Val Storey is one of those singers you discover when digging into Nashville’s layers, and you wonder how the whole world doesn’t know about her voice. She’s always been too country for the major country labels, though she’s done a lot of session harmony singing over the years. The in-crowd knows to check her out at New Mondays, the weekly Station Inn show she performs with her old friends Carl Jackson and Larry Cordle. Now Cordle has produced Storey’s first-ever solo secular album, Share Your Secrets With Me. Val and Larry came to the studio to talk about their histories and the choices that went into making one of the year’s best country records.

Vince Gill and Paul Franklin, titans of Nashville music, first recorded together in 1989 and have been friends even longer than that. Gill is of course a Country Music Hall of Famer, while Franklin is in a different Hall of Fame - for the pedal steel guitar. Over the years in the studio and on stage, they've made the most of the euphoric blend of the voice, guitar, and steel, which is where Gill says he locates the very heart of country music. Ten years ago they made Bakersfield, honoring the songs of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Now they've teamed up for Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys, a set that covers the great singer's phases from old-school honky tonk to luxurious countrypolitan. I visited Vince's home studio for a wide-ranging conversation.

Ed Snodderly is more than just an exceptional singer-songwriter. He's a culture maker and culture keeper for the rich roots music region of East Tennessee. Raised near Knoxville, he launched into music in the mid 70s as an artist and as co-founder of the iconic Down Home listening room in Johnson City, TN. His band the Brother Boys made an impact and his songs have been covered and even enshrined at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Now he's released arguably his best album, a tapestry of impressions of modern Appalachia with scintillating music called Chimney Smoke. Also in the hour, getting to know Miles Miller, the longtime drummer for Sturgill Simpson who's broken cover as a songwriter himself with the album Solid Gold.

The charts don’t matter as much as hearts and arts, but sometimes they tell a story. For 17 weeks between March and July of this year, Simple Things, the ninth album by the Band of Heathens, was in the top ten on the Americana album airplay chart, with six weeks planted at number one. So whatever else happens, it will be among the most successful releases of 2023. That’s a testament to the resilience and consistency of a band that seems to take sustenance from playing live, and a special creative partnership that formed almost two decades ago between Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist.

Brennen Leigh moved decisively beyond the pandemic and the end of a long partnership to release three remarkable albums in less than three years. They tell a story of a traditional country artist with a strong point of view and a sharp eye for character and humor. Prairie Love Letter was inspired by growing up in rural Minnesota where she developed a love for picking and singing. The western swing project Obsessed With The West taps a friendship she made with Asleep At The Wheel during her years in Austin. Her latest is old school Nashville country with Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet. Craig and Brennen talk about it all.

The story of Peter One is as warming as his music. As a young man in his native Côte d’Ivoire, he latched on to folk and country music more than most of his peers, until he met collaborator Jess Sah Bi, with whom he formed a celebrated, socially conscious duo in West Africa. Both had to leave the country due to political turmoil, and Peter One started over in the US, first in Delaware then in Nashville where he moved for a career in nursing. A rediscovery and reissue of his best African record reignited a music career that had been interrupted for 30 years, and this summer he’s everywhere from the Opry to Newport Folk Fest. I spend an hour with this kind and fascinating songwriter/guitarist.

Episode #250 of The String opens with thoughts about the seemingly divergent music genres of indie rock and folk music, because in my rambling through this year’s coolest, Americana chart-making albums, I came across a couple of fascinating artists who split the difference in their own ways. Cat Clyde is an exciting young songwriter from Canada whose current album Down Rounder impresses with its moody grace and confrontive lyrics. About the same time, Eric D. Johnson released yet another album under his moniker Fruit Bats, and in the wake of his award-winning work with folk trio Bonny Light Horseman, his bright and uplifting pop sounds downright rootsy. They split a fresh-sounding hour of the show.

One key reason that Dwight Yoakam exploded into country music consciousness in 1986 was the electric guitar and electrifying record production of his friend Pete Anderson. Anderson moved from his native Detroit to Los Angeles and found himself in a powerful partnership that changed the sound of country and sold around 25 million records. After more than 15 years, Anderson pursued his own interests, including a bluesier side of his guitar and record production in his own studio, including key Americana stars. Now he’s written a book compiling all he’s learned and realized about record production, and that became the basis of a fascinating conversation.

For all of the sardonic honky tonk music of his early albums and the more character-driven folk music from albums like Upland Stories and Gone Away Backward, Fulks can trace a strong bluegrass thread through his career. He grew up loving Doc Watson in North Carolina, picked up the banjo and flatpicked guitar as a kid, and joined the venerable bluegrass band Special Consensus as he established himself in the Chicago music scene. He’d touch on the genre here and there, but now he’s finally written and recorded Bluegrass Vacation, a 12-song collection that touches on classic themes and high lonesome textures.

Layng Martine Jr. earned a slot in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame with numerous hits for a range of artists that included Reba McEntire, The Pointer Sisters, and Elvis himself. He thought he was retired, but when his son Tucker, one of the most respected producers and recording engineers in indie music, gave his father the studio time and resources to make his first real album as an artist as he approached 80 years old, a series of sessions in Portland, OR became Music Man. It's a joyful, sunny collection that sounds like nothing else in roots music, and Layng turns out to be a sunny and charming fellow himself. We talk about arriving in Nashville in the 70s, writing Elvis's last hit, and the renewing thrill of cutting songs he'd written between 1964 and the 2000s.