The String

Delbert McClinton has two gifts that have served him well. He's got a one in a million voice. It's thunder and whiskey and leather and silk. It's instantly recognizable. It's innate and inimitable. Delbert's other gift is a lifelong stubborn refusal to lend that voice to anything he doesn't love, and he's got really top drawer taste. He has released nothing for the sake of a short term hit and thus nothing that he needs to apologize for. Over 50 years.

Delbert's the subject of a new biography, One of the Fortunate Few, which came out late last year. It's by established Texas-based music writer Diana Finlay Hendricks. It's a great read and it was great preparation to talk about coming of age in Ft Worth TX, lighting out for California on a whim and chasing dreams across the country living out of a bus for years. He helped establish a beach head for roots music in New York in the 70s and inspired the Blues Brothers band. He then settled in Nashville where his songwriting took new leaps forward and he made the best recordings of his career for New West Records.

Also, a conversation with John Strohm, the new president of Rounder Records and Sugar Hill Records, two legendary roots labels that are now part of the very large but musically-focused Concord Music group.

The 30th annual Folk Alliance International conference recently wrapped in Kansas City. It’s a confab like no other, with countless showcase performances large and small. And it’s the subject of this week’s multi-artist edition of The String. Of the interviews I did on site, these emerged as the best cross section of this unique and intense event. Featuring, in order: 

Richard Thompson

Martha Redbone

Jayme Stone

Ed Snodderly

Vivian Leva

The 30th annual Folk Alliance International conference recently wrapped in Kansas City. It's a confab like no other, with countless showcase performances large and small. And it's the subject of this week's multi-artist edition of The String. Of the interviews I did on site, these emerged as the best cross section of this unique and intense event. Featuring, in order:

Richard Thompson

Martha Redbone

Jayme Stone

Ed Snodderly

Vivian Leva

Songwriter, singer and mandolin virtuoso Sierra Hull was born in Byrdstown, TN in 1991. Halfway between Nashville and the Smoky Mountains, it was an advantageous place to study bluegrass music, which she decided was her life’s calling at about age eight.

Less than a decade after releasing her debut album on Rounder Records at age 16, Hull was named IBMA Mandolin player of the year two years running, the first woman to win the prize. She also, at age 26, recently married longtime music community friend and collaborator Justin Moses, an in-demand multi-instrumentalist studio and sideman. Hull has even been something of a musical diplomat, tapped for a US State Department American Music Abroad tour that took her to the island state of Micronesia and the occupied Israeli West Bank.

Her most recent album was 2016's Weighted Mind, a hard earned departure from her straight-ahead bluegrass sound. In this hour we talk about working on that project with Bela Fleck producing. But mostly it's a talk about origins and influences and growing up in the Tennessee bluegrass culture. 

Also, the curious case of Kurt Bardella. He’s a Washington DC political operative and pundit. You may well have seen him on CNN or MSNBC. And he’s also the creator and sole author of the most read daily morning tip sheet in the country music business. And we’ll hear his take on music and politics from the Country Radio Seminar, which just took place in Nashville.

Songwriter, singer and mandolin virtuoso Sierra Hull was born in Byrdstown, TN in 1991. Halfway between Nashville and the Smoky Mountains, it was an advantageous place to study bluegrass music, which she decided was her life's calling at about age eight.

Less than a decade after releasing her debut album on Rounder Records at age 16, Hull was named IBMA Mandolin player of the year two years running, the first woman to win the prize. She also, at age 26, recently married longtime music community friend and collaborator Justin Moses, an in-demand multi-instrumentalist studio and sideman. Hull has even been something of a musical diplomat, tapped for a US State Department American Music Abroad tour that took her to the island state of Micronesia and the occupied Israeli West Bank.

Her most recent album was 2016's Weighted Mind, a hard earned departure from her straight-ahead bluegrass sound. In this hour we talk about working on that project with Bela Fleck producing. But mostly it's a talk about origins and influences and growing up in the Tennessee bluegrass culture.

Also, the curious case of Kurt Bardella. He's a Washington DC political operative and pundit. You may well have seen him on CNN or MSNBC. And he's also the creator and sole author of the most read daily morning tip sheet in the country music business. And we'll hear his take on music and politics from the Country Radio Seminar, which just took place in Nashville.

Most songwriters start writing in their teens and THEN accumulate the life experience that give their work insight and heft. Mary Gauthier flipped the script. Like fellow American musician Louis Armstrong, she was orphaned in New Orleans. Her youth was, to use the euphemism, troubled. At 15 and 16 she was addicted to alcohol and drugs and in rehab. She famously spent her 18th birthday in a jail cell. She didn’t start writing songs until her 30s and when she did, there was a remarkably, fully formed artist who was quickly recognized by an influential record label and the nation’s leading folk and roots venues.

Mary’s journey of recovery and reconciliation has been widely told and documented in her songs and her candid, moving on stage performances. What’s notable about her current chapter is how her experience with her own trauma and writing about it therapeutically helped steer her toward her current project.

It’s a volume of songs co-written with veterans and active duty soldiers processing their complex and often traumatic experiences with stories and music. The album, arguably the most anticipated of Gauthier’s impressive career, is called Rifles & Rosary Beads.

Most songwriters start writing in their teens and THEN accumulate the life experience that give their work insight and heft. Mary Gauthier flipped the script. Like fellow American musician Louis Armstrong, she was orphaned in New Orleans. Her youth was, to use the euphemism, troubled. At 15 and 16 she was addicted to alcohol and drugs and in rehab. She famously spent her 18th birthday in a jail cell. She didn't start writing songs until her 30s and when she did, there was a remarkably, fully formed artist who was quickly recognized by an influential record label and the nation's leading folk and roots venues.

Mary's journey of recovery and reconciliation has been widely told and documented in her songs and her candid, moving on stage performances. What's notable about her current chapter is how her experience with her own trauma and writing about it therapeutically helped steer her toward her current project.

It's a volume of songs co-written with veterans and active duty soldiers processing their complex and often traumatic experiences with stories and music. The album, arguably the most anticipated of Gauthier's impressive career, is called Rifles & Rosary Beads.

He's been a key part of Alison Krauss & Union Station for 25 years. He's the voice of the most popular and successful bluegrass track of the 21st century in "Man of Constant Sorrow." And he's one of the most admired acoustic musicians all around in his field. Looking for new directions and challenges during a break from AKUS, Dan Tyminski started writing songs with Music Row songwriters he'd never met before. And before long he found a surprising new sound emerging and some thoughts and feelings he'd never thought about putting into music before. The result is a new career under the name Tyminski with a debut album Southern Gothic. It's daring and different and certainly not bluegrass. He says his late mom and dad wouldn't have liked it one bit. But here he is, 50 years old with a bold new direction. Also in the hour, some Time Machine Tape with Alison Krauss herself, talking with Robert Plant in 2007 about the album they'd just finished together, well before it was released and won 6 Grammy Awards. 

He's been a key part of Alison Krauss & Union Station for 25 years. He's the voice of the most popular and successful bluegrass track of the 21st century in "Man of Constant Sorrow." And he's one of the most admired acoustic musicians all around in his field. Looking for new directions and challenges during a break from AKUS, Dan Tyminski started writing songs with Music Row songwriters he'd never met before. And before long he found a surprising new sound emerging and some thoughts and feelings he'd never thought about putting into music before. The result is a new career under the name Tyminski with a debut album Southern Gothic. It's daring and different and certainly not bluegrass. He says his late mom and dad wouldn't have liked it one bit. But here he is, 50 years old with a bold new direction. Also in the hour, some Time Machine Tape with Alison Krauss herself, talking with Robert Plant in 2007 about the album they'd just finished together, well before it was released and won 6 Grammy Awards.

This hour, a tale of two Johns.

My guest is John Jorgenson, one of the most well-rounded and admired guitar players of the last 40 years. His life and career have carried him from the country music hot spots in his native California to the studios of Nashville to world tours with Elton John and on to a global reputation as a master of gypsy style jazz guitar.

We’ll touch on all of that. But our main topic when we sat down was the other John, the songwriter John D. Loudermilk. Jorgenson helped produce a tribute concert that brought together some of Nashville’s elite artists for a loving look at an under-appreciated master. John D, as his friends called him, was in attendance that night in March of 2016 at the Franklin Theater in nearby Franklin, TN. He died a few months later at the age of 82. The show has been released as an album. And as a concert film that’s airing now on various public television stations around the country, including Nashville.