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With Americanafest landing in Nashville this week, Craig Havighurst looked over the many artists breaking out of Music City and got especially excited about Baltic Street Hotel by rocking songwriter Sophie Gault. It’ll be released this Friday, but Craig’s been listening for a few weeks and finds it rich with personal details, sharp melodies, and an old school Americana spirit that evokes Lucinda Williams or Kathleen Edwards. The show features exclusive teasers of several songs from this LP, produced by Ray Kennedy at his request. Also in the hour, a rising star of acoustic Americana, 15-year-old mandolinist Wyatt Ellis, who recently released his solo debut with guest turns by some of today’s best mandolin players, including Marty Stuart.

Featuring Joelton Mayfield, Nick Govrik & Jade Jackson.

Featuring Mic Harrison, Mark Erelli & Connor Daly.

When Emily Scott Robinson released Appalachia, her fifth album in a 10-year career and her third for Nashville boutique Oh Boy Records, it spiked up into the Americana airplay top ten, something that had never happened to her before. But she had set the table through quality songwriting, ambitious touring, and a luminous voice that embraces the dark and the light with a rare alchemy. At WMOT’s Eastside studio, Craig and Emily speak about her newest work with super-producer Josh Kaufman and the hard work that led to it.

Since breaking out with his 1989 major-label album How Did You Find Me Here, North Carolina’s David Wilcox has been a consistently excellent practitioner of the new folk, fingerstyle guitar arts. The songwriter, known for his empathic writing and audience-embracing shows, is now 67 and still thinking deep thoughts about the world, compassion, art, and the arc of life. He stopped through Nashville last November to talk about maintaining a “visionary attitude” over time and his latest album The Way I Tell The Story.

Featuring Brit Taylor, Whitney Fenimore & EG Kight.

I’m reading the new biography Doc Watson: A Life In Music by Eddie Huffman, and it’s such a pleasure to get a close-up, beat-by-beat, account of Doc’s heroic, era-shaping career. As much as I’ve studied his music and read many liner notes (I even got to interview him once), there are details that only a devoted researcher could elucidate, and Eddie does a wonderful job. One of the areas he’s broken the most ground in is the dynamic between Doc and his son Merle, who truly comes alive in this chronicle. With that, I point you to Doc and Merle’s version of the Delmore Brothers song “Brown’s Ferry Blues” from the 1971 album On Stage. Also this week, new music from the Burnett Sisters, Andy Leftwich, and Oakland mandolinist Jesse Appelman from his new LP Where We Go. By the way I mis-speak in the episode in crediting the song Anna Lee. It was cut by Levon Helm, as I note, but it was written by NC’s great Laurelyn Dossett. I regret the error.

Featuring Mike Miz, Tim Easton & Meels.

Della Mae has been on a heck of a journey since Boston fiddler Kimber Ludiker assembled a band of women to play bluegrass that shreds and defies limits in 2010. The cool thing is that their freshly rebuilt website acknowledges this with a crisp account of the band’s phases and stages – getting signed by Rounder Records, the global touring by way of the U.S. State Department, the IBMA Awards. Now, they say “Della Mae can boast their strongest lineup yet. Founders Kimber Ludiker and Celia Woodsmith are joined by guitarist and songwriter Avril Smith and vocalist and two-time IBMA Bass Player of the Year Vickie Vaughn.” And they’re coming in hot on Jan. 23 with their newest album Magic Accident, which “explores the complexity of being human and the drive to seize joy and possibility amid the sheer improbability of being here at all.” We spin the single “Family Tree” to launch this episode. Also, a special song cycle album from Valerie Smith and I play a batch of 1980s and 90s bluegrass I picked up over the holidays on CD at Nashville’s used record stores.

I wasn’t able to attend the recent Ryman Auditorium show featuring the Sam Grisman Project with Peter Rowan and special guests, but I went to last year’s debut of this important acoustic and bluegrass collaboration, and it was spectacular. David Grisman’s son Sam has come into his own as a leader, as I documented last year on The String. So imagine our surprise when he dropped a mighty 20-song double album just before Christmas. Working with banjo player Victor Furtado, mandolinist Dominic Leslie, and singer Logan Ledger, among others, Grisman steers with a steady hand through a rich mix of American songs. The sound is easy and natural. It’s a major statement, so we launch this show with two tracks, with more to come. Also this week, new music from LA’s Kenny Feinstein, Arkansas traveler Melissa Carper, and Nashville’s George Jackson. That last one? It's a little weird and we love it. Also, we say a sad farewell to banjo master Gabe Hirshfeld, who passed away too young.