The String

If anyone was born and raised to lead American roots music into the 21st century it was Derek Trucks. HIs name was lifted from an Eric Clapton album and by eleven years old it was clear he was a prodigy guitar player. His uncle Butch played drums for the Allman Brothers and his father was the band's road manager. So Derek grew up surrounded by a who's who of creative, improvising musicians. And at age 19, after years of sitting in, he was named an official member of that legendary band.

Trucks has absorbed many guitar ideas and traditions and developed one of the most distinctive and admired instrumental voices in the world. We get into all that in an interview from backstage at the Ryman Auditorium where Derek's very large and very successful Tedeschi Trucks band recently performed over three consecutive nights.

First though, a special report from the frontier of digital music. It's been a while since anything really new emerged from the world of streaming and downloading. Mostly what you read are complaints about the payouts artists and songwriters receive from Spotify, Apple Music and the rest of them. But there is now something new being deployed in the industry. It's definitely a bit technical, but whether you're a creator or a fan, you'll want to follow along. This could really change things.

She has one foot on Music Row, where she's won an ACM award and scored hits for Miranda Lambert and Little big Town. She has another in Americana, where she's earned acclaim for her debut album, a portrait of small town values and her own heart called Puxico. Natalie Hemby is my guest.

Puxico is the name of a one-stoplight town in southeastern Missouri where Natalie Hemby spent summers and weekends all through the years she grew up in Nashville, TN. And starting about a decade ago, she launched a project to document the town and her grandfather George. As it came together gradually, so did an album's worth of songs inspired by the place and its people. There are nine tracks that allude to moments, people and values reflected in her favorite small town. At the heart of the film is Homecoming, the annual town festival famous for its square dances, funnel cakes and goat burgers.

She has one foot on Music Row, where she's won an ACM award and scored hits for Miranda Lambert and Little big Town. She has another in Americana, where she's earned acclaim for her debut album, a portrait of small town values and her own heart called Puxico. Natalie Hemby is my guest.

Puxico is the name of a one-stoplight town in southeastern Missouri where Natalie Hemby spent summers and weekends all through the years she grew up in Nashville, TN. And starting about a decade ago, she launched a project to document the town and her grandfather George. As it came together gradually, so did an album's worth of songs inspired by the place and its people. There are nine tracks that allude to moments, people and values reflected in her favorite small town. At the heart of the film is Homecoming, the annual town festival famous for its square dances, funnel cakes and goat burgers.

Alejandro Escovedo was born into a musical family in San Antonio Texas. Where his older siblings and father pursued Mexican music, he dove into rock and roll. His San Francisco punk band The Nuns played dates with The Ramones and the Sex Pistols. He moved to Austin where he emphasized songwriting and formed early roots rock bands Rank and File and The True Believers. Then through a solo career and enthusiastic collaborations he took on the status of an underground icon.

In 1998, No Depression magazine named him its first Artist of the Decade. In 2006 the Americana Music Association granted him a Lifetime Achievement Award as a performer.

Escovedo's newest project stemmed from collaboration of old friends Peter Buck - former guitarist of REM - and Scott McCaughey of power pop band The Minus 5. They collectively wrote and produced Burn Something Beautiful, a ruminative folk rock album that confronts aging and some of Escovedo's life struggles, including a 20 year battle with Hepatitis C. Escovedo sat down with me at the City Winery Nashville a few hours before the Burn Something Beautiful Band took the stage.

Alejandro Escovedo was born into a musical family in San Antonio Texas. Where his older siblings and father pursued Mexican music, he dove into rock and roll. His San Francisco punk band The Nuns played dates with The Ramones and the Sex Pistols. He moved to Austin where he emphasized songwriting and formed early roots rock bands Rank and File and The True Believers. Then through a solo career and enthusiastic collaborations he took on the status of an underground icon.

In 1998, No Depression magazine named him its first Artist of the Decade. In 2006 the Americana Music Association granted him a Lifetime Achievement Award as a performer.

Escovedo's newest project stemmed from collaboration of old friends Peter Buck - former guitarist of REM - and Scott McCaughey of power pop band The Minus 5. They collectively wrote and produced Burn Something Beautiful, a ruminative folk rock album that confronts aging and some of Escovedo's life struggles, including a 20 year battle with Hepatitis C. Escovedo sat down with me at the City Winery Nashville a few hours before the Burn Something Beautiful Band took the stage.

The jangle, the murmur, the pulse and the passion. Between 1980 and 2011 a kinetic, iconoclastic quartet from the Deep South reshaped American rock and roll. They were REM. Melodic but visceral. Ever-shifting but consistently excellent. Their bass player and harmony vocalist Mike Mills is my guest. The occasion for this special edition of The String is the 25th anniversary of the album that elevated REM from an extremely popular and respected alternative rock band to global superstars. 1991's Out Of Time. Mills and I spoke before a live audience at Nashville's City Winery. The event was arranged by speaker series Who Knew. And toward the end of the show, I found some time machine tape that will let us here the other member of REM, including lead singer Michael Stipe, talking about music making in 1989.

The jangle, the murmur, the pulse and the passion. Between 1980 and 2011 a kinetic, iconoclastic quartet from the Deep South reshaped American rock and roll. They were REM. Melodic but visceral. Ever-shifting but consistently excellent. Their bass player and harmony vocalist Mike Mills is my guest. The occasion for this special edition of The String is the 25th anniversary of the album that elevated REM from an extremely popular and respected alternative rock band to global superstars. 1991's Out Of Time. Mills and I spoke before a live audience at Nashville's City Winery. The event was arranged by speaker series Who Knew. And toward the end of the show, I found some time machine tape that will let us here the other member of REM, including lead singer Michael Stipe, talking about music making in 1989.

Few performers in American music have toiled for so many years before earning widespread acclaim and respect as Bobby Rush. Rolling Stone dubbed Rush King of the Chitlin' Circuit. Martin Scorsese featured him in his 2003 documentary The Blues. In 2006 he was named to the Blues Hall of Fame, and in 2015, he was named BB King Entertainer of the Year, one week before King himself, a close friend of Rush, passed away.

But Bobby Rush is not coasting. He's plays between 100 and 200 dates a year with a big band, and he's recently signed the most significant record deal of his life. Rounder Records, a label with a long history of backing authentic folk and blues artists, has released Porcupine Meat. As the title implies, it's as rural and down-home and true to himself as anything he's ever done.

In this hour, Bobby Rush speaks about his passion for performing, his farewell to BB King and about the long, arduous journey from his youth in Pine Bluff AR to Chicago and to his years touring the Deep South as a regional favorite.

Then toward the end of the show, our time machine audio segment steps back another generation in the blues, with tape of Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy Williamson telling Alan Lomax what it was REALLY like to launch a music career in the 1920s and 30s in the segregated south.

Few performers in American music have toiled for so many years before earning widespread acclaim and respect as Bobby Rush. Rolling Stone dubbed Rush King of the Chitlin' Circuit. Martin Scorsese featured him in his 2003 documentary The Blues. In 2006 he was named to the Blues Hall of Fame, and in 2015, he was named BB King Entertainer of the Year, one week before King himself, a close friend of Rush, passed away.

But Bobby Rush is not coasting. He's plays between 100 and 200 dates a year with a big band, and he's recently signed the most significant record deal of his life. Rounder Records, a label with a long history of backing authentic folk and blues artists, has released Porcupine Meat. As the title implies, it's as rural and down-home and true to himself as anything he's ever done.

In this hour, Bobby Rush speaks about his passion for performing, his farewell to BB King and about the long, arduous journey from his youth in Pine Bluff AR to Chicago and to his years touring the Deep South as a regional favorite.

Then toward the end of the show, our time machine audio segment steps back another generation in the blues, with tape of Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy Williamson telling Alan Lomax what it was REALLY like to launch a music career in the 1920s and 30s in the segregated south.

Sam Bush has been officially certified by his home state of KY as a musical legend - The Father of Newgrass Music - and he won a lifetime achievement award from the Americana Music Association. There's nothing he hasn't achieved or proven in the studio, on the stage or in life. He's beaten cancer twice, and even written a song about it with the late Guy Clark. That and a bunch of other self-revealing songs are on his new album - his first in five years - called Storyman. We'll talk about that and more in the hour ahead. Also on this show, Time Machine Tape from Sam Bush hero and bluegrass founding father Bill Monroe, in conversation in 1973.