I was so lucky to know Barry Poss over the last couple of decades, because his spirit and wit helped me understand how he steered Sugar Hill Records from a one-man operation in a Durham, NC apartment in 1978 to a powerhouse of roots music that signed a young Ricky Skaggs to one of his first record deals, plus the Country Gentlemen, Hot Rize, Doc Watson, Tim O’Brien and more. Barry discovered a 13-year-old Chris Thile, releasing his first solo album and steering the rocket ship career of Nickel Creek. No doubt Sugar Hill changed my life and many others, so this week we pay tribute to the label and to Barry, who passed away after a grueling struggle with cancer. You’ll hear innovative Cajun from the Red Stick Ramblers, banjo mastery from Jim Mills, and the bluegrass breakthrough of Dolly Parton. By coincidence, Barry’s passing and thus this episode coincides with my new report from Durham and its new Biscuits & Banjos festival. It includes a note about Barry Poss’s role in making musical history there.

This week we make a celebratory sandwich with the very special duo of Kieran Kane and Rayna Gellert, with brand new tunes opening, closing, and subdividing the show, plus one of their incisive vocal numbers in the middle. Rayna, as many of you know, has been a distinguished fiddler and songwriter for years on the folk circuit, notably as part of the supergroup Uncle Earl in the early 2000s. Kieran kicked Music Row in the hiney in the 1980s as half of the O’Kanes (with Jamie O’Hara) by proving that smart, Beatles-influenced country music could achieve hit status on the radio, as they did many times. As part of that effort and era, he launched the important Nashville indie label (and artist collective) Dead Reckoning, a key moment in the Americana revolution. He says the new Kane/Gellert release – Volume 4 – will be the last Dead Reckoning release. But not, we hope, from him and his formidable partner. Also this week, we kick off with a powerful and fun twin fiddle romp by Deannie Richardson and Kimber Ludiker, then it’s off to new songs from Zeb Snyder, Danny Burns, Gina Britt, and the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys (with their new lineup).

Their name really does say it all, at least as far as their location and point of view. The guys - John Duncan on banjo, Zeb Gambill on mandolin, Jacob Brewer on bass and vocals, and Marshal Brown on guitar and vocals – don’t go deep into their origin or individual backgrounds in their bio, but they’re resolute in their mission, “to capture not just the style but the spirit of traditional bluegrass.” Their first single was “Another Day,” a Reno & Smiley cover. We welcome them to the Old Fashioned with their newest, a song from the Monroe Brothers, circa 1938 (before bluegrass was even officially born!), called “Rollin’ On.” And it does. Also this week, a flood of new singles and album cuts from: Sister Sadie (from an album coming June 27), Don Rigsby, The Lonesome Ace Stringband, The Tennessee Bluegrass Band, Brad Kolodner, and the Novia Scotia folk duo Maggie And Cassie.

Dr. Peter Wernick and Charles Humphrey III are fans of Colorado’s Ragged Union, so maybe all of us should be too. The quintet, led by North Carolina native Geoff Union, a flatpicker and the band’s lead songwriter, has been around for more than a decade. In that time, they’ve picked their way to stages at John Hartford’s memorial festival, the Northwest String Summit and even the Qingdao International Beer Festival in China. I love Geoff’s crafty writing and his yearning voice on the song “Spell of Rain,” which can be found on the engaging new album Pyramid Stairs, the band’s fifth release. We’re all about new of course, so we lead the show with a song from Mason Via’s brand new self-titled album, to my ears the best collection of songs he’s yet released. We were blown away by the classic ‘grass feeling captured by Water Tower’s Kenny Feinstein as he covers Ralph Stanley’s “Old Richmond Prison.” Also check out fresh cuts from Zoe and Cloyd, Pitney Meyer, Larry Cordle, and Dale Ann Bradley. Mercy!

It was wonderful of mandolinist Carter Shilts of Chicken Wire Empire to reach out to us specifically with an early listen to their single “Fiddle And Song,” a rollicking celebration of the music we love. It’s a harbinger of Growing Pains, the Milwaukee band’s first LP in seven years, one that features guest turns by Jerry Douglas and Kyle Tuttle. I finally got to see these guys last fall at World of Bluegrass where I was transfixed by their instrumental virtuosity and musical smarts. At the same time, they didn’t sacrifice any bluegrass swing or veneration of the sounds that brought us all here. Americana UK got it right, citing “a variety which transcends genre and rewards careful listening.” We look forward to hearing and playing more Chicken Wire when the album comes out on June 1. Also new this week, “Followin’ You” is the exciting first single from East Nash Grass as they anticipate release of their third album, All God’s Children, later this year. Shelby Means dropped the song “Farm Girl” so we built a block around farms and gardens to celebrate spring. Our old school tracks come from the Seldom Scene and the Flatlanders in 1973 and 1972 respectively.

After the breakup of the legendary and scene-shifting Carolina Chocolate Drops around 2015, Rhiannon Giddens spread her wings as an artist, making wide-ranging albums to universal acclaim and winning both a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize. Her identity as an old-time fiddle and banjo player was set aside for a time, even as her thought leadership changed the national conversation around race and country music. This April however, she brought back the string band sound that launched the Drops with co-founding member Justin Robinson on fiddle, with their album What Did The Blackbird Say To The Crow? It came out on the eve of her new Biscuits & Banjos festival in Durham, NC, where the CCD got their start, which included the first reunion concert in ages. I’ll have a longer report about that weekend soon, but for now, we celebrate that event and album with several tracks in this hour. Also, new singles from Appalachian Road Show, Aaron Burdett, and the Kody Norris Show.

In a new Q&A at the Bluegrass Situation, Ali Vance, lead singer of Nashville’s DownRiver Collective, reveals that she was named after Alison Krauss, who in turn became her greatest musical influence. Ali has a powerful and supple voice, not like Krauss, but that’s a good thing. It’s just part of the signature sound that has this five-piece making waves in acoustic music, including their IBMA Momentum Band Of The Year award last fall in Raleigh. We were excited to see the new single “Come On Back” from the band, with promises of a full-length album this year. Jesse Smathers lights up the room with a celebratory opening song this hour. We also feature new singles form Asheville’s The Wilder Flower, Chris Jones, and Seth Mulder. Amy Alvey phones in a set from the Durango Bluegrass Meltdown. Our historic cuts come from Tony Rice and JD Crowe.

Strangely, I’d never laid eyes on the outsider folk singer Michael Hurley until a few days before his passing. He was in Knoxville to play the Big Ears festival, and I was attending. I didn’t catch his set (it was utterly packed in a smallish pub), but I saw him loading in, wearing his signature hat. Amy Alvey’s a different story. She knew Michael and visited him recently, so she has stories, and she curated our tribute block of music. Hurley was one of the most provocative artists in deep roots music since the 1960s when he emerged in the Greenwich Village scene. He was witty and unique and risk-taking, so we’ll remember him fondly. Also this week, a surprise new album from Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton arrived - a guitar and voice duo show captured live at the American Legion in East Nashville. And we’ve got songs by major recent albums from Alison Krauss, Tyler Grant, and the duo of Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson.

Susto is a popular indie folk and rock collective from Charleston, SC founded and led by songwriter Justin Osborne. Holler Choir is a progressive bluegrass and folk band from Asheville, NC led by the voice of songwriter Clint Roberts. Through what they call serendipitous connections, these creative forces joined up to spawn the Susto String Band. Not only are they touring around, they made a dynamic album on New West that they called Vol. 1, the most optimistic title one can lend to a project. We play the jaunty opening track “Mt. Caroline” in this show, but there are more great songs we’ll be visiting in future weeks. Also new this week is a collaborative single from Missy Raines and Allegheny that includes west coast bluegrass legends Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick. Balsam Range dropped a powerful single featuring vocals by new part-time collaborator Don Rigsby. And Alison Brown and Steve Martin are back at it with a song by Steve and a vocal by Tim O’Brien. It's about the road life that Amy Alvey knows so well: “Five Days Out, Two Days Back.” Oh yeah, and we have the new Seldom Scene singing Bob Dylan, so not bad!

Eddie Adcock grew up in rural Virginia, left home at age 14 to evade farm work, and wound up boxing and playing music with regional bands. He sold a calf to buy his first banjo and learned to play the instrument in a couple of weeks before his first gig. That’s just part of Eddie’s amazing story, whose most famous chapter is his decade-plus with the classic lineup of the Country Gentlemen. The beloved musician died in March at 86 years old, and we pay tribute to the bluegrass hall of famer this hour with a couple of jaw dropping instrumentals included in a special set. Also this week, the first single on Sun Records for the Steeldrivers and new sides by Mason Via, Ashby Frank, and Special Consensus. Amy’s own Golden Shoals duo has a new one featuring Mark Kilianski’s masterful guitar picking as well.