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There haven’t been more than a handful of repeat guests on The String in these six years, but with Mary Gauthier it’s a no-brainer. She’s one of the most interesting figures in Nashville - a philosopher of song and a gifted teacher and speaker. A 2021 memoir allowed her to lay her remarkable story out end to end, mingling memoir with songwriting insights and laying bare her vulnerabilities and struggles. A new album ruminates on new love and the loss of friends with radical empathy.

Amy hosts solo this week, so there’s a heavy old-time and trad folk vibe to Show #22. The very new Tall Poppy String Band features our pal George Jackson from Nashville with Portland, OR banjo player Cameron DeWhitt and Mark Harris of Fort Collins, CO on guitar. Also new is a beguiling rendition of an ancient tune called “Sixteen Kings’ Daughters” by versatile Nashville musician Libby Weitnauer. On the folk frontier, the fast-rising Willi Carlisle offers his original Tex Mex ballad “Este Mundo” and we hear vintage sound from Taj Mahal and the late great zydeco master Boozoo Chavis.

One of the coolest young ensembles that Amy Alvey has brought to the Old Fashioned record collection this year is Sinner Friends, the duo of multi-instrumentalists Grace van't Hof and Conner Vlietstra. Grace was a founder of Della Mae, a keen voice in Bill & The Belles and the banjo player in Chris Jones and the Night Drivers. Conner is still finishing his degree at ETSU but he’s been in old time music all his life. Together, they channel the Bailes Brothers and the Carter Family while adding something punky and today to their close harmonies. We’ve played them before but this week their single “Unforgivable You” anchors our first set. Also in the hour, new singles from from Woody Platt, who’s on his way out the door as frontman of the Steep Canyon Rangers, Appalachian Road Show and Riverbend. Bronwyn Keith-Hines fiddles magnificently in “North Garden.” Our lookback tracks come from the Osborne Brothers and Mac Wiseman, the Seldom Scene and the Bluegrass Album Band.

The International Bluegrass Music Association announced the nominees for the 33rd annual IBMA Awards on July 26, offering a look at the top tiers of the genre as we enter the fall of 2022. So we decided to devote this hour to as many of the nominees as we could squeeze in. Certainly Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle were going to be front and center with six nominations each. Our surprise guy was Rick Faris from Topeka, KS, whose been on our mind to play for a while anyway, because he’s an excellent singer, writer and guitar player. Other key voices include Danny Paisley and Dale Ann Bradley. The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys are in the hunt for Entertainer of the Year. Hot Instrumental performances come from Bela Fleck and Scott Vestal. And for our historic moments we tapped newly announced hall of famers Norman Blake and Peter Rowan. You can read our news coverage of the event and see a full list of nominees here.

As I say in the intro of Episode 217, the opportunity to speak with Richie Furay came over the transom and out of the blue. He’s lived in Colorado since the 70s and he’s been off and on the touring circuit in recent years. But where most of my conversations are ones I seek out, this one came to me, and it was a welcome surprise. Furay was an architect of country rock as the co-founder of both Buffalo Springfield and POCO, version 1.0, before the band mellowed into a soft rock staple.

Labor Day weekend brought the first-ever Earl Scruggs Music Festival at a big horse park in rural Polk County, NC. I attended and wrote about it at our news page. But before I left, I put together this episode inspired by the lineup that played there. To make its first impression, Scruggs Fest booked the top tiers of modern bluegrass, including the Nashville musketeers Bela Fleck, Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas. Plus a lot of North Carolina talent, including Balsam Range, Town Mountain, Darin & Brooke Aldridge and Acoustic Syndicate. I’ve grown especially fond of the Piedmont married duo the Chatham Rabbits and it was exciting to hear they’ve released a superb new album, If You See Me Riding By. I led this week’s music with my favorite song from that project, a swift grassy song about horseback librarians back during the Great Depression. Also here, a couple of historic Earl Scruggs tracks, because he's the GOAT.

Early James pushed himself to find a singing voice and songwriting style all his own, and it certainly got the attention of Nashville's Dan Auerbach. The Birmingham, AL artist was invited into Dan's Easy Eye Sound studio to write and produce his debut album Singing For My Supper in 2020. That release was acclaimed by stymied by the pandemic. Not so the new one, Strange Time To Be Alive, with its surreal, suggestive language and fevered country noir soundscape.

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is leading today’s blues youth brigade out of his home base in Clarksdale, MS with incredible finesse and power for a 23-year-old. Carolyn Wonderland of Austin, TX is a proven veteran, already a member of the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame before her 50th birthday. Where Kingfish released his second Alligator album in 2021, Wonderland made her label debut last year. Both are singer/songwriter/player triple threats, but that’s about where the similarities end. And these companion conversations make for a rich hour of radio.

Friendly and funny, enthusiastic and energetic, Steve Poltz has released his tenth album Stardust & Satellites as he embarks on another year of intense touring. In a conversation at his home in East Nashville, Poltz speaks with Craig about his surprise embrace of Nashville co-writing, his wild experience writing one of the 90s big hits and the pot brownies that showed him the way to performing solo, which he does so well.

Episode one of The Old Fashioned leans hard into old time with several tracks that include fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves, a classic from Doc Watson off the new 101-song anthology of his career, a stunning ballad from Lee Ann Womack from last year’s IBMA Album of the Year and two tracks recorded live in Nashville by New Zealand born fiddler George Jackson.