Arts and Entertainment

Arena-packing star Billy Strings was named IBMA Entertainer Of The Year for the fifth time at the 37th annual IBMA Awards in Chattanooga on Thursday. More surprising was the ascent of East Nash Grass with two major trophies in Album and Instrumental Group of the Year. Other winners included singer Jaelee Roberts, fiddler Andy Leftwich, Vocal Group Authentic Unlimited, and bass veteran Mike Bub.

The name taken in 1984 by the Nashville Bluegrass Band was obvious, even audacious. But the quintet more than lived up to it, helping to define the sound of their namesake genre like few other bands of the 80s and 90s, propelled by the compelling lead vocal pair of Alan O’Bryant and Pat Enright. This week in Chattanooga, the NBB will be formally inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, but Enright won’t be there, as he passed away in August. Craig offers an appreciation of the singer and the band.

The Deslondes, named for the street in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans where they lived back in the day, has been one of Americana’s most impressive and creative bands for more than a decade. While fully committed to that ongoing project, their gravel-voiced baritone singer and writer Riley Downing has taken his most impressive step yet as a solo artist with Landfill Poetry on Oh Boy Records. He speaks with The String about his late break into folk music, record collecting, and yes, that job he had on a garbage truck.

Be part of our Public Radio Music Day playlist, submit up to 10 of your favorite songs about our Tennessee home.

Laurelyn Dossett, contemporary folk singer and songwriter from North Carolina, has had her songs recorded by Levon Helm and the Carolina Chocolate Drops. But her work as an artist over the past 20 years has been more regionally bound. Now with the new album How Many Moons, produced in Durham with Hiss Golden Messenger’s MC Taylor, Dossett emerges as one of the best veteran songwriters you may not have heard of.

Roots music tells its story to the world mostly through its leading festivals like this weekend’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Telluride, and Merlefest. But the music wouldn’t be around with a story to tell decade after decade without organic support at the literal grass roots, and in that realm, few were as effective and genuine as John Murray “Hippie Jack” Stoddart, Jr., who died on Sept. 25 at his home in Crawford, TN.

In the late 1990s, Bryan Sutton was a young phenom who dropped jaws across the country as the lead guitarist in Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. And he was more than a flash in the pan, becoming the most in-demand studio session acoustic guitar player in Nashville and a ten-time IBMA Guitar Player of the Year. The latest in his string of solo recordings is an anthology of guitar duos with friends, peers, and heroes that he’s recorded on his own over two decades.

Americanafest 2026 threw a lot at us over five days last week. Our rambling writer Craig sensed a new trend in country singing and it led to some gorgeous and dramatic sets with ties to history, he reports.

The 25th annual Americana Honors Awards opened with an authentically historic American rock and roll reunion of The Heartbreakers and ended with a first-time Artist of the Year award for progressive acoustic guitarist and songwriter Molly Tuttle. Dolly Parton and Robert Plant also received Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Buddy Miller is the most awarded musician in the history of the Americana Music Association, with two Artist of the Year trophies, three Albums of the Year, and the lifetime achievement Wagonmaster Award. That’s a lot of attention on one humble man. But he’s worn his ambassador status for the format with distinction as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer. On the eve of Americanafest 2026, Miller released his first solo album in fifteen years. The self-titled set made a perfect occasion to bring Buddy on The String for a lifetime-spanning chat.