Episode 197: Bay Area rock and jam hero Tim Bluhm founded The Mother Hips with Greg Loiacono 30 years ago while still students at Chico State in California. Signed right away, they made a mark with their quirky power pop and new-world psychedelia. They've had quieter phases over the decades, but now's not one of them. The team is writing a lot and working on recordings for an indie Nashville label form their Bay Area base. The latest, Glowing Lantern, helps illuminate a fascinating conversation about one of the nation's excellent cult bands.

Episode 196: The String's spotlight on the contemporary jamgrass scene continues with a career-spanning conversation with Paul Hoffman (mandolin) and Mike Devol (bass) of Greensky Bluegrass. The band formed at local bars and breweries in Kalamazoo, MI just over 20 years ago, and they've found a groove and a rapport with their instruments and audience that most bands dream of. After winning the Telluride Bluegrass Festival band contest in 2006, they've had national reach and a huge fan base. Their brand new album is Stress Dreams.

Episode 195: Aoife O'Donovan has one of the most beautiful and nuanced voices in popular music and she's deployed it in a lot of collaborative directions. She was the voice of Crooked Still for ten years. She's joined projects by Dave Douglas, the elite Goat Rodeo Sessions ensemble, the award-winning trio I'm With Her and more. Now she's back with her first solo album in six years, Age of Apathy. Also in the hour, a radio report from Citizen Vinyl, a synergistic, community-focused business in Asheville, NC that mingles record pressing, a vinyl and art store, food and drink and a recording studio - all inside the historic home of the city's newspaper.

Episode 194: Formed in the mid 2000s in Nashville, the Infamous Stringdusters executed one of roots music's most successful pivots. Their foundation was and remains traditional bluegrass music, and they have the chops to execute the real deal at any moment. But when that audience and scene proved confining, they looked west to Colorado and the broader, wider values of the jamgrass world. After touring with the leaders in that arena, they became headliners themselves, while turning out Grammy winning recordings as well. I spoke with banjo player Chris Pandolfi, dobro player Andy Hall and guitarist Andy Falco about the odyssey of the Dusters on the eve of the band's tenth album Toward The Fray, due Feb. 18.

Episode 193: From where we sit at WMOT, Allison Russell was the artist of 2021. Her album Outside Child, our most played disc, emerged in the summer to massive acclaim and it has now been nominated for three Grammy Awards. And she was tapped to curate the Sunday closing set at Newport Folk Festival, which she used to shine a light on a dozen extraordinary African American women who've found their footing in roots music and lit up the genre with deeply individual work. That said, she's been in folk music for 20 years. So to close out 2021, Allison joined me to talk about it all. Also, Cajun music star and caretaker Joel Savoy speaks about his father Marc Savoy's new book tracing his career and contributions to the Acadian accordion.

Episode 192: Nashville-raised songwriter Aubrey Sellers returns to The String as half of the new duo Jackson & Sellers. She and Jade Jackson became Instagram friends after the 2019 AmericanaFest where they realized they liked each other's music. Then a co-writing date sparked a close friendship and a hot duo that's attracted a ton of attention and praise. Their self-titled album has country in its bones, but it rocks hard and takes advantage of the dazzling guitars of Ethan Ballinger.

Episode 191: The Charleston, SC collective SUSTO has been a vehicle for the fertile mind of songwriter Justin Osborne since 2014. The music and his lyrics have both a grandeur and an intimacy, tackling nothing less than existence. On his newest Time In The Sun, Osborne wrote epic tracks that among other things tackled the near simultaneous passing of his father and the birth of his first child. We also talk about the influence of a pivotal trip to Cuba and discovering psychedelics while a student at the Citadel military academy. Also, a tour through the fine 2021 album Ten Thousand Roses with its creator, Galax, VA songwriter Dori Freeman.

Episode 190: Veteran songwriter Bruce Robison set the pace for the alt-country/Americana format in the 1990s and wrote hit songs for George Strait, the Dixie Chicks and others. Five years ago, he widened his scope and formed The Next Waltz, a studio sessions oriented video channel and nascent record label. Now TNW has released its first full album by a solo songwriter, and that's Tony Kamel, ten-year founding member of string band Wood & Wire. In a split hour, I speak with Tony about his life around the Gulf Coast and his work with Bruce on the album Back Down Home. Then it's a catch up with Robison about his vision for The Next Waltz.

Episode 189: Phoebe Hunt established herself on a national stage playing for years with her former band the Bellville Outfit out of Austin. Since pursuing a solo career in New York and now Nashville, she's come into her own as an artist with a highly developed global and spiritual perspective, expressed on the recent albums Shanti's Shadow and Neither One Of Us Is Wrong. She's also advocated for music as therapy and self-actualization through TED talks and a non-profit. This is an enriching talk about music's role and about some great new sounds. Also, I interview Dr. Ted Olson of ETSU about his liner notes for a new career-spanning Doc Watson anthology.

Episode 188: Doyle Lawson has been mingling the holy and the down home in his blistering traditional bluegrass over a career on the road stretching back just shy of 60 years. Now at 77 he's stepping away from touring and the album cycle, leaving us with the swan song album Roundtable. In a career-spanning conversation we talk about getting hired by Jimmy Martin at age 18, about the supergroup Bluegrass Album Band, about forming and leading his band Quicksilver, and about his observations, as a conservative Christian, of efforts to diversify bluegrass music.