Arts and Entertainment

Leslie Jordan, the Nolensville, TN-based songwriter not the late comic actor and singer, makes a major statement in her pivot from a robust career in Christian folk/pop to storytelling Americana with The Agonist. It’s a song cycle that fleshes out the story of her late grandfather, a conflicted and complex man who left his family in Indiana when Leslie’s mother was four years old. Through a unique collaboration with a collection of his posthumous journals and writings, she builds a world and a character, holding him accountable while investing his story with dignity. It’s beautifully produced with Kenneth Pattengale and is one of the most impressive albums of 2025.

The dust has settled from a busy September in and beyond Nashville, so we thought it was a good time to revisit Americanafest through the lens of photographer John Partipilo. He’s one of the greatest photojournalists in the South, and when he’s not putting himself in harm’s way to get shots of high-pressure events, he sometimes joins our production family to make memories for the artists and the fans - on stage and backstage, as you’ll see. We’ll bite off a day at a time as we cover the great artists who graced the stage of Riverside Revival between Sept. 10-12.

WSM, the radio station that enshrined the name of “Music City USA” and that spawned every key first in Nashville’s world-changing music industry, turned 100 years old on Sunday, Oct. 5. A special edition of the Grand Ole Opry marked the anniversary with artists from the Americana fold and a focus on WSM’s legacy of great radio announcers.

Shawn Camp arrived in Nashville almost 40 years ago as a 20-year-old guitar picker and fiddle player hoping to find a niche. As he graduated from touring sideman to songwriter to respected recording artist, he found himself working with his heroes. He quietly became an avatar of traditional country music and bluegrass done right. His work with Guy Clark was especially potent, and at long last, their song cycle about a fascinating character from Camp’s youth, has been released on the new concept album The Ghost Of Sis Draper.

In Chattanooga, TN last week, Billy Strings wrapped up an intimate duo tour with guitar hero Bryan Sutton and launched another stretch of his ongoing mega-tour with his versatile jamgrass band. Amid that, he delivered a keynote address to the IBMA World of Bluegrass that solidified his position as a leader and an ambassador of the music’s core traditions. Craig Havighurst was there and has this analysis.

Arena-filling guitar star Billy Strings won his fourth Entertainer of the Year prize at the 36th annual IBMA Awards, which were held for the first time in Chattanooga, TN. While fiddlers Michael Cleveland and Jason Carter’s collaborative album took three trophies. Women enjoyed historic success in the night’s instrumentalist of the year categories.

The grown-up musical game of Choose Your Own Adventure that is Americanafest has come and gone for 2025, and I for one feel like a winner. I paced myself, hydrated, and kept mileage and traffic to a minimum. Maybe I’m learning something at last, after 25 of these carnivals. If there was an overarching theme, I didn’t sense it. I saw hundreds of artists keeping it real, working hard, and making new fans and allies. Here’s some of what I saw and loved.

The 24th Americana Music Honors & Awards took place Wednesday night at the Ryman Auditorium. Powerhouse vocalist and songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff won a surprise Album of the Year. Sierra Ferrell accepted Artist of the Year in absentia. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings returned to the winner’s circle. And Lifetime Achievement Awards went to Darrell Scott, Joe Henry, the Old 97’s, and the McCrary Sisters, who delivered the most emotional performance of the night.

Rodney Crowell let it slip in the middle of this interview that it was the eve of his 75th birthday. One of America’s greatest (and most commercially successful) songwriters is now three quarters of a century old, a steady patriarch. He continues to do excellent work, evidenced by two fine albums in a row, 2023’s The Chicago Sessions and the brand new Airline Highway. In both cases he collaborated with younger producers and musicians, spreading his wisdom around and drawing on their ideas and spirit. In his second appearance on The String, Crowell talks about maintaining his writing discipline, working with Jeff Tweedy and Tyler Bryant, and waking up to Louisiana R&B music as a teenager.

With Americanafest 2025 roaring through Nashville this week like the streamlined mad dog cyclone train in Guy Clark’s “Texas 1947,” our music journalist Craig Havighurst looks past the proven stars to the upstarts, newcomers, change agents, returning veterans, and fun stuff as an alt-alt-guide to the festivities ahead.