaufman and the hard work that led to it.

Out of the west they’ve come, as the jamgrassers so often do, on a wave of enthusiasm and a cloud of smoke. They are Magoo, Colorado’s hottest new expression of string band music done all the ways – the old, the new, the groovy and the sincere. RockyGrass Dobro contest winner Dylan Flynn brings “the emotional backbone,” they say, along with guitarist Erik Hill, mandolinist Cortlyn Bills, and bass player Denton Turner. They formed in 2022 and started packing in the crowds even before taking an impressive silver medal at the Telluride Bluegrass band contest last year. We feature the title track of their debut LP, What A Life, which landed Feb. 27. We also feature two other new album title cuts in Laurie Lewis’s “O California” and Big Richard’s “Pet.” Also check out the amazing new single from Michael Cleveland and Jason Carter – so well written. Junior Sisk has a new one as well, making it a very good week!

Justin Townes Earle, blazingly gifted and deeply troubled, died of an accidental drug overdose in 2020 at the age of 38, after a life beset by addiction. Six years later, two coincident projects expand on what we knew about the songwriter with a mix of compassion and regret. Sammy Brue, Earle’s much younger friend and protegé, has written a song cycle based on Justin’s private notebooks, shared by his widow. Rolling Stone journalist Jonathan Bernstein recently published the first definitive biography of Steve Earle’s son. Both join Craig in this hour of remembrance and appreciation.

Multi-instrumentalists and singers Emily Mann and Wila Frank became friends long ago as they grew up at fiddle camps and folk festivals on the west coast. Their first recording was a home-made affair that emerged ten years ago. And in the meantime, despite the pandemic, they’ve released an impressive four studio albums, building a catalog of moving, downtempo songs that stir and provoke reflection. And they moved to Nashville, where they’re valued members of the string band community. The newest LP, which we celebrate this week, is Mountains On The Moon. So if you love Watchhouse or Milk Carton Kids or Gil and Dave, check out the title track. Also this week, the Travelin’ McCourys have a bold new single sung and written by Alan Bartram, plus fresh sides from Thomm Jutz, and Larry Stephenson, and Ed Snodderly, who remembers Doc Watson in song.

Clay Street Unit, an eclectic roots band formed in 2021, blazed up the ladder of venues in their home town of Denver, CO before hitting the road. In just over two years, they’ve graduated to full-sized rock clubs, choice festival bookings and opening dates at Red Rocks. They recently swung through Nashville to play a sold-out Basement East and the Grand Ole Opry. On the go as they are, lead singer Sam Walker and mandolinist and co-songwriter Scottie Bolin stopped by WMOT to talk about their journey so far.