On January 10, Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers played their last road show - at Meadowgreen Music Park in Clay City, KY - marking the end of a 20-year touring career for one of bluegrass music’s most persuasive traditional bands. Mullins is not retiring from music, just the road. He has a lot going on with his chain of radio stations in Ohio and a new granddaughter. While they rambled, the band released a dozen albums in the bluegrass and gospel space, and in 2019 they were named Entertainers of the Year by the IBMA. We salute this fine banjo player, singer and broadcaster for 20 years of grassroots touring by opening up with a Joe banjo tune and by playing a song from their most recent album, appropriately titled “Something To Look Forward To.” Also this week, the album debut of Della Jane’s Heart by Appalachian Road Show, a new one from John Reishman and the Jaybirds, and a new old-time single from Amy Alvey herself and her duo Golden Shoals.

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.

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.

For our first show of 2026, we take one last look over our shoulder at 2025’s coolest and most newsworthy bluegrass, old-time, and folk music. There was a lot of fine music, but for me, there were a few standouts, as outlined in my Dec. 19 feature The Old Fashioned Dozen. The collaboration in which Po’ Ramblin’ Boy CJ Lewandowski coaxed his friend and mentor Bobby Osborne into the studio for one more set of recordings – including “Rocky Top” – before his passing was both beautiful to listen to and one for the history books. Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland showed why they’re the state of the art in bluegrass fiddling and song curation on their IBMA Album of the Year. My favorite discovery of 2025 was The Wild Shoats, an exciting young band from WV and PA. Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton paid Doc Watson the highest homage with their live album and tour. And Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson really surprised us with an al fresco old-time album from the historic Piedmont of North Carolina. Onward to the new year!

Our holiday special features (we think) tracks that we’ve never played on the show, even though we have our favorites from years past. Molly Tuttle and Ketch Secor set the scene for the season with their new single “Fairytale of New York.” The obligatory “Christmas Time’s A Comin’” comes this year from the amazing trio of Doc Watson, Mac Wiseman, and Del McCoury. Particularly interesting is Bela Fleck’s solo holiday medley. There’s just about nothing he can’t play. Sorry this is going up in the archive so late! But perhaps it will bring you a memory of a good Christmas 2025.

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.

Russ Carson didn’t just have a father who played the banjo; he had a father who made them. So yeah, music was in his Pennsylvania home, and he began playing at age 10. He did time with several bands, including Gold Heart and Audie Blaylock’s Redline, before joining one of the elite units of our time, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. He recently released what appears to be his third solo album Songs That Birds Don’t Sing through the Engelhardt Music Group, and it’s a wonderful ride that mixes styles and classics with Russ’s original tunes. We spin “Look Me Up By The Ocean Door,” written by the Cox Family, with Ron Block on lead vocals. Also new this week, a rich socially provocative song from the Del McCoury Band, a beauty from our favorite dulcimer player Sarah Kate Morgan and fiddler Leo Shannon. The new Laurie Lewis song is a blazer too.

Blue Highway is going strong more than thirty years into their award-winning bluegrass journey. Their most recent album was last year’s Lonesome State Of Mind, but they’ve been busy this year with new singles, including this week’s Shawn Lane-penned “Muddy Shoes.” I also noticed a new side from the band New Found Road (a highway song as it happens) written by Thomas Cassell and Blue Highway co-founder Tim Stafford. Another timely connection arrived with the single “Honey Babe Blues” by Blue Highway banjo player Jason Burleson. So I put them all together in a set and rounded out the new music with a song from East Tennessee’s Beth Snapp, a friend and frequent collaborator with the BH boys. Other new music comes from Appalachian Road Show, with a truly thrilling song “Won’t Be Long” featuring Victor Furtado on clawhammer banjo and a show-opening collab between Tony Trischka and The Steeldrivers. Finally, check out the old Opry-style Tennessee string band picking from Sumner County old-time band The Luggnutts, who claim descendants of the early WSM band the Possum Hunters.

The easy thing to do would have been to launch a typical “bluegrass” show on WMOT, like so many blocks of acoustic music on public radio stations around the country. In the winter of 2022, I wanted to do something more unique, and I’d recently met old-time fiddler and singer Amy Alvey. We talked about a show that took advantage of her history with old-time music and mine with bluegrass, and the idea was we’d teach and learn from each other, sometimes right there on the air. This special episode celebrates that ethos as we head toward our fourth anniversary in March of next year. You’ll hear songs and artists she’s discovered during our time together – folks like banjo player Jim Mills, and Hall of Fame band the Country Gentlemen. And you’ll hear old-time artists I’ve fallen for, such as Pharis and Jason Romero and NC picker and singer Daniel Ullom. I hope you’re discovering new traditional Americana along with us. And may our mutual appreciation society endure for many more years.

Banjo player Gena Britt grew up in North Carolina and found her way into the bluegrass business with a run of cool bands: Petticoat Junction, New Vintage, Lou Reid & Carolina and Alan Bibey & Grasstowne, plus a spell leading her own Gena Britt Band. Now she’s one of the two founding members of all-woman supergroup Sister Sadie, but she keeps up with her own music too. And that led, on Nov. 7, to the release of Streets, Rivers, Dreams & Heartaches, her second album as a leader. In support are: John Meador on guitar, Alan Bartram on bass, Jonathan Dillon on mandolin, Jason Carter on fiddle, and Jeff Partin on reso-guitar. We noticed that she’s not the only Sadie Sister releasing new music, so we have a block including the band’s founding fiddler Deanie Richardson wailing away with Kimber Ludiker, 2024 IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year Jaelee Roberts, and band alum Dale Ann Bradley. Also this hour, new gospel from Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, progressive fiddling from Darol Anger with Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, and a new album from multi-instrumentalist trad man Clinton Davis.