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Daniel Donato became one of Nashville’s more revered electric guitar players during his three years playing four nights a week at Robert’s Western World on Lower Broadway. When he lost that gig in 2015, he had to start from scratch as a working musician and songwriting artist. In his second appearance on The String, Donato talks about landing some touring band gigs that sustained him while he developed his Cosmic Country concept. The band and his repute grew, and ten years after leaving Broadway, he headlined the Ryman Auditorium. Also on the table here, his two recent albums, Reflector and Horizons.

Layng Martine Jr. earned a slot in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame with numerous hits for a range of artists that included Reba McEntire, The Pointer Sisters, and Elvis himself. He thought he was retired, but when his son Tucker, one of the most respected producers and recording engineers in indie music, gave his father the studio time and resources to make his first real album as an artist as he approached 80 years old, a series of sessions in Portland, OR became Music Man. It's a joyful, sunny collection that sounds like nothing else in roots music, and Layng turns out to be a sunny and charming fellow himself. We talk about arriving in Nashville in the 70s, writing Elvis's last hit, and the renewing thrill of cutting songs he'd written between 1964 and the 2000s.

Rosanne Cash says she’s a forward-looking artist and thinker, not prone to looking back. But when she regained control over the master recording of her 1993 album The Wheel, it prompted an idea. She’s launched the new label Rumble Strip Records with John Leventhal, the producer and guitarist she fell in love with while working on it with him. Cash, one of the most fascinating and sophisticated roots musicians and a founding figure of the Americana movement, calls The Wheel a “watershed” for her in many ways beyond her new life with Leventhal. She’d moved to New York where she’s lived ever since. And she branched away from the country mainstream. The re-issue of The Wheel, now out for the first time on vinyl, prompted a riveting conversation. Also in the hour, Colorado-reared newcomer Jobi Riccio.

See what albums NPR listeners picked in our year-end poll for the best music of 2013.

Democrats will try the same budgetary process from four decades ago when first-year President Ronald Reagan used reconciliation to achieve his "revolution" in federal fiscal policy.

Kendrick Lamar won his rap war with Drake last year by just about any measure, but this week, Drake got a small measure of revenge when his new album, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, knocks Lamar out of the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts.

The 2,500-page National Defense Authorization Act, which tells the Pentagon how to spend its budget, is headed to President Trump's desk for signature. A look at its key provisions.

Dusty camps of displaced people have sprung up on the outskirts of cities. They ran from their homes because of drought, famine and fighting that involves the militant group al-Shabaab.

This week's broadcast of Finally Friday from 3rd and Lindsley in downtown Nashville, TN, featuring music from Jess Lynn Madera, Claudia Nygaard and Smalltown Strings.