It’s been a year since the music industry slammed to a halt due to Covid-19. Performing artists had to adjust financially, logistically, emotionally and more.

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.

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.

Women with roots in jazz is the heart of this hour.

We dive in with one of the most important and admired talents of our time from North Carolina, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As recently as five years ago, Nashville’s Margo Price was having trouble making ends meet after many years of “playing dives trying to stay alive” as she says in her new song “Twinkle Twinkle.” But as that song also documents, she hit on the right sound with the right team.

The Steep Canyon Rangers emerged from the collegiate scene in central North Carolina around 2000 with a traditional sound that started winning them awards.

As a teenager, Philadelphia native Ray Benson fell hard for traditional American roots music and by 1970 he’d become the founding leader of a nimble, road-rambling band called Asleep At The Wheel.

Randall Bramblett is a powerhouse journeyman and veteran of southern roots and soul music, with a dense and deep resume working for others, from the Allman Brothers to Widespread Panic.

Dirk Powell has build a Grammy-winning career by standing out in all aspects of folk and roots music.

As a literal child of the 1970s country outlaw movement, Waylon Payne had access to opportunity and temptation, and for most of his 48 years, temptation won.

Wendy Moten is one of Nashville’s most versatile and accomplished singers. She’s been a solo R&B artist, a jazz singer, a duet partner with Julio Iglesias and a road vocalist with Martina McBride and Vince Gill.

Elizabeth Cook was welcomed with celebration into the Nashville country music fold in the early 2000s, because of her charm, her fascinating story, and her bracing traditional country songs and songwriting.

New Grass Revival showed the world new ways of playing and thinking about bluegrass music between 1972 and 1989.