Search results for

Toronto’s Jeremie Albino is a powerful roots rock singer and songwriter whose early love of blues and old rock and roll comes through in his self-effacing, easy grooving songs. After releasing three albums and touring hard, a call from Dan Auerbach opened up new avenues for him through the production of his late 2024 album Our Time In The Sun. Craig spoke with Jeremie in Nashville before his recent performance on WMOT’s Wired In.

Featuring Sterling Drake, Vickie Peterson & John Cowsill and Ray Duncan

The story of how global banjo explorer Joe Troop (formerly of Che Apalache) met Venezuelan harpist and all-around folk music master Larry Bellorín is testimony to the magic of global culture and a cautionary tale about the stark turn US policy has taken against working asylum seekers this year. Over three years as the bilingual, genre-fusing, and multi-instrumental duo Larry & Joe, they’ve toured widely and made two albums together to great acclaim among folk music lovers. They’re one of the most charismatic and culture-crossing acts to come out of roots music in the past decade. Here in a special episode of The String, they tell their story in an interview that took place in Knoxville, TN in March.

I keep hearing in the news about a border crisis, but all we know is that some of the hottest stringband music in the world comes from north of our border with Canada, and that’s what rocks our second set this show. We’ve got two tracks from the brand new album Up The Hill And Through The Fog by Toronto’s Slocan Ramblers, along with the duo of Pharis and Jason Romero and the Lonesome Ace Stringband. We’ve got hot summer tracks from NC’s Fireside Collective and the duo we needed of Laura Orshaw and Trey Hensley, singing George and Tammy style. We dip into history with the New Kentucky Colonels and get weird with Stash Wyslouch. And Amy reminded me of how much I love Any Hinkle’s “Hills of Swannanoa” from 2021. Such a fearsome track!

Featuring Colin O'Brien, Ethan Samuel Brown & Kiely Connell.

Featuring Gina Sicilia, Parker Hawkins & Rees Shad.

Joe Boyd is one of the most accomplished and eclectic record producers in the story of popular music. As an American living in London, he helped break psychedelic folk rock pioneers The Incredible String Band and worked with Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, and Fairport Convention. He founded Hannibal Records, giving a home to the solo career of Richard Thompson. He’s also worked with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Toumani Diabate, Geoff and Maria Muldauer, and many more. He was also part of the small cadre of music marketers and labels that created the market category of World Music in the 1980s. Here, Boyd talks about his journey and his epic new book And The Roots of Rhythm Remain.

It’s hard to believe that Nashville’s SteelDrivers have been making their unique brand of hard-core string band music for nearly twenty years. They were the vehicle through which many of us were introduced to the epic voice of Chris Stapleton, back when he and Mike Henderson co-wrote that band’s high impact debut album of 2008. When Henderson and Stapleton had to move on, the band pulled its greatest trick, growing bigger and building a legacy that’s like nothing else in 21st century bluegrass. In Episode 324 of The String, Craig talks with original members Mike Fleming, bass player and baritone vocal, and Tammy Rogers, the fiddler and harmony singer who now leads the way with the band’s songwriting. We talk about the whole ride, up to the new album Outrun, out now on a revived Sun Records.

Featuring Brandon Birkedahl, Kristina Murray & Ross Flora

This episode of The String is a field report from the city that raised me in the 1970s and 80s and gave me my foundation in music, from college rock radio, to youth orchestra at Duke University, to jazz tutelage at a Black Muslim community center. It’s an arts-forward city that in the past decade has become something of a magnet for roots music, building on a history of gospel, blues and string band music, while the new festival Biscuits & Banjos, curated by Rhiannon Giddens, has put itself in a position to be a bridge from the past to the future and give Durham the identity it’s lacked as a national music hotspot.