Like the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, East Tennessee bluegrass band Seth Mulder and Midnight Run got their start as a house band at Ole Smokey Moonshine in Gatlinburg. Since then the quintet has built an outstanding reputation in the business, and they’re poised to be one of the next major acts. 2023 saw them win their first SPBGMA award for their Song of the Year “My My My,” which we’ve played here. This week we open with their new single “Looking Past The Pain (The Cowboy Song)”. Then we pair that with a classic western number from Don Edwards and Peter Rowan, because that’s how we roll. Also new this week, Alison Brown, Steve Martin and Vince Gill teamed up to make a song about a guitar that hangs on the wall. Andy Leftwich offers a fiddle version of the gospel standard “Talk About Suffering.” And Amy slipped me her duo’s new one, so the second set begins with Golden Shoals playing the fiddle tune “And The Cat Came Back.”

Grammy Award season began on Nov. 8 when the nominations were announced. The American Roots categories are looking good, lining up pretty well with my feelings about the best albums released in the past year. This week we spin tracks from all of the Best Bluegrass Album nominees: Brownwyn Keith-Hynes, Billy Strings, Sister Sadie, Dan Tyminski and Tony Trischka. But we know those folks and I want to turn your attention to a newcomer to the show, though certainly not in bluegrass music – Tim Raybon. He’s a Florida native, brother of Marty Raybon and half of the Raybon Brothers, who earned a CMA nomination for Duo of the Year in the late 1990s. Tim’s band soars here with Osborne Brothers style harmonies on an old Dallas Frazier / Doodle Owens song, “Walk Softly On The Bridges.” Also in the mix, folk singer John R. Miller and banjo composer Hillary Hawke, also spun on the show for the first time.

John Cowan didn’t plan, even remotely, on being in a bluegrass band. But when he was a 22-year-old in Bowling Green, KY, he tried out for New Grass Revival, hoping maybe to play bass for a weird hybrid band that was making national noise. Sam Bush heard him sing one and declared him the lead singer AND bass player, and off they went for decades together and a career that landed them in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. Cowan made a run of excellent solo albums, finding his personal balance of string band and soul music. His voice is magisterial. And he collaborates brilliantly. Thus, we have Fiction, his first new solo album in a decade, out now. This week we have a couple of artists we don’t tend to think of in the grassy universe, but indie folk artist Bonnie Prince Billy and Americana stalwart Lukas Nelson are both here with creative singles. We offer our first ever taste of Big Country Bluegrass, a high and lonesome band from Virginia. And Carolyn Kenrick returns with a beguiling take on the old song “Leela.”

Irene Kelley’s bright and pretty voice and thoughtful songs have graced bluegrass and roots music since the 1980s when her career got going with a Ricky Skaggs/Sharon White duet that made the country charts. Since then she’s had hits and cuts by Alan Jackson, Loretta Lynn, and many bluegrass artists, while releasing a half dozen albums of her own. She’s also made a good bit of music with her daughters Justyna and Sara Jean, and now they’re taking that to the scene formally as the new group Women Of Kelley. They debut here with their first single “Lining Track,” inspired by African American work songs and written with Shannon Sanders. Also this hour, a ripping new version of “Blue Night” from Nashville mandolin player and singer Ashby Frank, the first guitar instrumental album by East Nashville scene maker Colin O’Brien, and the long-sought collaboration between string bands Hawktail and Vassen of Sweden. Also, Amy Alvey sets up a set of Cajun and zydeco music inspired by her time at the Black Pot festival.

Brenna MacMillan is ready for her closeup. The Kentucky native has been a fixture of the Nashville bluegrass brigade for a few years now, collaborating widely and touring for a time with her brother as Theo & Brenna. Now the banjo player and singer has written and recorded a moving, effervescent new solo debut album called Dear Life, featuring some hot guests like Peter Rowan, Sarah Jarosz, and Ronnie McCoury. We start this week’s show with my current favorite cut, “Sweet Thing,” a classic country duet with East Nash Grass dobro man Gavin Largent. Also in the hour, a new old-time album from Brad Kolodner (banjo) and George Jackson (fiddle), a hot duet No. 1 bluegrass single from fiddle geniuses Michael Cleveland and Jason Carter, and fiery flatpicking from England’s Charlotte Carrivick, an international bluegrass guitarist you need to know. I hosted this one solo while Amy was in Louisiana finding accordions to play with.

Something happened again at World of Bluegrass in Raleigh that I don’t have to plan. I just seem to happen upon the Burnett Sisters performing there, and I always dig them. Siblings Anissa, Sophia, and Anneli lead the group, which is based in Boone, NC. They have a warm, relatable vibe while also being tremendous at their instruments, picked and sung. That chemistry helped them take first place at the MerleFest Band Contest in 2022, among other accolades. So when I saw the sisters had released a new single, I hopped on it, even though it’s mired in the mighty lonesome subjects of “Sorrow, Grief and Pain.” Also this hour, a classic song from an intimate and compulsively listenable new album from old friends Jordan Tice, Andrew Marlin and Christian Sedelmyer. Big Richard sent out their first single on the way to a debut studio album in 2025. I toss in two discoveries from rambling at festivals this year – The Plate Scrapers and Serene Green.

Nobody’s changed the game in bluegrass music in the past decade more than Billy Strings. He moved from his home state of MI to Nashville a bit less than ten years ago with an insider reputation as a hot young picker who embodied the spirit of Doc Watson. Since then, he’s taken good bluegrass to arena scale and written a ton of great new songs for the canon. His newest album Highway Prayer is, I think, his best yet – at least his best album of bluegrass music. Few experiments or digressions. So many hot performances and songs. We spin our first song from the disc, the very trad sounding “It Ain’t Before.” Also this hour, some superb fingerstyle ragtime blues from Lakota John, a TOF band premiere with the Asheville Mountain Boys, a new duo from Mo Bandy and John Meyer, and top-shelf old-time from our friends George Jackson and Brad Kolodner.

Anya Hinkle is one of the standout folk artists of the past few decades in Western North Carolina, making her own space and sound in the overlap of old Appalachian, singer-songwriter and bluegrass. I just saw her perform at Scruggs Fest with a trio she’s rolling out next year called Tanasi. But she’s also one of so many victims of Hurricane Helene, which slammed our beloved mountain region with incomprehensible rainfall and tropical storm winds, leaving countless victims of flooding, landslides and wind damage. We turn our attention to the region in this episode, and Hinkle’s “Hills of Swannanoa” already a favorite song of mine, hit really hard, so it’s part of a block of artists from the Asheville area. Hinkle herself is safe, but a 100-year-old tree fell on her house. There’s a lot to do. Please visit Blue Ridge Public Radio for updates and options for sending aid.

The bluegrass family was shocked in mid September to get the news that mandolinist and singer David Davis, leader of the Warrior River Boys, had died in a car crash at the age of 63. Inspired by Bill Monroe at an early age, he worked with band leader Gary Thurmond until Thurmond retired and handed the reins of the WRB over to Davis. He lived his whole life in his native Alabama, but he toured the nation and recorded for Rounder Records, including the must-own 2018 album Didn’t He Ramble, covering songs from the catalog of Charlie Poole. We offer Davis singing the classic “Blues Stay Away From Me.” Also this week, two exciting album releases: Rebecca Frazier leads off the show with “Hurricanes” from her new Boarding Windows In Paradise (unnervingly prescient given the news) and the first formal project by Mike Compton and Joe Newberry called Home In My Heart. Amy brought in new music from her duo Golden Shoals. And there’s a nice run of neo-old-time from Showman and Coole, Water Tower from LA and The Devil Makes Three.

It is so very good to see old-time and folk hero Jody Stecher so engaged and fruitful at age 78. The Brooklyn native and two-time Grammy nominee became an influence on a legion of roots heroes, including Jerry Jeff Walker and Jerry Garcia. Now he’s collaborating with Boston bluegrass band Mile Twelve, releasing two LPs in about a year. The newest is charmingly titled Instant Lonesome and The Twinkle Brigade and we’ve got a tune from that. From the bio: “The band is on fire, ignited by the spark of Jody’s impassioned singing and guitar. The format is recognizable as old-style blues-tinged, old-time flavored bluegrass but nothing here is generic or predictable.” Also this hour, Nashville’s Thunder And Rain, Rhonda Vincent, Willie Watson and Larry Cordle singing a Bob Seger song from a new bluegrass compilation.