Craig Havighurst

In the regular cycles of our never-ending media traffic jam, most one-year-old albums have faded from attention, and the artists are often looking forward to the next thing. But every so often a record grows in relevance and we see with hindsight how the work of art met its moment. Listen, by Nashville’s Kyshona, which has its first anniversary this week, is such a project.

Folk Alliance International was the last big roots music gathering before the pandemic shut down the music business almost one year ago. “It was a major event. We had 3,332 people from 41 different countries, packed inside a hotel,” says FAI Executive Director Aengus Finnan of the New Orleans convention. “It was just the antithesis of what we can do now.” But what they are doing is ambitious and philanthropic.

Songwriter Brad Cook once told journalist David Menconi that "The older I get, the more I think that we didn't choose North Carolina, it chose us." Brad and his brother Phil moved from Wisconsin, formed the power folk band Megafaun in Durham, joined Hiss Golden Messenger and generally helped build a vibrant contemporary scene. Brad called the move and the community “the greatest thing that ever happened to us."

By training and persuasion, Joachim Cooder is a percussionist. As a little boy he was gifted a drum kit by his father’s friend, the great drummer Jim Keltner. Joachim tagged along and played at gigs and sessions with musicians from Africa and Cuba, adding hand drums to his rhythmic tool kit. Now he’s a singer-songwriter with a 2020 album doing strong Americana chart business, an album surging with percussive sounds and ideas unlike anything else in the format.