Arts and Entertainment

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.

Texas icon and rocking country songwriter Joe Ely died on Dec. 15, at the age of 78. Besides a robust, international solo career, he was part of the legendary band The Flatlanders with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. He was a core artist from the dawn of the Americana format. Here, author and Grammy-winning producer Tamara Saviano, a long-time friend of Joe, shares a personal profile of a force of nature.

Duos and special projects dominate our list of favorite traditional acoustic Americana in 2025. Of course I mean Amy Alvey and myself, hosts of The Old Fashioned on WMOT. Just as we love collaborating on our show and on this annual list, collaboration is a hallmark of string band culture. So topping off our Old Fashioned Dozen are four projects that brought artists with interesting histories together, in some cases in unique and historically significant locations.

The heart and soul of Roots Radio is our playlist. And as we are fond of reminding you during our fund drives, we don't play singles over and over, opting instead for breadth and variety. So it's always fascinating to see what songs became most frequently spun during the year. That's what this list is about - 2025's Most Played Songs on WMOT.

When we love an album, we go deep, listening beyond the singles and going our own way, like we do. This year, we gave the most on-air love to Hayes Carll, Paul Thorn, Alison Krauss, Molly Tuttle, and Larkin Poe. Here's our list of the top album spins on WMOT 89.5 FM in 2025, plus a link to Listener's Choice Voting (that's you), which opens today!

For nine years here at WMOT, I’ve been proud and privileged to select and remark on thirty albums from the closing year that meet several criteria. Some made national news and did well on the Americana radio chart or at the various roots music awards. Some were critically and popularly acclaimed and just obviously excellent. And others have been records I felt were under-rated but special and worthy of more attention. Typically here in these remarks, I’ve dwelt on what I mean by Essential and Outstanding. This year, I want to go deeper on that other key element: Americana.

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.