The String

Episode 202: The String's look at the improv-heavy jamgrass community continues with a band at the heart of it all, Yonder Mountain String Band. Bass player Ben Kauffman and guitarist Adam Aijala talk about how Colorado became their laboratory for a new, dance-friendly, freewheeling take on bluegrass music in the 1990s and beyond. We discuss how they negotiated the departure of founding member Jeff Austin and how two new members in recent years contributed to the varied material on the new album Get Yourself Outside. Also in the hour, a chat with Craig Ferguson, longtime director of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where Yonder have been kingpins for 20 years and where the jamgrass sound has been celebrated.

Episode 201: Friendly and funny, enthusiastic and energetic, Steve Poltz has released his tenth album Stardust & Satellites as he embarks on another year of intense touring. In a conversation at his home in East Nashville, Poltz speaks with Craig about his surprise embrace of Nashville co-writing, his wild experience writing one of the 90s big hits and the pot brownies that showed him the way to performing solo, which he does so well.

Episode 200: Joan Osborne became a star on the strength of a controversial song and a Grammy-nominated major label debut album in 1995, but when you scan her catalog, it becomes quickly clear that she has one of the most powerful and nuanced voices in popular music. Her range and intimacy is quite clear on her new release Radio Waves, which compiles radio station performances and demos she found in her closets during the pandemic. It becomes a great vehicle to talk about her rich and varied vocal pursuits. Also, a Mardis Gras season visit with Louis Michot, founder and fiddler in the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a powerfully inventive progressive Cajun band near Lafayette, LA.

Episode 199: Guitarist and songwriter Luther Dickinson, founder of the North Mississippi All-Stars, returns to the String to talk about two albums, each with its own story to tell about blues and roots music. Up And Rolling from 2019 was a deluxe CD package with extensive memoir liner notes by Luther and photographs of he and his brother Cody in 1996 just before the band formed. It's a celebration of the hill country blues tradition they inherited. Now they're out with Set Sail, a pandemic-created album with more orchestration and complexity than anything they've done, plus the contributions of singer Lamar Williams Jr. Also, an excerpt from my recent visit with bluegrass songwriting stars turned recording duo Tammy Rogers and Thomm Jutz.

Episode 198: It's a double shot of blues from Alligator Records this week. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram is the most exciting prodigy to hit the electric blues scene in decades. It helps his narrative that the 23-year-old hails from the cradle of the blues, Clarksdale, MS, where the Delta Blues Museum's education programs gave him his start. Now he's nominated for his second Grammy Award with his 2021 album 662. Carolyn Wonderland is more of a veteran (already in the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame) but a new artist on Alligator at 48 years old. She's a gentle presence off stage and a blistering singer and electric guitarist on stage, and she's recently spent a few years touring the world in the band of English icon John Mayall. We talk about all that and her current disc Tempting Fate, produced with Dave Alvin.

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.