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Featuring Jim Salestrom, William Prince & Hanna Bethel

Episode #47 arrived soon after the 2023 Grammy Awards, so it became yet another great excuse to play music from Nashville’s Molly Tuttle after her remarkable Crooked Tree was named Best Bluegrass Album of the year. But that wasn’t the only music getting us through sloggy February. We discovered the new all-star band known as Wood Box Heroes, featuring Josh Martin, Matt Menefee, Seth Taylor, Jenee Fleenor and Barry Bales. They’re all respected figures from the bluegrass circuit, so we’re anticipating their first album together later this year. Also new this week, tracks from Carly Arrowood and Jason Barrie. And we throw it back with the immortal duo of David Grisman and Doc Watson, plus our latest historic obsession, Red Smiley and the Bluegrass Cutups.

Nashville can’t claim many national-scale, native-born musical stars. Second generation music legends don’t count. I’m talking about townies like Kitty Wells or Bobby Hebb. Yet with a move back to Tennessee during the pandemic, Sunny War joins the list. She’s back in the city where she was born and spent more than a decade with a huge story to tell and a new album that’s being celebrated nationally and in Europe. Anarchist Gospel is a one-of-a-kind record with the most imaginative textures and potently delivered lyrics of this new year in roots music. It’s a rock and roll record drawn from California punk and pop, mixed with a girlhood fascination with Chet Atkins and the blues.

Featuring Slowforce, Stella Prince & Jobi Riccio.

Featuring Stevie Redstone, Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley and Alex Mabey

Ron Sexsmith's brilliant solo debut album of 1995 - the one with the song "Secret Heart" - was on the verge of being overlooked and forgotten when Elvis Costello endorsed it as one of his favorite projects in a major magazine. It changed the conversation about the young balladeer, and he was soon recognized as one of Canada's finest songwriters. Now a dozen great artists have covered "Secret Heart" and Ron is 17 albums in to a rewarding and esteemed career. We talk about those tenuous early days, about his move from Toronto to the country and the resulting album The Vivian Line.

Featuring Jaimee Harris, Natchez Tracers & The War & Treaty

Sometimes episodes of The String lean toward that new, new thing my guests have just put out into the world. Sometimes though, the journey story is so fascinating and special that it takes up most of our time. This week’s pairing of artists from my coverage of Americanafest fell out that way. Whatever I thought I knew about Indigo Girl Amy Ray and extravagant torch country singer Tami Neilson kept giving way to new insights and questions. That said, each artist does have a new solo album and both are looking like finalists for those imminent year-end lists of great Americana recordings.

In our continuing effort to document key music-makers whose headline space doesn’t measure up to their behind-the-scenes contributions, I found myself talking this fall to two guys named Daniel whose accomplishments and esthetics seem to complement one another. Dan Knobler moved to Nashville from New York and quickly became one of the most admired producers of Americana and folk music. Daniel Tashian has lived in Music City basically all his life, building a circle of influence as a songwriter, artist, and producer, culminating in the Grammy Award he shared for making 2018’s Album of the Year, Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves. Both gentlemen have released new albums with cool stories, and we talk about them in this co-headlining episode.

We hope you’ve followed banjo player Andy Thorn’s lovely videos from outside his home in Colorado over the past couple of years. They’d be inspiring if only for the sunrises over a spectacular view and his graceful clawhammer playing. But at some point, this fox began coming around and hanging out, clearly attracted by the music. Watching Foxy, as he was dubbed, sniff the air, perk up his ears and twitch his tail while Andy plays is one of the more heartening things we’ve seen. Inspired by this confluence of music and nature, Thorn has released Songs of the Sunrise Fox, and we’re pleased to include the song “Fox Trail” in this episode, with more to come. Another important premiere is “Diane” from the new lineup of Sister Sadie. It’s their first as this new band in preparation for a 2023 album. Also new music from Zoe & Cloyd, Larry Cordle, the Chatham Rabbits and John Cadley, a songwriter we just discovered with an outstanding folk/bluegrass voice. Legacy cuts come from Jimmy Martin and The Traditional Grass, heroes of 1980s Ohio bluegrass.