The String

Episode 371: Buddy Miller is the most awarded musician in the history of the Americana Music Association, with two Artist of the Year trophies, three Albums of the Year, and the lifetime achievement Wagonmaster Award. That's a lot of attention on one humble man. But he's worn his ambassador status for the format with distinction as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer. On the eve of Americanafest 2026, Miller released his first solo album in fifteen years. The self-titled set made a perfect occasion to bring Buddy on The String for a lifetime-spanning chat.

Episode 370: A decade after her national breakout as a top alt-country visionary, more than two decades after her move to Nashville and her long, grueling apprenticeship in Music City, Margo Price is one of Americana music's leading stars and cultural voices. She's sung protest songs at Newport with Joan Baez and joined the board of Farm Aid, where she's a veteran performer. Now she's released the first political album of her career. Craig sits down with Margo to talk about her life in Nashville and her new Days Of Unrest.

Episode 369: In his almost 20 years of recording Americana music in Nashville, 39-year-old Sean Sullivan has earned a reputation for impeccable recording and mixing of quality instruments, be they antique acoustic or classic electric. Working since the pandemic out of the Tractor Shed in Goodlettsville, he's accumulated five Grammy Awards and immense respect in the bluegrass and Americana communities. We talk about the art of capturing great musicians and about working with Sturgill Simpson, Del McCoury, Molly Tuttle and others.

Episode 368: He's one of Music City's most respected "multi-hyphenate" music-makers - an artist-singer-songwriter-picker-producer who's had his hand in scores of hit records while releasing much-admired albums of his own over a 20 year career in town. Craig regards him as a "Music Row whisperer," a guy with his finger on the pulse of the industry and a well-rooted point of view in the music he makes. He returns to the String with the new album Once Upon A Second Time Around and, though he didn't know it at the time, a new Grand Ole Opry member trophy.

Episode 367: One of the stars of Nashville's recent honky tonk boom first found her muse playing in late night jazz clubs of New York and Paris. That set Sweet Megg apart when she moved here just after the pandemic - a flair for early blues and hot club swing. In Music City, she's also developed as a songwriter releasing stylish Americana fare, but she continues to mine the catalog for golden nuggets she can make her own, as on her latest Massive Negroni.

Episode 366: In The Hour Of Chaos, Allison Russell's third solo album, brings the power of harmony and solidarity into a time of division and fear. In an interview days before its release, the songwriter says her "rainbow coalition" of collaborators has grown since her breakout album Outside Child of 2021, and many of them, including Brittany Spencer, Norah Jones, and Kashus Culpepper, sing duets with her. She also gets into her foundations in folk music during her pre-Nashville years.

Episode 365: His biography sounds like several different people: accomplished jazz guitar player, New York City glam rocker, progressive Americana songwriter in Nashville. That's why Aaron Lee Tasjan comes across as a true American original. Over 13 years in Music City, Tasjan's been prolific and acclaimed, releasing half a dozen albums touching many colors of pop music. His latest came after a time of discouragement and personal re-building, so it's called Get Over It, Underdog.

Episode 364: As Avery Hellman came of age in California, she took advantage of her good fortune of being from the family that established the game-changing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco. It exposed her to standard-setting songwriting and artistry in folk and roots music, and with a bit of reluctance, she became an artist too under the name Ismay. Her two albums, Desert Pavement and the new Half Truth, are alive with a poet's ear for language and eye for landscape, plus a crafty marriage of melodies and chords. She's also the filmmaker behind the exploratory documentary Finding Lucinda, about Lucinda Williams.

Episode 363: 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.

Episode 362: 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.