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The String

WMOT/Roots Radio 89.5 FM

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The String is weekly think radio featuring conversations and features on culture, media and American music - anchored by veteran journalist and broadcaster Craig Havighurst. Music makers, enablers, instigators and documentarians are featured with enough time to go deep and burrow into issues, while letting the music play too. Music news, previews, Time Machine Tape and 90 Second Spins round out the hour.
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Music City Roots

Music City Roots

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Music City Roots: Live From The Factory is a weekly concert and live radio show that broadcasts every Wednesday night (7PM CST) on WMOT Roots Radio 89.5 FM in Murfreesboro-Nashville, Tennessee, and worldwide at www.musiccityroots.com. It's hosted by Grammy-winning artist Jim Lauderdale, legendary radio announcer Keith Bilbrey and show journalist/interview guy Craig Havighurst. We feature leading lights and new discoveries in Americana, blues, rock and roll, gospel, jazz, rockabilly, bluegras ...
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Episode 278: Suzy Bogguss started playing and performing on a hand-me-down guitar from her sister in small-town Illinois. After a few years making a living out west playing at ski lodges, she moved to Nashville, where she carved out a special place in 1990s country music. Amid a time of diversity and vibrancy in the format, her sweet, folky voice t…
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Episode 277: Few pickers have toured harder or traveled farther than jamgrass veteran Vince Herman, who co-founded the iconic Leftover Salmon 34 years ago in Colorado. Yet there are always new things to try, so he’s added the band The High Hawks to his list of collaborations. Our sit-down visit was sparked by that band’s album Mother Nature’s Show …
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Episode 276: John Leventhal is one of the quiet achievers of American roots music going back more than 30 years. Early on as a guitar player in his native New York City, he connected with Jim Lauderdale and Shawn Colvin, co-writing and producing their debut albums. He met his wife Rosanne Cash as they worked on the pivotal album The Wheel (see Epis…
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Episode 275: This week's show begins with an ode to the studio and stage musicians who come up with parts and make the singers and stars sound great, while being relegated to the sexist, ungenerous title of “sidemen.” Recently, I got to thinking about a musician - a bass player - who’s been on more big sessions and done time with more impactful art…
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Episode 274: Beyond his skills as a guitarist and singer, Clay Ross is what I like to call a Musical Instigator. Since heading to his current base in New York 20 years ago from his home town of Charleston, SC, he’s conceived and organized three brilliant groups that bring a new global consciousness to American roots music. First it was Matuto with …
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Episode 273: Thirty years ago, legendary R&B singer Delbert McClinton proved he was ahead of his time by launching his Sandy Beaches Cruise, a January festival at sea that featured his friends and associated artists from the bluesy side of Americana. Since then, the music cruise business has flourished across many genres. A company called Star Vist…
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Episode 272: Lola Kirke got on America’s cultural radar as an actress - starring in the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, along with roles in Gone Girl and Mistress America alongside Greta Gerwig. But during those years, she was also quietly nurturing her passion for songwriting and music - specifically country music. The pandemic brought her to …
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Episode 271: In just five years, including the pandemic shut-down, Nashville native Gabe Lee has grown from an unknown “hometown kid,” as one of his titles proclaims, to a debut last year on the Grand Ole Opry. Working independently with the boutique Torrez Music Group, Lee has released four albums, earning the admiration of critics and a grassroot…
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Episode 270: In an episode that revisits the netherworld between Americana and jazz, I speak with two extraordinary female drummer/composers who are at the peak of their creative powers. My featured guest is Allison Miller, a renowned New York artist who's led her own band Boom Tic Boom and joined in with the supergroup Artemis. For her newest albu…
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Episode 269: Rosanne Cash says she’s a forward-looking artist and thinker, not prone to looking back. But when she regained control over the master recording of her 1993 album The Wheel, it prompted an idea. She’s launched the new label Rumble Strip Records with John Leventhal, the producer and guitarist she fell in love with while working on it wi…
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Episode 268: The late John Prine’s team at Oh Boy Records in Nashville put the little-known west coast songwriter Tré Burt on the national Americana/folk radar by signing him to a deal and re-releasing his debut album Caught It From The Rye in 2019. He grew up between the Bay Area and Sacramento, where, after being exposed to the guitar by an older…
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Episode 267: When Ben Wright, then 28 years old, saw a banjo for sale in the window at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, he had no idea how far it would take him. Not just to gigs at the country’s best bluegrass festivals but to an improbable life of sharing American music with audiences young and old in more than 25 countries. Not only does…
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Episode 266: Lindsay Lou grew up surrounded by community folk music in Michigan, and when she connected with a scene and a band in East Lansing where she completed college, she set her plans for a career in medicine aside to hit the road and connect with her original dreams. But it’s pretty clear from her ravishing voice that she was born to sing, …
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Episode 265: Two great male voices in new Americana. Cruz Contreras has been a key player in the East Tennessee music scene for twenty years, steering accomplished roots projects Robinella and the CCstringband and the Black Lillies. In 2019 he wrote and recorded his first solo album only to see the pandemic upend his plans for its big rollout. He m…
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Episode 264: One might imagine that after 17 years singing country music and releasing ten albums, an artist would have shared all of her secrets with her audience, but Eilen Jewell says only in the aftermath of 2020 and a bunch of disruptive change and loss well beyond the reach of the pandemic, that she was ready to get real in ways she never had…
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Episode 263: Dan Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound in Nashville has been one of the key discovery points for roots music in the past decade. And thanks to them, Robert Finley has become a rare and special thing - a top tier American soul and blues artist who found a worldwide audience in his 60s. He hails from north Louisiana, and his life in music has bee…
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Episode 262: There's no better forum to survey what's happening at the cutting edge of roots music than AmericanaFest, and 2023's huge edition was no exception. In what's become an annual tradition, I survey three acts who are making waves in three different genre spaces in the Americana universe. Summer Dean quit her teaching job around her 40th b…
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Episode 261: She’s the hit Nashville songwriter who never moved to Nashville, staying instead in her hometown near Boston. She’s the power mom who wrote timeless country award winners like “Girl Crush” and “Humble and Kind” while raising five kids. Now she reflects on her own story more than ever before on her new album 1988. It’s the fourth in a r…
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Episode 260: Darrell Scott emerged in the late 1990s as one of Nashville’s most complete folk/roots artists. He had the butter of James Taylor and the grease of Lowell George in his voice. He could pick numerous instruments like a practiced master. And his songs were stunning from the get go, including his widely-recorded “You’ll Never Leave Harlan…
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Episode 259: When East Nashville emerged as a nationally important music scene in the early 2000s, Amelia White was one of the reasons. Like so many others, she’d migrated from elsewhere (Boston and Seattle) to find a nurturing community full of collaborators and enablers, including her longtime recording partner and guitar player Dave Coleman. She…
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Episode 258: For a band that released its independent debut album in 2017, the Teskey Brothers have come a long way. From our perspective here in Nashville, that would be 9,700 miles, the distance to their home town of Warrandyte, New South Wales, Australia. Raised on classic soul and R&B music, Sam and Josh Teskey started making music together as …
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Episode 257: When you live in Nashville and chase the essence of country music, you find it's very much alive at residency shows like New Monday at the Station Inn. That's where master musicians Val Storey, Larry Cordle and Carl Jackson play a range of original and classic songs that connect country to bluegrass. It's magic, especially because of V…
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Episode 256: Vince Gill and Paul Franklin, titans of Nashville music, first recorded together in 1989 and have been friends even longer than that. Gill is of course a Country Music Hall of Famer, while Franklin is in a different Hall of Fame - for the pedal steel guitar. Over the years in the studio and on stage, they've made the most of the euphor…
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Episode 255: Ed Snodderly is more than just an exceptional singer-songwriter. He's a culture maker and culture keeper for the rich roots music region of East Tennessee. Raised near Knoxville, he launched into music in the mid 70s as an artist and as co-founder of the iconic Down Home listening room in Johnson City, TN. His band the Brother Boys mad…
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Episode 254: Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist have built a remarkable creative partnership over the past 17 years, ever since their fates collided at an Austin bar called Momo's. Songwriter residencies blurred into a proto band, and before long they were killing it in Texas and beyond as The Band of Heathens. It's been a consistent, resilient group, releas…
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Episode 253: Brennen Leigh moved decisively beyond the pandemic and the end of a long partnership to release three remarkable albums in less than three years. They tell a story of a traditional country artist with a strong point of view and a keen eye for character and humor. Prairie Love Letter was inspired by growing up in rural Minnesota where s…
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Episode 252: The story of Peter One is as warming as his music. As a young man in his native Côte d’Ivoire, he latched on to folk and country music more than most of his peers, until he met collaborator Jess Sah Bi, with whom he formed a celebrated, socially conscious duo in West Africa. Both had to leave the country due to political turmoil, and P…
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Episode 250: Craig contemplates genre-bending while introducing two guests this week who straddle the seemingly disparate worlds of indie rock and folk music. Eric D. Johnson is the veteran mastermind of the long running collective Fruit Bats. Raised in Chicago and based in Los Angeles, he came up with his friends in The Shins and Modest Mouse. Ove…
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Episode 249: One key reason that Dwight Yoakam exploded into country music consciousness in 1986 was the electric guitar and electrifying record production of his friend and bandmate Pete Anderson. Anderson moved from his native Detroit to Los Angeles and found himself in a powerful partnership that changed the sound of country and sold around 25 m…
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Episode 248: For all of the sardonic honky tonk music of his early albums and the more character-driven folk music on albums like Upland Stories and Gone Away Backward, Robbie Fulks can trace a strong bluegrass thread through his career. He grew up loving Doc Watson in North Carolina, picked up the banjo and flatpicked guitar as a kid, and joined t…
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Episode 247: Layng Martine Jr. earned a slot in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame with numerous hits for a range of artists that included Reba McEntire, The Pointer Sisters and Elvis himself. He thought he was retired, but when his son Tucker, one of the most respected producers and recording engineers in indie music, gave his father the studi…
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Episode 246: Alison Brown found her life's work early when she started playing banjo as a pre-teen growing up in southern California. But it took some time and real life experience - a Harvard degree, another MBA and a couple of years in banking - before she finally gave herself permission to chase a music career. She toured with Alison Krauss in h…
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Episode 245: Dom Flemons made history founding the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an old-time band that changed the face of roots music in the 21st century. Through found songs and tunes learned at the feet of old masters, they won a Grammy Award, played the Grand Ole Opry and opened up new lanes for Black musicians finding their voice in folk. Since pa…
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Episode 244: William Prince grew up on country and gospel music in rural Manitoba on the Peguis First Nation reserve, getting a grounding from his minister/musician father. Now Prince is a musical minister of sorts, making a strong mark on north American folk music with his sincerity, gravitas and beautiful baritone voice. His formal debut won Cana…
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Episode 243: Canada’s coolest couple - more than 12 years into their joint venture called Whitehorse - is on a creative tear, releasing three albums in two years, all of which came with a portfolio of daring and whimsical graphic design, photography and video. The albums flow, from the zesty indie-rock leaning Modern Love in March 2021 to the psych…
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Episode 242: Craig reports from Knoxville, TN and the tenth edition of the world-renowned Big Ears Festival. Conceived by Knoxville native Ashley Capps as a showcase for modern and avant-garde music, it’s broadened to encompass just about every genre and concept from around the world. This year saw a record number of folk/roots/Americana artists, p…
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Episode 241: San Francisco-based Miko Marks hit brick walls when she made her first run at country music in the mid 2000s, when the industry was systemically impenetrable to independent artists and even more so artists of color. After taking more than a decade away from her passion, Marks was inspired to reconnect with her band and producers, and t…
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Episode 240: Emily Nenni didn't fall in love with country music and then move to Nashville. She did the reverse, using the city's honky tonks and local haunts like country music college. And instead of the lure of the CMA Awards, the Bay Area native dove fully into the traditional end of the pool. Her sparky voice and detail-rich songs grabbed the …
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Episode 239: She sounds like she was born into a country music family, but Sunny Sweeney was actually a late and somewhat reluctant bloomer as an artist. Her friends had to beg her to record her first album when she was playing bars in Austin. But that album got picked up by a Nashville label and got her to the Grand Ole Opry. The major label syste…
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Episode 238: Cellist and composer Larissa Maestro enjoys a rich and diverse career as a Nashville session and stage musician. When she came to town in 2007, she had a music degree and flexible expectations about what she'd find in a place she'd never been. Now she's a veteran of creative collaborations with Margo Price, John Legend, Brandi Carlile …
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Episode 237: Ron Sexsmith's brilliant solo debut album of 1995 - the one with the song "Secret Heart" - was on the verge of being overlooked and forgotten when Elvis Costello endorsed it as one of his favorite projects in a major magazine. It changed the conversation about the young balladeer and he was quickly recognized as one of Canada's finest …
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Episode 236: It would be difficult to name one musician with such long and distinguished resumes as both a recording artist and a record producer as Joe Henry. Since emerging around 1990 as a layered, visionary songwriter, he's released 17 albums to almost universal acclaim. And since his tutelage under T Bone Burnett, stemming from one of his earl…
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Episode 235: After a remarkable life in show business and soul music, Charles "Wigg" Walker moved back to his native Nashville in the 90s, and he's been an important fixture in Music City ever since, a one-of-a-kind voice in soul and blues. It started on Jefferson Street in his teens. Then he moved to New York, opened shows for James Brown, played …
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Episode 234: Not very long ago, Sunny War was busking on Venice Beach in Los Angeles, nearly homeless and beset with substance abuse. But she was also making weirdly beautiful and honest music that evoked country blues, punk rock and old folk songs without being really any of the above. Now she's moved to Nashville, signed to New West Records, with…
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Episode 233: Madison Cunningham blasted on to the modern folk scene in 2019 with a debut album so thoughtful and original that it landed on the prestigious Verve Forecast label and was nominated for a Grammy Americana Album award. After the pandemic interrupted her career momentum, she picked right back up in 2022 with a fast-growing audience and a…
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Episode 232: Willi Carlisle is a folk singer in the populist tradition of Utah Phillips and Woody Guthrie, a boisterous, tender, funny performer who is impossible to forget. After years pursuing various outlets in old-time, poetry and theater, he emerged in 2022 as one of the finest songwriters in traditional folk music. The vehicle was his album P…
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To kick off the new year during my three week book leave, here's a special edition of The String in which I read my own in-depth analysis of how two great and sweeping genres - jazz and Americana - can have such different audiences and narratives in contemporary life despite their common origins in the blues. Reviewed are two releases - the 10th an…
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Episode 231: Sam Bush was the first guest on The String way back in September of 2016, because he's a hero of mine and an exemplar of the Americana ideal, traditional American music with a contemporary outlook. He returns to talk about one of his heroes, the late great John Hartford. They were friends, picking buddies and sometime tour mates. And w…
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Episode 230: With an instantly recognizable voice and uncommon skill for balancing melancholy with radiance, Courtney Marie Andrews has released a string of four acclaimed album since her 2016 breakout Honest Life. She's a Tucson, AZ native who hit the road on her own at the tender age of 16 and gave her life over to writing and sharing her soul wi…
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Episode 229: Todd Snider walked out alone on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium in late September looking radiant. He was bolstered and beloved by the loyalist lifer fans that hang on his every word, spoken or sung. He told the one about his first open mic and the one about East Nashville character Skip Litz who loved Train Songs. Todd’s mother was …
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