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.
For the fourth year in a row, my fest started with our Old Fashioned String Band Throwdown at Dee’s Lounge in Madison. The weather was fair, so we were outdoors again on a lovely night. Participation in our 4:30 string jam was robust, and sometimes I wish we could just let that rousing old-time pulse go on all night. But there were professionals in the house.
Amy Alvey’s local collective Tune Hash got us started with that beautiful, churning pre-bluegrass fiddle and banjo sound. Meredith Moon, Ontario folk singer and songwriter, gave us a taste of her lunarly luminous voice and clawhammer banjo playing, featuring songs she recently cut in Nashville for her Compass Records debut From Here To The Sea. Larry & Joe, my pick for the acoustic act everybody needs to see right now, showcased their ebullient American/Venezuelan crossover folk with Larry Bellorín’s harp and Joe Troop’s banjo/fiddle. I featured them this year because of their heart-calling music and their incredible story.
The great Tim O’Brien, who is about to be formally inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame for his tenure with Colorado band Hot Rize, did us the kindness of bringing his current quartet. He and his wife Jan Fabricius fronted, with fiddler Shad Cobb and bass player Mike Bub in support, with a set that was rhythmically relaxed and sweetly pitched between folk and bluegrass, the way Tim’s always done it. More rambunctious and Appalachian was show closer Mason Via, the tall 28-year-old who’s gone solo after a few years with Old Crow. He brought a big band and a bluegrass focused sound that can go anywhere, and if he is becoming the new “it” guy in string band songwriting, he deserves it.
I saw a few treats at the Sun Records (and Gaither Music Group) party at Vinyl Tap on Wednesday. I didn’t have Jimmy Fortune (of the Statler Brothers) singing Rodney Crowell’s “Til I Gain Control Again” on my proverbial bingo card, but it was a treat. Austin’s brilliant Ruthie Foster told me she’s still happy with her new relationship with Brentwood-based Sun before playing one of her passionate sets. Maybe the coolest thing I saw there however was 91-year-old bluesman Bobby Rush having a private heart-to-heart talk with sacred steel wizard Robert Randolph. Wish I could have overheard them.
I ran over to the WMOT Day Stage at that point for the first of three days there. I went chiefly to see Randolph. whom I had interviewed that morning. But first came the sweet southern tones of Tift Merritt, who has rekindled her US touring with a reissue of her 20-year-old Tambourine album, along with a new collection of demos from that album’s era. It was a thrill to hear “Good Hearted Man” from the keyboard, much like she wrote it. Randolph and his three-piece band (plus walk-on support singer) took their time, letting the dynamics flow on the way to big climaxes, just the way a preacher does it. Robert’s playing on both pedal and lap steel is up there with any instrumentalist in our business. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that two different people showed me their literal goosebumps during this 45-minute set.
I brought a lot of anticipation to the next day’s WMOT set by Richmond, VA quartet Palmyra in the lovely, stained-glass light of Riverside Revival. They present like punky misfits who channel sound and music with a moving defiance, and it’s easy to see why they’re building up a new young audience. Guitarists Sasha Landon and Teddy Chipouras trade lead vocals, but the thrills and chills come from their three-part harmonies when bass player Manoa Bell joins in. Their sound is related to the chanty stomp of Mumford and Sons, but Palmyra’s got more musical invention and edge. Bell brings relentless creativity to how he plucks, bows, and whacks his acoustic and electric instruments. The drums were also bold and inventive. Their Appalachian confessional stoner folk rock is a hip addition to the Americana menu.
The same can be said for the SUSTO String Band, the recent collaboration of indie rock songwriter Justin Osborne and the pickers from Asheville, NC’s progressive bluegrass band Holler Choir. I was so lucky to catch this tight and honest set at the New West/Oh Boy Records party, because this band - a side project for both acts - is more than the sum of its parts. They have heart, poetry and quality instrumental and vocal chops. They released an album this year called Volume 1, suggesting more to come.
With the commitments of Tuesday night’s party and the Wednesday Honors & Awards, Thursday was my first night of pure freedom, and while one of the gifts of Americanafest is seeing out-of-town and international artists perform, I felt drawn to local working musicians at our beloved 5 Spot, and I got it so right. Nick Beaudoing is the leader/founder of the creative Cajun country band Runner Of The Woods, and man it was so nice entering the bar to the surging strains of his accordion and the sight of actual dancing couples doing the Louisiana two-step. Nick is a chill guy who sings well in French and English, writes potent, moving songs and collects great musicians with whom to throw down. There were many moods in the set, but they kept cycling back to the roadhouse, and that’s how I take my roots music, please.
While I’m regularly beset by anxiety over what I call AAA creep, where fashionable indie rock/pop gets blurred into the roots/Americana mix, all it takes for me to not care about genre lines is for an act to be really good, and Anthony da Costa is really, really good. Most often seen as a sideman electric guitarist for the greats, this Nashville-based musician makes his own brand of power pop that treats his guitar and his voice like dance partners, ever swirling around each other. Two things dropped my jaw. His ferociously grooving band was joined most of the set by Lizzy Ross on harmonies, and they were bonded at molecular level, with outsized empathy and harmonic daring. And as a guitar fan, he took me to another plane - with aggressive dynamics, fingertip control, a balance of tenderness and ferocity, and deep understanding of his amp and effects. He’s got elements of Jeff Beck and Bill Frisell and Danny Gatton in him, and it was my highest musical high of the week.
Before heading off for a quick bite and then the Station Inn, I heard a sampling of Olivia Ellen Lloyd’s country music. The widely acclaimed West Virginia native and New York-based artist has a bold and hearty voice with a nice warble and yodel, and she had pedal steel in the band. I’ve made a big note to catch up with her 2025 album Do It Myself.
My review list is starting to look a lot like my preview list, but reality kept validating my selections, and up next was the married duo of acoustic masters Kristin Andreassen, formerly of Uncle Earl, and Chris “Critter” Eldridge of Punch Brothers. They sang a moody version of the old bluegrass ballad “Muddy Water” and a lilting twin-guitar take on Kristin’s own amazing song “The New Ground.” When Critter took a flatpick guitar feature (he’s one of the best on Earth), Kristen accompanied him with her percussive flatfoot dancing. They’re working on an album, but this duo has been an emerging project for the couple. They’re ready to take it to the world.
On Friday, I got to interview and listen to Oklahoma songwriter Ken Pomeroy. She’s a serious-minded 22-year-old with her breakthrough album Cruel Joke on Rounder Records. And while her truths can be uncomfortable, the music is edifying and beautiful, with a starkness and sternness that’s equal to the challenge of coming of age in a collapsing country.
A stirring was in the air at the Hutton Hotel’s lovely Analog listening room as The Band Loula took the stage. The place was jam packed, and the duo of Malachi Mills and Logan Simmons has the kind of label and booking agency support in their corner that emerging acts dream of. The obvious touchstone is The Civil Wars, in the intensity of their vocal blend, but they’re looser and funnier on stage - just honest country folks from North Georgia who’ve been best friends since school days. They take on serious concerns, such as religious hypocrisy in “Who Gets To Heaven (Nobody Knows)” and the good life in “Sweet Southern Summer.” This music sits in the blurry zone between commercial country and Americana, and makes both look better for it.
That flowed into a set by Nashville’s own songwriter, history-keeper, and music healer Kyshona, who delivered a moving set of songs from her 2024 album Legacy, a concept devoted to family history that we covered in a memorable String interview last year. With Megan Coleman on drums and two harmony singers, the artist conjured a holy space, singing “The Echo,” “Waitin’ On The Lawd,” and the masterful allegory “Elephants”.
I was back at Analog for the final night of the festival to hear Nolensville-based Leslie Jordan, a songwriting and touring veteran from Christian pop, as she performed most of her inspired new album The Agonist with a tight, four-piece band. Jordan has a rich and tender voice and a deep bag of songcraft ideas. It was an elevated version of something I’ve done several times at home, basking in her album on vinyl on my hi-fi. She’ll be coming soon in a WMOT interview feature, and I hope she keeps up her momentum as a creative artist in Americana space.
Then on to the same place I’ve capped off several Americanafests, the friendly confines of 3rd & Lindsley. How friendly? Well, up on entering, the iconic Rosie Flores was half through her set, shredding her Telecaster guitar strings and singing fervent old-school country rock and roll. She celebrated her 75th birthday during the festival, and much like Del McCoury in his genre, Rosie brings energy and smiling vibes to audiences wherever she goes.
But I’d come for what they were billing as the Guitar Party, because I want that to be the title of my posthumous biography. I’m a long-time fan of super-picker Guthrie Trapp, and he’s put together a band with studio and stage master Tom Bukovac, releasing the instrumental album In Stereo last year. When they got started with that album’s “The Window,” it was all I needed. But wait, there was more. Jedd Hughes came out to join the guitar front line. So did all-around rocking gentleman Nick Govrik, who lent his strong vocals to the party. And they played deep into the night.
It felt like Music City, like the signal that’s drawn so many of us to this town and its history and its sonic riches. I spent a little less stress on trying to “do my job” and wound up with more than enough interviews in the can while having a whole lot more fun.
