Craig Havighurst

One of the stars of Nashville’s recent honky tonk boom first found her muse playing in late night jazz clubs of New York and Paris. That set Sweet Megg apart when she moved here just after the pandemic - a flair for early blues and hot club swing. In Music City, she’s also developed as a songwriter releasing stylish Americana fare, but she continues to mine the catalog for golden nuggets she can make her own, as on her latest Massive Negroni.

Years ago, one of my most trusted music hound recommendation friends urged me to check out a Canadian folk duo called the Small Glories, and when I did, I was blown away, especially in live performance and especially by the bold charm of singer Cara Luft. Alas the Glories have gone on to glory as a band, but Cara, a veteran of the great and legendary Wailin’ Jennys, is out with My Heart Will Always Be, her first solo album in 13 years. Some of it’s more rhythmic and Americana feeling, but we’re happy to share the clawhammer-driven title track. The album’s been available in physical formats and download sale only, but it will soon be streaming. Also this week, the exciting first single from Linday Lou’s upcoming all-star album Bluegrass Women, a new instrumental from Alan Bibey inspired by his late mentor Herschel Sizemore, a new album from Ashby Frank, and a naturalistic new single by Michael Prewitt.

In The Hour Of Chaos, Allison Russell’s third solo album, brings the power of harmony and solidarity to a time of division and fear. In an interview days before its release, the songwriter says her “rainbow coalition” of collaborators has grown since her breakout album Outside Child of 2021, and many of them, including Brittney Spencer, Norah Jones, and Kashus Culpepper, sing duets with her. She also gets into her foundations in folk music during her pre-Nashville years.

With the year at the halfway point and Amy Alvey on the road, I decided to devote an hour to bluegrass in 2026 - so far. Besides albums I think are bound for strong consideration in our year-end wrap, I wanted to spotlight projects that were innovative or newsworthy, hence Sierra Hull’s neo-classical string band Movements and the Bela Fleck/Renee Fleming collaboration next to The Asheville Mountain Boys, Appalachian Road Show and the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys with Jim Lauderale. The Infamous Stringdusters outdid themselves coming up with 20 songs to celebrate 20 years of bandhood on their 20/20 album. We lead with Big Richard, the Colorado power quartet that’s brought a new brand of feminism to newgrass. Veranda brings bluegrass en Français from Quebec. Instrumentalists Frank Evans and Jarrod Walker make strong debuts. All songs are tracks we have not yet played. What a feast. What’s next??

His biography sounds like several different people: accomplished jazz guitar player, New York City glam rocker, progressive Americana songwriter in Nashville. That’s why Aaron Lee Tasjan comes across as a true American original. Over 13 years in Music City, Tasjan’s been prolific and acclaimed, releasing half a dozen albums touching many colors of pop music. His latest came after a time of discouragement and personal re-building, so it’s called Get Over It, Underdog.

I became aware of Sophie Wellington as a fiddler first, but on her impressive and important new album Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still, the Boston-based artist mingles other musical elements: flatpick guitar, voice, and percussive dance. Sophie was raised around old-time Appalachian culture and music in Staunton, VA and then studied at Berklee’s Roots Music program. Here, on the instrumental “Scolding Wife,” she lays down a mystical guitar rendition, blended with the taps, scrapes and brushes of her shoes, and it’s wildly fresh and mesmerizing. The great percussive dancer Nic Gareiss says it well: “Sophie darts between genres and instruments with dexterity and heart. Here, on this guitar-focused offering, Sophie sings, dances, and paints flatpicked lines integrating gesture and sound with impeccable groove and poise.” Also this hour, Doyle Lawsom and Jerry Sally team up on a classic that teases an upcoming Delmore Brothers tribute album. Mason Via gets help from Lucinda Williams on a timely Woody Guthrie song. And AJ Lee sings a hit from the heyday of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

As Avery Hellman came of age in California, she took advantage of her good fortune being from the family that established the game-changing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco. It exposed her to standard-setting songwriting and artistry in folk and roots music, and with a bit of reluctance, she became an artist too under the name Ismay. Her two albums, Desert Pavement and the new Half Truth, are alive with a poet’s ear for language and eye for landscape, plus a crafty marriage of melodies and chords. She’s also the filmmaker behind the exploratory documentary Finding Lucinda, about Lucinda Williams.

I love that the Sullivan Sisters chose this photo in front of the Chicago skyline as the cover of Carolina Bluebird, their debut EP of 2025, because it turns out we have a journey in common. We moved from North Carolina to Evanston, IL and got serious about bluegrass music there on the north shore of one of the greatest cities in the world. I moved for college at Northwestern. For their dad, it was to teach saxophone there. Nice. So, the sisters came up in a musical household and got tons of support as they skilled up on banjo (Luciya) and guitar (Soraya). They started winning contests and playing widely. Now they’ve now scaled their duo up to a five-piece band and found a label home at Dark Shadow in Nashville. We love the clawhammer feel and mountain modal mood of their first single “Devil’s Got A Hold On You,” and there’s more to come as they gear up for an album planned for early 2027. Also this week, new singles from Unspoken Tradition, Dale Ann Bradley, and Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen.

Devon Gilfillian has been a key artist fulfilling the promise of a New Music City - a Nashville that’s been welcome to the widest ever range of genres, influences and innovations. He came to town with no contacts and a job with AmeriCorps in 2013. But before very long he’d landed a major label deal and national radio hits - all with an iconoclastic take on soul, funk and Americana. His newest album - his second for the prestigious Fantasy Records - is a beautiful grooving swirl called Time Will Tell.

The Telluride Bluegrass Festival launched in 1974 as an out-of-the-way town party for locals on the Fourth of July. A year later, they reached out to a promising Kentucky band called New Grass Revival, setting in motion a musical revelation and revolution. In the decades since, Colorado’s loftiest roots music fest has been the stage where old and new bluegrass have coexisted and fed one another. Craig was able to get out for the 53rd annual event, and he filed this report.