The String

Episode 162: From his breakout days as guitarist for Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen to his four-decade career as a bandleader, songwriter and recording artist, Bill Kirchen has been a badass hero of Americana music. His dextrous and dazzling Telecaster picking may get the most attention, but he's a clever and insightful songwriter who knows how to put on a memorable show. The String is officially lobbying for an Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for the Ann Arbor MI native. I reached Bill at home in Austin to talk about his career and the fine 2020 anthology of his three albums with Proper Records. It's a blast.

Episode 161: Bluegrass has an instrumental tradition going back to its Bill Monroe origins and its old-time forebears. Over time, the playing and composing became more refined and exploratory. This show features three young masters of contemporary acoustic music who've released all-instrumental albums in recent months. I speak with Wes Corbett, banjo player currently with the Sam Bush Band, Jeff Picker, bass player for Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, and Andrew Marlin, half of the married duo Mandolin Orange. They talk about their new recordings and about the path that led them to write and record without words.

Episode 160: Women with roots - in jazz is the heart of this hour. Jenny Scheinman is one of the leading jazz violinists working today, yet her musical life began grounded in folk music and she's been a prolific contributor to records and tours by the likes of Rodney Crowell, Robbie Fulks, Ani DeFranco and others. Her many collaborations with guitarist Bill Frisell have produced sublime fusions of folk, country and jazz. And Jenny has released two acclaimed songwriter albums as well. Now she's leading a band with drummer Allison Miller. You'll hear samples from that catalog as we speak about a unique life in music. Also in the hour, Nashville's Kandace Springs talks about getting mentored by Prince, landing a record deal on Blue Note and making a new album with heroes like Nora Jones and Christian McBride. We've posted a feature about her here.

Episode 159: Tennessee snuggles up against North Carolina at the apex of the Appalachian Mountains, together making a mid-South band from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. It also defines possibly the most musically consequential pair of states in the nation. In a new history, veteran Raleigh journalist David Menconi describes NC music from Charlie Poole to the Avett Brothers and beyond. After a talk with him, we dive in with one of the most important and admired talents of our time from the state, songwriter M.C. Taylor who plays as Hiss Golden Messenger. His album Terms of Surrender is up for an Americana album Grammy Award.

Joachim Cooder has pursued his musical life as drummer, percussionist and family man, staying near and working regularly with his father, blues/roots guitarist Ry Cooder and his songwriting wife, among other scattered projects. In recent years though, his writing/composing side has fully emerged, and his debut on Nonesuch Records 'Over That Road I'm Bound,' featuring modern interpretations of Uncle Dave Macon songs, was one of the most unique and beguiling albums of 2020. We speak from his Los Angeles home. Also, Nashville writer/producer Daniel Tashian talks about his generation-spanning collaboration with the legendary Burt Bacharach.

Episode 157: The bluegrass and acoustic music world saw Sarah Jarosz coming. As she grew into her teens, artists and talent scouts knew of this young phenom from Wimberly, TX who excelled on banjo, mandolin, singing and songwriting. She got signed at 16 and launched a Grammy-decorated recording career soon after. Now her latest album World On The Ground, about loving and leaving her home ground, is up for two more Grammys. We have a wide-ranging conversation. Also, an introduction to Nashville's exciting emerging country artist Brit Taylor. Working with Dan Auerbach and Dave Brainard led to the lovely Real Me album.

Episode 156: Banjo innovator and string band visionary Tony Trischka has kept his eyes on the future over a fifty year career, but on a new album he looks to our uneasy past. Shall We Hope is a song cycle about the Civil War and its aftermath, featuring a cast of elite collaborators such as Maura O'Connell and Guy Davis. We talk about how the project came together over more than a decade and about Tony's rich career from his funky band Breakfast Special and teaching Bela Fleck to his work with Steve Martin. Also, another stringed instrument visionary is 33-year-old Jordan Tice of Nashville. The Hawktail guitarist has a new album of solo songwriting and guitar rags in the tradition of John Fahey.

Episode 155: Journalist and author Peter Guralnick is regarded by many as America's premiere chronicler of roots music. Besides his influential profiles, compiled into classic volumes in the 1970s and 80s, he wrote magisterial biographies of Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke and Sam Phillips. His newest collection, Looking To Get Lost: Adventures In Music And Writing, revisits some of his longtime subjects and adds some important new ones in a work that reveals more about the writer himself than anything he's published so far. Peter is a literary hero of mine, so this was an exciting conversation.

Episode 154: 2020 will go down in infamy but one happy occasion this year was the 95th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry, the longest-running broadcast show in American history and the anchoring force that helped Nashville become Music City. In August of 2019, Dan Rogers was named Executive Producer of the show, putting him in a lineage that stretched back to George D. Hay. And in old school WSM fashion, they hired someone nurtured by the show. Rogers came aboard as an intern in 1998 and rose through the ranks of Opry marketing. In a wide-ranging talk, Rogers addresses what he learned along the way, how the Opry programs talent and how they handled crises like the 2010 Nashville flood and the 2020 pandemic.

Episode 153: Two great roots songwriters at different stages of their careers. Brent Cobb is a laid-back Georgian who got his first chance to record through his cousin Dave Cobb but who earned his stripes in Nashville and beyond thanks to his sensitive eye and relatable way with a lyric. He's released his fourth album Keep Em On They Toes. Dave Alvin is an icon of Americana who translated a musically rich upbringing in southern CA to a world-hopping career with the Blasters and his own unmistakable roots rock sound. His new album is a collection of side-project recording sessions cut for fun of songs he loves.