Arts and Entertainment

Her name is made of flowers. And she’s been spreading bouquets of joy and open-hearted country and rockabilly for more than 50 years. She is Rosie Flores, sounding great and enjoying the stage as much as she ever has as she cruised past her 75th birthday during Americanafest 2025. A couple days after that, we sat down to talk about her (outstandingly) supportive parents, the Los Angeles alt-country scene of the 1980s and 90s, and her new album Impossible Frontiers.

Raul Malo, perhaps the finest singer to ever champion Pan-American roots music, has died at age 60 following a brutal battle with cancer. The Mavericks, formed in Miami in 1989, shook up the country music business in the 1990s with its classic influences and timeless songwriting. And despite two breaks, they came back as one of the greatest live acts of the last 20 years. Malo also made more than a dozen solo albums and contributed to key projects. Craig Havighurst filed this appreciation.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the Mavericks and a huge lineup of Americana stars danced the night away, playing songs in tribute to the band's founder and lead singer Raul Malo. As he faced down late stage cancer from a hospital room, the community rallied to send a message of love, appreciation and gratitude. Guest writer John Walker of Music City roots sent this report from night two at the Ryman Auditorium. (Update: Raul Malo died at home just before 9 pm on Monday. A full appreciation is forthcoming.)

What Chet Atkins was to Nashville country, what Jerry Garcia was to West Coast rock, Steve Cropper was to Memphis and the foundations of Southern soul - a key architect of an American sound that changed the world. The legendary guitar player - a member of the Roll Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame - died Wednesday at age 84.

Daniel Donato became one of Nashville’s more revered electric guitar players during his three years playing four nights a week at Robert’s Western World on Lower Broadway. When he lost that gig in 2015, he had to start from scratch as a working musician and songwriting artist. In his second appearance on The String, Donato talks about landing some touring band gigs that sustained him while he developed his Cosmic Country concept. The band and his repute grew, and ten years after leaving Broadway, he headlined the Ryman Auditorium. Also on the table here, his two recent albums, Reflector and Horizons.

Since co-founding the history-making, history-preserving North Mississippi Allstars almost 30 years ago, Luther Dickinson has taken his guitar, his deep blues repertoire, and his Memphis soul around the world and into all kinds of collaborations. In his latest return to The String, we talk about the nature of improvising and some of his recent experimental and instrumental projects, plus the 2025 Allstars album Still Rollin’, marking the 25th anniversary of the band’s debut album.

As the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys emerged as one of the most in-demand and important bluegrass bands of the past 10 years, its founding mandolinist C.J. Lewandowski didn’t focus only on the group’s art and career. C.J., now 38, became an avid collector and caretaker of music history, a board member of the International Bluegrass Music Association, and a record producer. All of those pursuits informed his latest project, a special one for the genre, because Keep On Keepin’ On is the final studio album by bluegrass Hall of Fame singer and mandolin player Bobby Osborne.

Todd Snider left a remarkable legacy of recordings and performances that ensure his art will live on in our collective memory. Some of that was for WMOT, where he was a fast friend and collaborator. We’ve assembled some of his best moments from our coverage and events.

Todd Snider, one of the most admired and whimsical songwriters to ever call Nashville home, died on Friday, Nov 14 after a health crisis suffered while on tour for the new album High, Lonesome, And Then Some. Sometimes called the Mayor of East Nashville, he was a free spirit, an irresistible barefoot troubadour, and a masterful lyricist who could dissect modern life’s absurdities and tell vivid stories that could be melancholy and hilarious. Craig Havighurst offers this appreciation.

Robert Randolph had no plans or dreams to take his fiery talents on the pedal steel guitar beyond the New Jersey church where he grew up and the network of pentecostal Black churches around the country that made the “sacred steel” a core part of their services. But his passionate sound and his joyful improvisational spirit were a perfect match for the jam/rock scene of the early 2000s. He’s been a steady contributor ever since, through wide collaborations and a string of albums with his “Family Band.” Now he’s leading the band under his own name and he has a fabulous new record on the revitalized Sun Records.