A Grammy-winning banjo player on why nothing he does comes naturally.

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Graham Sharp helped redefine modern bluegrass as the banjo engine of the Grammy-winning Steep Canyon Rangers. On his second solo album, How Did We Do It, he trades the band's high-octane drive for something closer to a porch swing: songs about marriage, endurance, and the unglamorous work behind a creative life. He talks about finding his own voice inside a tradition that rewards repetition, what two decades beside Steve Martin taught him about preparation, and a title track written as a plain love letter to his wife. What does a life in music ask of the people who help build it?

🎵 Graham Sharp's latest: How Did We Do It (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
1:37 Asheville After Hurricane Helene
6:02 Boulder, eTown, and the Bluegrass Family Tree
7:30 Finding Your Own Voice in a Tradition
9:00 Bluegrass as a Door, Not a Cage
10:30 The Early-2000s Bluegrass Resurgence
14:30 Leading the Band Through Change
18:57 What Steve Martin Taught Him About Work
28:34 The Solo Album: How Did We Do It
30:13 A Love Letter to His Wife
33:32 Songwriting and First Impressions
36:07 Twenty Years of Marriage on the Road
38:31 Empty Nesting and the Next Chapter
41:11 Where He Wants to Be
43:01 60 Seconds of Curiosity

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

For two siblings, love songs are off limits, so they write about loss, faith, and family instead.

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Ryan Williams and Kaylee Bowling caught up with Jason from opposite coasts, Ryan settled into Nashville's session-player world, Kaylee tucked into Washington's Olympic Peninsula finishing a graduate degree in theological studies. Ten years after their debut, the pair revisited Letters Kept to Ourselves for an anniversary re-release, adding a song they almost left off the record the first time around. They talk through the strange math of sibling harmony, the mother they lost and the song that became a way of carrying her, and the pub session in Ireland that convinced them this could actually be a band. What do you do with a shared history when you're no longer in the same room to write it?

🎵 The Native Sibling's latest: Letters Kept to Ourselves (10th Anniversary Edition, 2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome and New Year Check-In
0:41 Meet Ryan Williams and Kaylee Bowling of The Native Sibling
3:03 Kaylee's Single "Rest Is the Right" and Exploring Faith
4:00 Revisiting Letters Kept to Ourselves for the 10th Anniversary
8:08 Sibling Harmony and the Evolution of Their Voices
10:12 What the Album Means to Them Today
12:52 "Here With Me": A Song Written for Their Mother
16:38 The Challenges and Gifts of Making Music as Siblings
21:00 "Darkest of Night Skies" and the Spirit of Johnny Appleseed
25:49 The Irish Pub Where It All Started
28:55 Current Projects: Session Work and Grad School
33:42 Faith, Doubt, and Finding a Voice Beyond Certainty
42:40 Where They Want to Be as Artists
43:34 60 Seconds of Curiosity

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com   🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts   📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

She built a career on heartbreak songs. Then she got happy, and had to find something new to say.

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Liz Longley sat on her porch and cried through a postpartum depression she never saw coming, then turned it into songs. At the 30A Songwriters Festival, the Berklee-trained writer talks with Jason about going independent, raising six figures from fans to buy her own music back, and what happens to a songwriter who spent years mining her failed love life once she finally finds happiness. Her album New Life traces motherhood, gratitude, and the worry of raising a child in an uncertain world. What does an artist write about when the heartbreak runs out?

🎵 Liz Longley's latest: New Life (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
0:44 Recharging Around Other Artists at 30A
1:38 The TED Talk in Reno
2:44 How Motherhood Changed Everything
5:03 The New Album, New Life
6:51 What She Worries About for Her Daughter
7:49 Learning to Write at Berklee
9:29 Writing for Connection
10:14 Running Out of Heartbreak Songs
11:39 The Songs She Loves to Sing Live
12:49 Releasing "Wake You Up"
14:35 Kickstarter, Patreon, and the Lizards
17:11 Where She Is as an Artist
17:55 60 Seconds of Curiosity
19:05 AI and the Future of Artistry

📊 FREE REPORT: Read the State of Music summary

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

A married duo who recorded their new album onstage, one stitched-together take at a time.

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Kassie and Ben Wilson have been married fifteen years and make music as Goldpine, a Nashville duo whose harmonies come from a partnership built onstage and off. They talk about writing from raw, unglamorous honesty, playing the Bluebird for an Alive Hospice benefit after Kassie's mother passed, and why they have never wanted a place in the Christian music industry even as faith runs through everything they do. Their new album Three was pieced together from live recordings, a verse from one show and a chorus from another. What holds a marriage and a band together when the plan is to keep changing?

🎵 Goldpine's latest: Three (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
0:46 Fifteen Years Married, and What They Admire in Each Other
3:48 Music as Ministry
6:46 Why Not the Christian Music Industry
8:00 Honesty, Shame, and Talking About Addiction
10:52 The Bluebird and an Alive Hospice Benefit
13:34 "Alabama Born" and Growing Up in the Country
17:03 The Pull of Brandi Carlisle
19:59 "Lean Into the Turns" with Radney Foster
21:31 Inside Their Songwriting Process
24:01 "Confessions" and the Cell Phone
25:39 Recording an Album Onstage
27:55 The Three Tour
29:53 Where They Are, and Where They Want to Go
33:00 60 Seconds of Curiosity

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

He hated being called a Rising Star. Twenty years in, he finally stopped chasing it.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Griffin House sits down with Jason at the 30A Songwriters Festival, a stretch of Florida coast he has been coming to since he was eleven. He talks about the documentary that followed his early grind: the van, the merch box, the nights playing to forty people, and the title "Rising Star" he never wanted. Two decades and more than a dozen albums later, he has traded the hunger of a young artist for something quieter, three songs a year, sobriety, and a front-row seat to his daughter finding her own voice. What happens to an artist when the striving finally stops?

🎵 Griffin House's latest: Summer Dream (2024)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
0:45 Why 30A Feels Like Home
2:44 The Pride Of Springfield, Ohio
5:09 Busking In Cincinnati
6:26 Revisiting The Rising Star Documentary
8:01 The Grind And The Empty Room
10:35 Watching His Daughter Find Her Voice
11:16 The Title He Never Wanted
12:04 Writing Three Songs A Year
16:02 Songwriting As Therapy
17:15 Living Through The Industry's Shift
18:45 Getting Sober And Staying There
20:39 Present As A Husband And Father
22:10 60 Seconds of Curiosity
26:13 The Song For His Grandfather
30:12 Live Performance: "I Remember"
35:35 Live Performance: "The Guy That Says Goodbye To You Is Out Of His Mind"

📊 FREE REPORT: The state of music in the age of AI and streaming → State of Music summary

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

One show stole her confidence. The other gave it back tenfold.

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Jacquie Roar wrote her anthem "That's the Spirit" miserable and running on no sleep the morning after karaoke, because the Curb session was booked and she showed up anyway. The North Plains, Oregon singer talks with Jason English about her four-chair turn on The Voice, the six months away from her daughter, and why she's building a career from the Pacific Northwest instead of moving to Nashville. She's candid about an earlier reality show that nearly made her quit music for good, and about the relationship she had to leave before she could write her next single, "Other Side." With a debut album taking shape from songs cut in a Joshua Tree mansion, she's chasing something bigger than a zip code. What does success look like when you refuse to choose between motherhood and the stage?

🎵 Jacquie Roar's latest single: "That's the Spirit" (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
1:26 The New Single and an Album Taking Shape
4:04 From Karaoke Nights to The Voice
9:22 Life During the Six-Month Taping
12:51 The American Idol Experience
22:08 Real Talk and Dinner With Reba
31:40 The Steal and the Battle With Bias
36:53 Learning to Write With Others
41:46 "Other Side" and Getting Out
47:05 Motherhood and Breaking the Cycle
51:32 60 Seconds of Curiosity
53:26 Nashville, Oregon, and Shining Brighter

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

He co-wrote Jimmy Buffett's last song while Buffett was sick. Buffett wanted him to be himself.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Will Kimbrough has spent more than three decades as the musician other musicians call, anchoring Emmylou Harris's band and producing Grammy-nominated records for Shemekia Copeland. On this episode he sits with Jason English on the Gulf Coast to talk about his 2024 solo album For the Life of Me and the song "Bubbles Up," which he co-wrote for Jimmy Buffett's final record while Buffett was in treatment. He describes the trust that let him stop imitating and start sounding like himself, and why the energy in a live room still matters more than anything digital. He's just as moved by writing songs with veterans and trauma survivors as by sharing a stage with legends. After a lifetime as the man beside the stars, where does a long-time artist place himself?

🎵 Will Kimbrough's latest: For the Life of Me (2024)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
1:16 What Keeps Him Coming Back to 30A
2:20 Take a Chance on Live Music
5:20 The Bob Dylan Movie and a Snapshot in Time
8:22 Emmylou Harris and the Grievous Angel
15:41 A Grammy-Nominated Year
20:00 First Songwriting Nod for "Blame It on Eve"
23:42 Jimmy Buffett and the Trust to Be Himself
30:00 The Meaning Behind "Bubbles Up"
31:31 Paul McCartney Hears the Song
33:42 60 Seconds of Curiosity
36:00 Songwriting With Soldiers
40:21 Where He's Going as an Artist
48:35 Live Performance: "Bubbles Up"
54:00 Live Performance: "For the Life of Me"

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

She made a 22-song breakup record. Then she told her co-writers: no more sad songs.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Twinnie grew up in a traveler family in North Yorkshire, did musical theater and soap operas, and now writes country songs in Nashville as a self-described outsider. On this episode she tells Jason English why authenticity matters more than genre rules, and why being British in country music is a superpower rather than a hurdle. After pouring a decade-long breakup into her 22-song independent project Something We Used to Say, she's turning the frequency up with the single "Worst Kind of Crush" and a forthcoming Happy Hour EP. She's blunt about the masculine energy it takes to run an independent career and the depth she wants over surface-level noise. What happens when you decide you're done being sad before the sad songs are even old?

🎵 Twinnie's latest: the single "Worst Kind of Crush," leading her forthcoming Happy Hour EP

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
1:00 Nashville, England, and North Yorkshire Roots
3:15 The Grammys and Country's Shifting Boundaries
9:29 "Worst Kind of Crush" and the Happy Hour Era
14:07 "Something We Used to Say" and Going Independent
19:28 The Folklore Comparison and Building a World
22:08 "Bad Man" and Why We Date Bad Boys
26:00 Masculine Versus Feminine Energy
29:28 Dating Icks and Old-Fashioned Values
31:00 60 Seconds of Curiosity
40:02 Ted Lasso and Being Yourself

📊 FREE REPORT: Our research on how artists really make money in the age of AI and streaming → State of Music summary

📬 NEWSLETTER: Stories behind the episodes, in your inbox → Subscribe free

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

At 17 he plays the blues like an old soul, and refuses to fake the wisdom.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

At the 30A Songwriters Festival, 17-year-old Jack Barksdale talks about playing lead guitar for Guthrie Kennard, the Fort Worth scene that raised him, and the advice that stuck: stop trying to play someone else's blues and play your own. He is signed to Truly Handmade, the label tied to Guy Clark's estate, and was deep into recording the album that became Voices with producer Mike Meadows. He holds up Townes Van Zandt as both a hero and a warning, and explains why he will not write wisdom he has not lived. What does it cost a young artist to stay honest when everyone wants to talk about his age?

🎵 Jack Barksdale's latest: Voices (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome to Curious Goldfish
0:43 How Jack Got on the Show: Lindi Ortega and Jacob Furr
2:11 Inside the Fort Worth Music Scene
3:47 Guthrie Kennard and Playing Your Own Blues
7:15 Writing Honestly at 17
11:28 Songwriter or Musician?
13:41 Where He Is, Where He Wants to Be
17:08 Townes Van Zandt and the Cautionary Tale
19:00 The Truly Handmade Label and a New Album
21:00 60 Seconds of Curiosity
23:52 Live Performance: "The Willing Kind"

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

On camera, a picture-perfect family band. Off camera, a daughter planning her way out.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Jessica Willis Fisher sat down with Jason at the 30A Songwriter Festival and described crying on stage mid-song while her family band kept smiling for the cameras. Once the centerpiece of The Willis Clan, known from America's Got Talent and a TLC reality show, she spent years inside what she calls a closed system before reclaiming her voice through her memoir Unspeakable and her solo debut Brand New Day. She talks about the 700 Club interview that still makes her angry to watch, the husband who modeled a way out without forcing it, and a faith she is still sorting through on her own terms. If nearly everything you were raised to believe turned out to be a cage, what do you carry forward?

🎵 Jessica Willis Fisher's latest: Brand New Day (2022)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome at the 30A Songwriter Festival
3:47 Where the New Music Stands
5:25 Beyond "Brand New Day"
7:47 Where She Is as an Artist Today
8:48 The Memoir "Unspeakable"
13:00 The Gap Between Image and Reality
15:26 The 700 Club Interview
20:13 Faith Then and Now
23:00 Fundamentalism and the Closed System
29:37 Glimmers in the Dark
30:16 Sean and the Trapdoor Out
35:43 Making Meaning From the Pain
39:39 The Power Has Shifted
41:30 60 Seconds of Curiosity
43:30 Live Performance: "Dogwood"
47:15 Live Performance: "Honest"

📊 FREE REPORT: Grab the State of Music summary

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ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast