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For a band that released its independent debut album in 2017, the Teskey Brothers have come a long way. From our perspective here in Nashville, that would be 9,700 miles, the distance from their home town of Warrandyte, New South Wales, Australia. Raised on classic soul and R&B music, Sam and Josh Teskey started making music together as kids and became staples of the Melbourne music scene. They didn’t have huge aspirations, but when their first record impressed folks close to home, they took their classic Stax/Muscle Shoals sound to the world and the world replied. This year they’ve toured Europe for five months and played major sold out venues, including the Ryman Auditorium behind their current album the Winding Way. Guitarist, songwriter, singer and recording engineer Sam Teskey is my guest.

Featuring The Tennessee Warblers, The Mike Thomas Band & Charlotte Morris

Amy enjoyed another year at the Clifftop Festival in West Virginia, one of the nation’s premiere old-time gatherings and contests. Her project with the Old Time Snake Milkers had a podium finish in the Traditional Band contest (yay!). She noticed who won and who the stars of the camp were and let that inspire our second set with AJ Srubas and Rina Rossi, Chance McCoy and the Tall Poppy String Band. Also this week, new singles from Don Rigsby, the Lonesome River Band and the Steep Canyon Rangers. The track from Alice Gerrard may look like a classic, but no, the great NC-based singer is coming with a new album, and this is an a cappella single from it. And we pair Dan Tyminski’s “Ode To Jimmy” with the real Jimmy Martin doing his hit “Hold What Cha Got,” the one that inspired Tony Rice.

This week we celebrated the anticipated release of East Nash Grass’s second album Last Chance To Win. Do we understand the cover? No. But do we love the variety and intelligence and musicality of its 11 songs? Absolutely. We’ve been playing singles all along, and here you’ll find the elegant James Kee song “I Almost Told Her.” More in the weeks ahead, because this will be one of our favorites of the year. Also new this week, Nora Brown is back with a duo with Stephanie Coleman, Ralph Stanley II covers the New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Lonesome Ace Stringband brings a fiddle medley, and Danny Burns sings Mindy Smith. Plus deep history from the Country Gentlemen and heroines Kathy Kallick and Laurie Lewis.

There’s a lot of man between Robert Finley’s cowboy boots and the crown of his signature black cowboy hat almost seven feet above. When he gets in full swing on stage, his long legs and arms are in constant motion, gyrating amid a parade of greasy funk beats. He’s an absolutely magnetic figure, with a toothy smile and bright eyes despite the glaucoma blindness that ended one chapter of his life but in a way opened up a new one. He’s that rare delight - a great American roots musician - and a person living with a disability - who grabbed the world’s attention in his 60s.

Darrell Scott is a hugely important Americana artist who’s been on the bill at many a bluegrass festival without being a bluegrass artist himself per se. Now though, a bit like Robbie Fulks recently, the Nashville-based songwriter and picker has made his first self-proclaimed “string band” album, called Old Cane Back Rocker. The group, with whom he’s been touring for some time, contains Shadd Cobb on fiddle, Matt Flinner on banjo, and Bryn Davies on bass. This show we lead off with the most driving tune, “Banjo In The Holler” featuring Shadd on a fine lead vocal. We’ll feature Darrell’s leads in coming weeks. Also this week, new tracks from Tray Wellington, Balsam Range and Full Cord.

We’ve been obsessed with the SteelDrivers since they exploded onto the Americana scene in 2007 and 2008 as a vehicle for the rustic and bluesy songs of Mike Henderson and Chris Stapleton. With the banjo of Richard Bailey and fiddling from Tammy Rogers, the band was bluegrass but something more. And they’d go one to be global touring artists and Grammy Award winners. I admit I was taken a bit by surprise by their latest release, a pure gospel-grass album called Tougher Than Nails. We lead off with the opening song, “Somewhere Down The Road.” We also had AmericanaFest 2023 on our minds as we pulled music for Show #76, drawing from artists set to play our Old Fashioned party at the outset of the event: Missy Raines and Allegheny, Cristina Vane, Robbie Fulks and the Lonesome Ace Stringband. Now that’s Americana.

It was not unexpected but it was exciting to hear that Jim Lauderdale and the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys had teamed up to make an album. They’ve collaborated at events around the country, including our own Old Fashioned Throwdown 2022. And they just get each other’s vibe and humor. We start this week with the title track of The Long And Lonesome Letting Go, which arrived 9/15. We’ve got a couple of bluegrass blocks, featuring in the first case nominees for this year’s IBMA Awards, including winners Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings, as well as a duet by two giants of the mandolin being ushered into the hall of fame – Sam Bush and David Dawg Grisman. I sought out a bunch of banjo instrumentals for the second half of the program. Amy’s cool artist discoveries include Holler Choir and Happy Trails Prospector.

We told you in these pages about the many repeat winners at the IBMA Awards in Raleigh at the end of September, but always of note are the Momentum Awards, given to emerging talent at a special lunch the day before the big show. This week we feature several winners, including the band category winners the Crying Uncle Bluegrass Band. Based in Northern California, the quartet features brothers Miles and Teo Quale, plus bassist Andrew Osborn and 2023 National Flat Pick Guitar Champion Ian Ly. We hear their take on the classic “Been All Around This World.” Also winning a Big Mo prize in the vocalist category is Carley Arrowood with the song “Chasin’ Indigo.” The show, hosted by yours truly, also includes a new single from Missy Raines and Allegheny, and a double shot of the SteelDrivers, because they lost their founder, mandolinist and core songwriter Mike Henderson, and we wanted to pay tribute through their new gospel album.

One might imagine that after 17 years singing country music and releasing ten albums, an artist would have shared all of her secrets with her audience, but Eilen Jewell says only in the aftermath of 2020 and a bunch of disruptive change and loss well beyond the reach of the pandemic, that she was ready to get real in ways she never had before. "It's the most personal album I've ever made,” she says in Episode 284 of The String about her album Get Behind The Wheel.