Arts and Entertainment

Devon Gilfillian has been a key artist fulfilling the promise of a New Music City - a Nashville that’s been welcome to the widest ever range of genres, influences and innovations. He came to town with no contacts and a job with AmeriCorps in 2013. But before very long he’d landed a major label deal and national radio hits - all with an iconoclastic take on soul, funk and Americana. His newest album - his second for the prestigious Fantasy Records - is a beautiful grooving swirl called Time Will Tell.

The Telluride Bluegrass Festival launched in 1974 as an out-of-the-way town party for locals on the Fourth of July. A year later, they reached out to a promising Kentucky band called New Grass Revival, setting in motion a musical revelation and revolution. In the decades since, Colorado’s loftiest roots music fest has been the stage where old and new bluegrass have coexisted and fed one another. Craig was able to get out for the 53rd annual event, and he filed this report.

Songwriter and artist Tenille Townes is a certified star in Canada where she’s won heaps of awards and seen her moving songs top the country charts. In over a dozen years in Nashville, she’s been an impressive songwriter with one foot in major label country and another in Americana. Now with a lovely self-produced acoustic album called The Acrobat, Townes points to an independent future with a unique vision and a renewed sense of self.

Folk rocker John R. Miller can be dry and understated, but get beneath the surface and you’ll find an artist keen to write music that helps people be better people. Inspired by John Prine and others, the Nashville based West Virginian has earned widespread acclaim and released three albums for the prestigious Rounder Records, the latest being the sweeping and fiery The Great Unknowning. He spoke with Craig at his Madison home studio.

Country Hall of Famer Don Williams enjoyed some of his most successful and productive years in the late 70s and early 80s, and now his son Tim Williams has unearthed some never-heard master recordings from that era. He and Don’s longtime producer Garth Fundis have enhanced and enriched those performances with contemporary tracks to make the new album Epilogue: The Cellar Tapes. They spoke with Craig Havighurst at Williams’s favorite studio about this special release.

Andy Leftwich was a Tennessee string picking prodigy who crushed it at fiddle competitions and was working by his late teens. Then, before he turned twenty, he was offered a job (on stage no less) by legend Ricky Skaggs. For 15 years with Kentucky Thunder, he built a reputation as one of the most complete and technically gifted musicians in bluegrass, sharing in numerous IBMA and Grammy Awards. Now, after a few years of being independent, he’s fired up his solo career with two enthralling instrumental albums.

Since arriving years ago from his hometown of Toronto, Frank Evans has put a stamp on Nashville’s storied bluegrass scene like few others in such a short time. Deft and original on both Scruggs-style bluegrass and old-time clawhammer playing, he’s been a versatile and in-demand sideman. Now he’s getting set to release his first solo album as a leader, full of original instrumentals and creatively unearthed songs from the deep catalog of roots music.

The table was set on Thursday for this Fall’s 25th annual Americana Honors and Awards with nominations across the awards’ five categories. Those looking for patterns or breakout acts won’t find them, with recognition being widely spread.

We love it when great things happen to good people, especially when the story is a total surprise, and that’s what’s been going on with Alabama-raised singer and songwriter Kashus Culpepper. He’d never been on a stage or played the guitar before 2020, but a confluence of free time, an encouraging group of friends, and a timely instrument helped Kashus find his voice and his calling. He’s been celebrated by the media and stars like Elton John, and his debut album Act 1 has surprised many with its depth and power.

It seemed like a good time to spotlight some of the best bluegrass, old-time and folk albums from Nashville and nearby that have been released so far this year. Craig reviews key acoustic recordings by Thomm Jutz, Jarrod Walker, Paper Wings, Sierra Hull, Daniel Grindstaff, Ed Snodderly, Jim Hurst and the second collaborative record by Jim Lauderdale and the Po' Ramblin' Boys. All can be heard on The Old Fashioned, airing Saturdays at 9 am and Tuesdays at 8 pm.