Arts and Entertainment

For its 38th annual conference, Folk Alliance International returned to New Orleans, home of their largest-ever event (2020’s draw of 3,600 people) and the epicenter of one of the nation’s great regional roots music legacies. Besides a slate of Louisiana talent in blues, Cajun and zydeco, FAI was once again distinguished by diversity of style, genre, and nationality. Craig captured conversations with showcasing artists Joy Clark, Tyler Ramsey & Carl Broemel, Sparrow Smith, Maisy Owen, and Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light.

Nashville musicians comprise a brotherhood and sisterhood like no other, and on Sunday, hundreds of them and their loved ones gathered at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to remember and pay respect to pedal steel guitar player and music scholar Pete Finney, who died on Feb. 7 at 70 years old. They packed the 215 seats in the Ford Theater while at least another hundred people listened to music and memories over speakers in the Hall’s atrium.

Kristina Train is a singer and songwriter who should be on more people’s radar. Her remarkable resume was built in the jazz world (Blue Note Records and touring with Herbie Hancock), but the Savannah, GA native has always shown a seductive strain of country soul. That goes explicit on the powerful yet subtle 2025 album County Line. Craig speaks with Train about her critically acclaimed albums of the 2010s and her decade or so as a Nashvillian.

Mavis Staples and the folk supergroup I’m With Her were validated as the class of the Americana field at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, while the prime time broadcast sidelined roots music just when Americans need it most. Interest in folk, hard country, and bluegrass seem on the rise in the marketplace, but you wouldn’t know it from the almost eight hours of ceremony split between an afternoon online segment and what’s now known to be CBS’s final network broadcast of the Recording Academy’s signature event.

Just over two hours from Nashville, the north Alabama town of Muscle Shoals and its nearby communities became an unlikely but ultra-rich musical wellspring in the 1960s. And seems to have made history in every decade since, right up to today. A new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and a huge new book offer fans of American music two ways into this dynamic and soulful story.

Rachael Price became an American fixture as the dynamic and flawless lead singer of roots/pop phenomenon Lake Street Dive. Long before she and the Dive were headlining Madison Square Garden, she was a Hendersonville, TN native pursuing a career in classic jazz, after her girlhood idol Ella Fitzgerald. This is the story of how a music school friend - guitarist, singer, and songwriter Vilray - helped her build a parallel life pursuing her first musical love. They have incredible chemistry on and off stage, as you’ll hear in this fascinating interview.

To say that a lot has happened since Molly Tuttle last appeared on The String in 2019 would be an understatement. She’s won two Grammy Awards and been nominated for two more. She won her first IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year Award, to go along with her two groundbreaking Guitar Player trophies. But most important, she’s been through two entire stylistic swings in her musical vision and recording career. And she got engaged to Ketch Secor. So we cover a lot of ground in our latest conversation.

Last year, The String got a new opening theme tune. “Vera” comes from New York based mandolin virtuoso, composer and band leader Jacob Jolliff. The Oregon native came East when he got a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music. He’s worked for some big-league bands including Joy Kills Sorrow and Yonder Mountain String Band, but in this decade he’s found an audience for his own four-piece Jacob Jolliff Band. We talk about building the audience for instrumental, improvisational acoustic music and about select pieces from Jake’s fascinating discography.

As we get started with 2026 and wait for the new musical delights it will bring, we consider some unfinished business from last year. For example, Los Angeles country singer and songwriter Grey DeLisle had a big 2025. Last spring, she released her ambitious double LP The Grey Album. Then in October came an album she conceived and executive produced. It’s All Her Fault: A Tribute To Cindy Walker is a magical collection of songs by the Country Music Hall of Famer, recorded by some of today’s finest female country voices. Before the holiday rush, she spoke with WMOT about both projects and her highly varied career.

Ashley Monroe moved to Nashville just after 10th grade from East Tennessee with a single-minded drive to sing and write country music. Her career would be the envy of many - including Grammy nominations, several major label albums, and Pistol Annies, an influential supergroup - and yet many in roots music haven’t recognized her as among the greats of our time. Following recovery from blood cancer, Monroe reached deep into herself, producing her most ambitious and daring project yet, Tennessee Lightning.