Craig Havighurst

The grown-up musical game of Choose Your Own Adventure that is Americanafest has come and gone for 2025, and I for one feel like a winner. I paced myself, hydrated, and kept mileage and traffic to a minimum. Maybe I’m learning something at last, after 25 of these carnivals. If there was an overarching theme, I didn’t sense it. I saw hundreds of artists keeping it real, working hard, and making new fans and allies. Here’s some of what I saw and loved.

The 24th Americana Music Honors & Awards took place Wednesday night at the Ryman Auditorium. Powerhouse vocalist and songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff won a surprise Album of the Year. Sierra Ferrell accepted Artist of the Year in absentia. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings returned to the winner’s circle. And Lifetime Achievement Awards went to Darrell Scott, Joe Henry, the Old 97’s, and the McCrary Sisters, who delivered the most emotional performance of the night.

Rodney Crowell let it slip in the middle of this interview that it was the eve of his 75th birthday. One of America’s greatest (and most commercially successful) songwriters is now three quarters of a century old, a steady patriarch. He continues to do excellent work, evidenced by two fine albums in a row, 2023’s The Chicago Sessions and the brand new Airline Highway. In both cases he collaborated with younger producers and musicians, spreading his wisdom around and drawing on their ideas and spirit. In his second appearance on The String, Crowell talks about maintaining his writing discipline, working with Jeff Tweedy and Tyler Bryant, and waking up to Louisiana R&B music as a teenager.

East Nash Grass, born at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in East Nashville, is one of the primary reasons we created The Old Fashioned three and a half years ago. We’ve seen them through two album releases now, including their third LP, All God’s Children, now out from Mountain Fever Records. They’ve made some subtle shifts since Last Chance To Win came out in 2023. Jeff Partin replaced Jeff Picker on bass, and dobro master Gaven Largent, while playing on the new one, is now more of a sometime member. But the core remains: James Kee on guitar, Cory Walker on banjo, and Maddie Denton on fiddle. We fire up Show #170 with two songs – the title track and the Harry Clark-led road song “Hill Country Highway.” Keep it between the ditches, friends. The other new album release this week worth your notice is Joseph Decosimo’s Fiery Gizzard, a mesmerizing collection of deftly enhanced banjo instrumentals. Also here, new songs from Danny Burns, Conrad Fisher, the Tennessee Bluegrass Band, and Becky Buller.

With Americanafest 2025 roaring through Nashville this week like the streamlined mad dog cyclone train in Guy Clark’s “Texas 1947,” our music journalist Craig Havighurst looks past the proven stars to the upstarts, newcomers, change agents, returning veterans, and fun stuff as an alt-alt-guide to the festivities ahead.

After 12 years in Raleigh, NC, the International Bluegrass Music Association is moving its long-running World Of Bluegrass industry convention to the East Tennessee city of Chattanooga, where it will take over the convention center, music venues, and city parks between Sept. 16 and 20, just one week after Americanafest. Ask the IBMA, and they’ll say there are no big shifts or surprises in the structure and nature of the convention. It’s the same idea in a new town. Except there is a big new dynamic, and his name is Billy Strings.

Vickie Vaughn keeps stepping up her game across the board. She’s been a charming and sincere member of the Nashville bluegrass community for years, lending her bass playing and harmony vocals to a range of artists as a side player and some premium bands as well, including High Fidelity and Della Mae. In 2023, she was named IBMA Bass Player of the Year and then she repeated a year later. This year she’s been rolling out new music as a featured artist, on her way to releasing an album on Mountain Home Music this November. We’ve spun her twist on Bruce Robison’s “Leavin’” and now she shines on the emotional ballad “Mama Took Her Ring Off Yesterday.” We knew she could really sing; now we really get to hear it. Also this week, a square dance number from Lonesome River Band, a new one from Jaelee Roberts, and a swinging instrumental from Andy Leftwich.

It’s been 30 years since three music business renegades created a radio chart for an emerging alt-country, roots music wave they called Americana. Now that it’s a mature format and movement, we’re seeing books emerge on the history of this idea. Poets And Dreamers: My Life In Americana Music is Tamara Saviano’s contribution, a warm and affectionate, people-driven story about a community and a big bold commitment to art over commerce. As publicist/tour manager for Kris Kristofferson and biographer of Guy Clark, she’s had an insider’s view, and it comes out in this fun romp of a read. She’s also my old friend, so this is a cozy and fascinating talk.

Hayes Carll is such an admired veteran of the Texas songwriting tradition that his visage is painted on a sign along with Townes Van Zandt at the Old Quarter Cafe in Galveston. Over ten albums, he’s matched cleverness with insight and tenderness with roadhouse rock and roll. In this self-effacing interview, Carll talks about his apprentice years at that storied bar, his adjustments after being signed to a Music Row label, and his vulnerable new album We’re Only Human.

Guitarist, singer and songwriter Eli West works with a quiet designer's mind in the Pacific northwest, and everything we hear from him has a rare depth and gravity. He's an avid collaborator who attracts greatness, having worked with Bill Frisell, John Reischman, Dori Freeman and others. I was taken with his album Tapered Point Of Stone in 2021, where West's musicianship blended organically with great east coast musicians Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle) and Andrew Marlin (mandolin). So it was exciting to see West release his new Shape Of A Sway album arrive in July. We've selected the gracefully swinging "Ever Lovin' Need To Know" for this week's roundup of new music. But we open by celebrating the first single in ages from our beloved old-time quartet The Onlies, followed by a sentimental new song from Hall of Famer Larry Sparks. The novelties continue with Kentucky's Carla Gover, fiddle wizard Darol Anger, and trad torchbearer Junior Sisk.