Frazey Ford has always loved soul music. She fell in love with Otis Redding at age 11 and discovered people like Ann Peebles along the way, but it was Al Green that really knocked her out. She loved the layers, the expression, and especially his voice. She completely dove in and even started an Al Green cover band.
Although she had been perfecting her soul sound, the band that took off for Ford was, of course, The Be Good Tanyas. She talks in our Basic Folk interview about how the trio really worked to perfect quiet, beautiful country music rooted in her love of soul. She took that love into her solo career with her first record, Obadiah. Even though her solo debut was mostly a folk record, documentary filmmaker Robert Gordon heard one of those songs on the radio. He sent her an email and invited her to work with Al Green’s band, The Hi Rhythm Section. That invitation was the inception of her second album, 2014’s Indian Ocean.
Now seeing a deluxe edition release in 2025, Indian Ocean captured Ford coming into her own as a solo artist. Working with brothers Charles (organ), Leroy (bass), and Teenie (guitar) Hodges, The Hi Rhythm Section taught her so much about groove, space, and collaboration. In our conversation, Frazey revisits those sessions and the lessons they brought. She talks about how the brothers had always wanted to record with a folk artist and what kind of care and attention they brought to her songs. She reflects on her time working with Teenie, who died before Indian Ocean was released, but not before it was finished. We also get into her early life with her hippie family, her many creative outlets, and her fashion ethos.
In 1925, world leaders were signing the final treaties coming out of WWI; Congress authorized work on Mt. Rushmore as a national memorial; the Scopes Trial was held in Tennessee; and the first patent on radio transmission was only 28 years old.
And, in 1925, WSM first broadcast its barn dance – soon to become the Grand Ole Opry.
One hundred years later, the Grand Ole Opry is the world’s longest-running radio program. After a century that saw changes unparalleled in world history, audiences are still drawn to the Opry. Every week thousands make the pilgrimage to the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville while others tune in around the world. The show continues to inspire new generations of performers to aspire to step “into the circle” on the Opry House stage.
President Jimmy Carter on the Grand Ole Opry stage with Kelly Foxton, Hank Snow, Mel Tillis, June Carter Cash, Skeeter Davis, Bill Monroe, Jeannie C. Riley, and others on October 9, 1980. Photo courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.
In The Beginning Was Insurance
In the 1920s, Edwin Craig was watching radio stations emerge across the nation – and seeing the money-making potential for sponsors and owners. He convinced Cornelius Craig, his father and founder of the National Life and Accident Insurance Company, that a radio station could sell a lot of insurance.
Soon, the fifth floor of the company’s downtown Nashville building held a radio studio. The call letters WSM stood for “We Shield Millions,” the company’s motto. A program that would become the lifeblood of country music started as a way to promote life insurance.
The hiring of George D. Hay away from Chicago’s WLS was the beginning of the WSM Barn Dance. The 30-year-old who called himself The Solemn Old Judge and started every show with a steamboat whistle would set the tone for much of the Opry’s 100 years – including its name.
Which all started with a clash of cultures.
Some upper-crust Nashville residents complained the only radio they could hear on weekends was string band programming from the dominant WSM station. In response, WSM began carrying the syndicated “Music Appreciation Hour.”
The Barn Dance slot followed the classical program, and Hay, not one to pass up a good line, said, “For the past hour, we have been listening to music largely from Grand Opera, but from now on, we will present ‘the Grand Ole Opry.”
George D. Hay is pictured at microphone with a whistle and Uncle Jimmy Thompson is seated in this 1925 photograph from when the Grand Ole Opry was still the WSM Barn Dance. Photo courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.
For years, the Shield Men – door-to-door National Life and Accident insurance salesmen carrying the company’s shield logo – introduced themselves as representing the Grand Ole Opry. They would even listen outside windows to see who was tuned in to the Opry – and who would be a likely customer.
The earliest WSM shows relied on local talent, running heavily toward fiddlers and string bands. But Hay would invite whoever he thought the audience would like.
DeFord Bailey, a Black musician grounded in both the blues and old-time string band music, became a regular, wowing audiences with his harmonica. Kitty Cora Cline, the first female soloist, performed on hammered dulcimer, and Fred Shriver played the accordion. Uncle Dave Macon on his banjo with Sid Harkreader on fiddle and guitar set the stage for the comedy that would remain central to the Opry’s success, with songs like, “Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy.”
A Beacon
As the recording industry grew, the variety of musicians available to the Opry grew, as well. The show began featuring brother duets, cowboy music, Western swing and solo crooners. Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys were featured stars for decades.
Opry singers expressed the joys of new romance, the happiness of Sunday dinner on the lawn, the sorrow of lost love, and the loneliness of leaving home. Audiences across America listened – and related. The Opry became a focus of family life.
Dolly Parton, like many rural listeners, grew up without electricity. Her family faithfully listened to the Opry on a battery-powered radio. Waylon Jennings’ dad would hook their radio to the car battery. Jeannie Seely’s family would pile in the car and drive up a hill until they could get the signal. Opry history is filled with stories of musicians who listened as children – and dreamed of growing up to perform, like their idols, on the iconic stage.
Opry member Dierks Bentley, who gracefully moves between country and bluegrass, told BGS, “Being invited to join at all is the biggest honor – especially for me, personally. I grew up listening to all the Opry greats on the radio with my dad, so becoming a member is like having the ultimate backstage pass to see the best musicians in the world. And to be invited by Marty Stuart … hands down, it was one of the coolest nights of my life.”
Dan Rogers, the Opry’s senior vice president and executive producer, said the Opry has always been a place to celebrate the good times and be uplifted during the tough times. “Think about,” he said, “the folks who tuned in on Saturday nights during World War II. That was their only source of entertainment throughout the week.” Minnie Pearl, with her signature “How-dee,” and Roy Acuff gave them respite from war news.
On the first show after the 9-11 attacks in 2001, Rogers said, “Our background singers sang an a cappella version of ‘God Bless America.’ And one by one, the people in the audience stood and sang along. And I remember thinking, I bet everybody tuned in across the country is singing along to ‘God Bless America.’”
The Opry’s response to the COVID-19 crisis created desperately needed connection during a frightening time of isolation.
Just a week after deciding that live audience shows weren’t safe, Opry staff arranged a pared-down streaming production with no audience and a skeleton crew. Longtime cast members Bill Anderson, Jeannie Seely and Connie Smith held down the first night alongside Mandy Barnett, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, and Sam Williams.
For the second weekend of restrictions, veterans Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, and Brad Paisley sat on stools spread out across the stage and pulled off what Rogers called “a beautiful, beautiful show.”
Watching from his office, Rogers started reading comments from grateful listeners. For months, people marked their calendars to tune in. They wrote, “I’m in Europe. I set my alarm. It’s 2 a.m. here, but I wanted to experience this with a community.”
Marty Stuart, Vince Gill, and Brad Paisley perform for an empty Grand Ole Opry House during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. Photo by Chris Hollo, courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.
Kathy Mattea, the newest Opry inductee, feels those connections whenever she performs there.
People may have sung along to her hit “18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses” in their car or in the shower, but at the Opry, she says to BGS, “Here’s your chance to sit with an audience and sing this song that everybody knows. Nobody knows who the person next to them voted for and it doesn’t matter at that moment.”
“The Ellis Island of Country Music”
In the early days of radio, what was called hillbilly music was as limitless as the range of a 50,000 watt radio station. And the Opry remains dedicated to maintaining those wide open spaces.
Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, in their forward to the book 100 Years of the Grand Ole Opry, refer to the show as the “Ellis Island of Country Music – a place where all are welcome.”
Contemporary country often has been accused of being homogenous and limited. But despite the factors that have controlled commercial country, the Opry maintains its open-arms attitude. Rogers said, “The two core tenets of an Opry show are celebrating the past, present, and future of country music, and also showcasing multiple genres under the country music umbrella.”
In any show, he said, “You might have something that’s on the top 20 of the country charts today. And you’ll have country classics. You might have a contemporary Christian song, Americana string music, or even something from outside the genre by somebody who just happens to be a country music fan or was influenced by country music.”
In 1974, the R&B-oriented Pointer Sisters included an original country song, “Fairytale,” on their second album. The cross-over hit earned them an invitation to the Opry stage, where they became the first Black group to perform.
Ringo Starr appeared for the first time in 2025 and James Taylor’s debut on November 11 will be remembered as a big part of the 100th anniversary celebration.
And, Rogers said, “Because we can do it, it’s fun to take a chance on a new artist.”
Before his first Opry appearance in July 2022, Zach Top had no hits to his name. But Rogers remembered the programming team saying, “You don’t see an artist like that every day. It sure feels to us like our audience would absolutely eat that guy up!” Today, Top’s music is everywhere.
Bluegrass has been a staple since before it had a name and it has never lost its place on the stage. Bentley and Del McCoury played “Roll on Buddy, Roll On” when the Grand Ole Opry House first reopened after the 2010 flood closed its doors for months.
Charlie Mattos is a 10-year veteran Opry announcer and longtime co-host and producer of WSM’s morning show. He said that on any given night, a portion of the Opry House audience “may truly have never seen a bluegrass band play.”
“And when Del McCoury and the boys finish with an incredible instrumental,” Mattos continued, “or Sister Sadie blisters the stage … the enthusiasm that comes out of that crowd, the immediate standing ovation for the insane musicianship that they have just witnessed …” Mattos said, “it blows their minds.”
Mattea said, “Bluegrass is front porch jazz – the virtuoso playing and the vocals and the harmonies and the trading off of licks. That’s how I fell in love with bluegrass.” And the Opry exposes millions to that brilliance.
A Good-Natured Riot
The Opry show is a complex set of acts and sets requiring precision planning, flexibility, and good nature on the part of the announcers – and commitment on the part of the performers. Rehearsals are brief or non-existent. Timing is everything.
Borrowing a phrase from George D. Hay, the Opry is still sometimes called a “good-natured riot.”
Mattos said, “When you come to see the show live, you see it all. The set changes. The artists leaving as the announcer sends them off. You can see the stage crew out there and usually in 90 seconds they can completely swap things around.”
But while reading a commercial during set changes, Mattos may notice the stage manager giving the “stretch” signal. He might have to keep talking for as long as four minutes – a millennium in radio time.
Sometimes the commercials themselves become the entertainment.
The first time Glad Wags sponsored an Opry segment, Chuck Morgan was announcing. While he stood off-stage reading the dog food commercial, house bassist Bill Linneman came up behind him and started barking. “By my last year there, there were like 20 people behind me going at it,” Morgan said. (The consensus is that Connie Smith does a great chihuahua imitation.)
A Family
Jeannie Seely – who racked up nearly 5,400 performances on the Grand Ole Opry before her passing in August 2025 – remembered it was more than the music that fueled her desire to join the Opry: “That’s hearing these people, like Mr. Acuff and Minnie [Pearl] and Jimmy Dickens and all of them, coming together every week,” she says in 100 Years of the Grand Ole Opry. “They always sounded like they were so glad to be together. They picked on each other and joked, and I thought, that’s just like a family.”
And they were family. When the plane Jim Reeves was aboard crashed in a wooded Nashville suburb, Marty Robbins and Ernest Tubb joined the search party, as did the elegant Nashville socialite Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon – known as Minnie Pearl.
Opry star Jean Shepard was expecting her second child with husband Harold “Hawkshaw” Hawkins when Hawkins died in the plane crash that also killed Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas. After months feeling adrift, as Shepard was quoted in the 100 Years book, “I looked down my driveway one day and here come two big black limousines full of the so-called ‘higher-ups’ from the Grand Ole Opry. They said, ‘We want you to come back to the Grand Ole Opry.’ And it really meant a lot to me.”
The family feeling is no accident. In earlier years, Opry members had to perform a specified number of Saturday nights a year. While there’s no set number today, Rogers said they look for a sense of commitment in new members. “It truly is about that relationship,” he said.
Rogers quoted Mattea, upon her invitation to become a member, saying, “These people treat you like family, no matter what.”
One of Mattea’s favorite Opry memories involves a bass player who toured with her. “He was sitting on a stool, playing and singing some old Western swing chestnut, and suddenly Riders in the Sky leaned into the dressing room in full regalia and started singing harmony.
“He was gobsmacked. He felt it was the highlight of his life,” she said.
Bluegrass performer Kody Norris’ music is influenced heavily by first- and second-generation bluegrass. But the band’s preference for flashy suits dates back to a family-friendly welcome Norris received 25 years ago.
His parents took nine-year-old Kody backstage at the Opry, “and I met Bill Anderson. And he had on a red rhinestone suit. That’s the first one I ever saw up close, where I could touch it.”
Later that day, upon meeting his equally rhinestone-clad hero, Porter Wagoner, young Kody got so excited he spit out his chewing gum. Wagoner graciously grabbed two Opry-logoed napkins, one of which the little boy used for his gum. The other one the grown Norris still keeps in perfect condition.
The Circle is Unbroken
In 1974, the Opry left its revered home of decades, the Ryman Auditorium, to move to the deliciously air-conditioned 4,400-seat Grand Ole Opry House.
To honor its longtime home, the Opry crew cut a circle out of the Ryman stage and inset it in the new Opry House stage. The circle symbolizes the Opry’s continuity, respect for the past, and optimism for the future.
Mattea experienced that sense of a completed circle on the day she became an Opry member.
“Suzy [Bogguss] was there. We’ve toured together and sung on each other’s records. She’s my closest artist friend, and she was the only one at the ceremony who was not a member. And I thought how generous it was of her to be there.
“So, while I was overflowing with celebration, to get to invite my friend to the party publicly in the name of the Opry was the sweetest gift. It was a moment I’ll never forget, and I’m going to be there for her induction, too.” Bogguss will officially be inducted as an Opry member in early 2026.
Braid Paisley and Little Jimmy Dickens return the Circle to the Opry stage after the 2010 flood. Photo courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.
Join The Celebration
There’s nothing low-key about the Grand Ole Opry – so in the classic Opry spirit, fans have had plenty of opportunity to celebrate the centennial all year long.
Earlier this year, NBC broadcast a three-hour anniversary special, with dozens of stars ranging from Reba McEntire to Jelly Roll to The War and Treaty. The Opry also took the show to London’s Royal Albert Hall for the very first time. You can stream clips of these and other Opry events on YouTube and social media.
With the Virgin Music Group, the Opry has produced the album Opry 100, Country’s Greatest Songs (released November 7). Among the unforgettable recordings are Vince Gill singing his heart-rending “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” Dolly Parton singing “I Will Always Love You,” and Ashley McBryde covering the classic “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” You can order the album from the Opry site.
Craig Shelburne, Brenda Colladay, and Opry members and employees collaborated on 100 Years of the Grand Ole Opry, a book filled with anecdotes and photos that vividly illustrate the Opry’s remarkable history. And to teach your children well, there’s also a new childrens’ picture book written by Emily Frans and illustrated by Susanna Chapman. Find them in your local bookstore.
And, on November 28, 2025, the official 100th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry we all hold dear, the Opry is celebrating with two huge birthday party shows featuring country stars and Opry members like Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Trace Adkins, Dailey & Vincent, Bill Anderson, Jamey Johnson, Marty Stuart, and many, many more. Tickets are available here.
Of course, the celebrations will continue in 2026.
“The Opry is the core and soul of country music,” Bentley said. “It’s a place where the past, present and future of our genre all come together. There isn’t anywhere else like it.”
All photos courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties, credits and attributions as marked. Lead image: Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys and the Opry Square Dancers take the Opry stage at the Ryman Auditorium in the 1960s.
Depending on who you ask, Jake Owen might be responsible for the very first bro country song. His 2011 hit “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” wasn’t the first party-ready ode to Southern summers and ice-cold beer, but its slick mix of country signifiers and stadium-rock production – courtesy of Joey Moi, best known for producing Nickelback and later Morgan Wallen – proved highly influential, arguably paving the way for crossover smashes like Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” and Blake Shelton’s “Boys ‘Round Here.”
“Never gonna grow up, never gonna slow down,” Owen sang on his signature hit, neatly summing up the youth-obsessed ethos of the bro country era. Now 44 and newly independent after 20 years on RCA Nashville and later Big Loud, he’s singing a different tune.
“I’ve made a lot of records that had a fantasy, ‘Remember when we were young?’ kind of feel to them,” Owen told Good Country. “What feels good about this new record is that I can listen to it and feel like I’m listening to my life right now. It’s very real.”
Dreams to Dream, Owen’s eighth studio album and his first with Shooter Jennings producing, is a sharp left turn for an artist known for hits like “Beachin,’” “I Was Jack (You Were Diane),” and “American Country Love Song.” Earlier this year, Owen decamped to LA amid the wildfires, leaving the comfort of Nashville behind in search of creative truth and a more organic sound. The result is one of the year’s best and most surprising country albums, which trades bro-ish bravado for world-weary introspection and a classic-country sensibility.
The title track is a rollicking, country-rock statement of purpose that name-checks Hank Williams, Jr. and establishes the stakes: “I’ve been down, but I ain’t no quitter/ ‘Bout to get up on my feet/ ‘Cause I still got dreams to dream,” Owen sings in the rousing chorus. On the Troy Jones-penned “Wouldn’t Be Gone,” he muses about leaving stardom behind to work in a hardware store. (“I already know a thing or two about hardwood floors,” goes the song’s best line.) Other standouts include “Chill of December,” a Haggardian expression of winter loneliness, and “The One I Did It To,” a doleful admission of romantic wrongdoing.
In a Q&A, Owen spoke to Good Country about teaming up with Jennings, defining authenticity on his own terms, and why he doesn’t shy away from his bro country past.
This album is a departure from the sound that you’re best known for. What made now the right time to do an album like this?
Jake Owen: My life has always been about timing and believing that I’m supposed to be where I am. The album’s called Dreams to Dream and it came about because I was in this interesting place in my life where I’ve had a record deal for 20 years and, all of a sudden, I’m doing something on my own. Which felt kind of like freedom, but also felt very scary.
For a long time I was focused on the more commercialized songs that would work on radio, since I was on a major label, and I felt like this is the time to make the kind of record that I’ve always really loved. I’ve always tried to follow my heart and what my intuitions have told me. They haven’t always been right, but I definitely follow them.
What was it like working with Shooter Jennings?
He really exceeded my expectations. I expected to go out there and make a record, but I didn’t know I would leave there with an awesome new friend and somebody that really believed in me as a person with dreams and a purpose and things they wanted to say. He was so encouraging to me. I felt safe with him, which is a weird way to put it, I guess. But you need people to pat you on the back and tell you that you’re doing the right thing.
It also was at a time when – I’m not ashamed to say it – there were not a lot of people ringing my phone in Nashville to tell me they were proud of 20 years of what I’d done in my career and 11 number one songs. Kind of weird, right? But the one guy that was calling me and applauding me and telling me that I could do way better, bigger things in my life than what I’d already done was Shooter Jennings. Out of all people, right? That says so much about how much he loves music and believes in people. I think you’d probably hear that same answer from anybody else that he’s worked with.
The second song on the album, “Them Old Love Songs,” is a Waylon Jennings cover. Why did covering Waylon make sense for this record?
Well, there was no part of me going out there that thought I would do any covers. But Shooter and I just talked about life and music out there, and he was saying that his dad always would cut cover songs for fun when he came off the road. Shooter would encourage me, each night or whenever we were done with the session, to do some covers and just have some fun. With that one in particular, I was nervous to ask Shooter, because it felt a little cliché. I wondered how many people work with him and have wanted to do that or if he’s offended by that.
But I always loved that song and the album that it’s on, Are You Ready for the Country. It’s pretty wild, because that album starts off really rocking, and then it goes into that. To me, if you listen to that song, the lyrics say, “I wish I had a true fine woman/ Let her rock me all night long/ And maybe we could get it together/ Like people do in them old love songs.” I’ve been singing that my whole life and it’s still the way I dream of love. And then, going back to the first verse, it says, “Nobody cares where I’m going, all they know is I’m coming back.” I don’t think anybody cared that I was going to make a record with Shooter. Nobody really even knew.
Also, one of the reasons Shooter and I decided to make this album was our love for the Hank Williams Jr. record, The New South, that his dad actually produced. Hank moved to Alabama to make that album, I think it was in 1977, and said he needed to get out of Music City because he wanted to go make his kind of music with his friends. And I felt the same way. Like, here I am going to LA to make a record with Shooter, and he’s encouraging me like Waylon encouraged Hank. So recording that Waylon song, with Shooter producing it, it just felt right.
You recently celebrated the 20-year anniversary of moving to Nashville and signing your first record deal with RCA. You made a post referring to “the highest of highs and lowest of lows” in your career. Could you tell me about some of those highs and lows?
Yeah, well, first off, thanks for even acknowledging that, which I think is important to the reasoning behind this whole record in general. I would start off by telling you that the highest high for me was just moving to Nashville and knowing that something was ahead of me. When I left college, I left my twin brother and a lot of my friends and my entire family at home in Florida. I still look back on that guy, and I’m like, “What the fuck was I thinking?” But I guess I just had to chase it. And then getting to Nashville and immersing yourself with people that are so much better than you are, I just didn’t have that where I was in college in Tallahassee. I kind of felt alone. Getting a record deal was also a big part of that, feeling like I had accomplished part of what I came here to do. And then I spent the next seven years having to figure out how to keep the guys in the band paid and the buses rolling on the road and how to get my first number one song. Everybody thinks that’s the easy part once you sign the record deal, but it really wasn’t. It was a rude awakening.
And I went through a divorce. I got married, I had a kid. It’s like the classic country song shit, man. I think that was a big low for me, having to leave my family to go on the road. I had been very successful from my dreams that I chased, but the one thing that I probably desired the most, outside of music, was a family life. The one thing that I’ve never been good at and I haven’t figured out is that real solid relationship in life, building love and trust, and that bothers me a lot. It bothers me that I can be good at a lot of other things, and that is the most important thing to me, and I haven’t been so great at it.
You were a major player in the bro country era, which is now having this sort of nostalgic reappraisal. I’m thinking of the HARDY and Ernest song “Bro Country,” which is an ode to that time in country music. When you think about that era, what goes through your mind?
It’s funny, because I don’t know that anybody has said this before, but I’ll tell you right now: I started that shit. Everybody wants to shy away from bro country or whatever, but I invented that shit. And yeah, I am proud, in a way. I remember being at a time in my career where I had a record deal for seven or eight years and I had a couple songs that had done all right, but I was feeling like I was gonna lose my record deal if I didn’t try to do some different shit. And I didn’t have a producer at the time. I’d left Tony Brown, who was great. And he’s like, “Hey, man, you should meet this guy, Joey Moi. I think he’d be great for you.”
Joey obviously came from Nickelback and all that. At the time, no different than when I left Tallahassee for Nashville, everybody was like, “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” So here’s a guy now from Nickelback who’s gonna try out making country music on me, which was probably a crazy thing, too. It wasn’t that I was trying to sell out. If anything, I look back and I’m like, “Dude, I had the balls to just do something different at the time.”
“Barefoot Blue Jean Night” was our first release and it had all of these claps and stomps and loop shit. It ended up being the most-played song of the decade [according to Country Aircheck]. I have the plaque on my wall. It was a major, major changing point in my life and career, because it worked. Not only did I keep making those songs for the next few years, but it influenced a shit-ton of people.
I think a lot of people might want to avoid that association. It’s kind of like the way that ‘80s rock and roll gets shit on sometimes, but there are still people in their cars cranking it to 11, right? If you look back at my early career, the songs I was writing were very country, because that’s what I always loved. I went on tour with Brooks & Dunn and Alan Jackson. So when all of a sudden, years later, all of the people that were my heroes were like, “I hate this kid,” it kind of hurt my feelings. But I always knew in my heart that I would get back to what brought me to the table.
Among the detractors you alluded to, people who are into more traditional-sounding country music, there’s this idea that pop-country or bro country is inauthentic. What do you think is “authentic” country music?
Authenticity is the ability for artists to take any type of music and just make it their own. Johnny Cash never shot a man in Reno. But it was a huge song for him. George Jones didn’t write “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” but he owns that song. Stardust is the biggest album Willie Nelson ever released and he didn’t write a single song on it. And he’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Authenticity isn’t about where somebody’s from or how they grew up. If you own what you’re doing, and you deliver it in a way that’s believable, I think that’s authentic.
I’m thinking now of this back-and-forth you had with Jason Isbell a couple years ago about artists writing their own songs.
Yeah, dude. That guy. I love Jason Isbell, that’s what’s crazy. Some of the artists that I love the most just spout off at the mouth. The other day I said something about Zach Bryan. I love that guy’s music too, right? He’s amazing, and he’s also uber successful – selling 120,000 tickets or whatever, which I could never even fathom. And Jason is out winning GRAMMYs on top of being an incredible guitar player, so much more talented than I could ever dream of being. But I don’t understand why guys like that will take the time on shit on someone else’s music.
That’s never made sense to me and it’s always made me want to just ask that question directly to them. Which is what I did to Jason. I was just like, “Dude, I’m not going to get into an argument with you over Twitter, so give me your number. I’m going to just call you and have a conversation about why you feel this way.” He and I had a great conversation. And he was very cool to acknowledge and entertain my questioning behind why he would just spout at the mouth about stuff like that. We both ended it at the time – and this was years ago, when I was drinking, or maybe he was – he’s like, “Dude, we should catch a beer sometime.”
So, to go back to the authenticity thing, there’s so many people that are so great at a lot of things. One of my absolute favorite artists right now is Charley Crockett and he does that, too. I wonder, sometimes, I’m like, “Why are you guys all trying to prove to one another that you’re more authentic than the next guy?” Sorry, you can tell I’m getting tense talking about it. But I’m confused by it, because those guys make some of my favorite music and it bothers me that they feel the need to try to blow somebody else’s candle out in order to make their already blazing one shining brighter.
I wonder if part of you wanted to prove to that type of person that you could make one of these really rooted, quote-unquote “authentic,” hardcore country records.
I think it was about proving to myself what my intuitions are and what my beliefs have always been about what’s right for me. I also really needed somebody to tell me that what I was doing was the right decision, and Shooter never wavered. He was constantly telling me, “Dude, this is it. You’re going to open up a Pandora’s box for your career in ways that I don’t think you’ve seen before.” I will say that it’s definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things and a lot of people reached out to me that have never reached out to me before.
One of my favorite songwriters, artists, people I’m a huge fan of is Brandy Clark. I think she’s incredible and just a brilliant songwriter. And she happened to be in LA when I was there and stopped by to see Shooter. She called me after and I just started crying. Because she was like, “Jake, I’m so happy for you. Like, I hear you in this.” It was just so fulfilling to hear that from her. She didn’t have to do that, but I was so moved by it.
I’m grateful for people that don’t think about music from a standpoint of judgment, but look at it as a possibility of something greater.
Artist: Bryan McDowell Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland Latest Album:Bryan McDowell (out November 7, 2025) Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Red
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
Literature, and particularly the novel form, is where I’ve gotten more and more inspiration. I appreciate lessons in a sort of general creative craft that I’ve found by understanding, for example, painters’ processes, but I think since I’ve worked increasingly with lyrics, I’ve turned more to some classic novels for inspo. Some of the newer unreleased songs are from that source, like this laid-back song I have that draws on Crime and Punishment, the first psychological thriller I think it is. The entirety of the book is the suspense and mental anguish of knowing a person who’s committed a terrible crime and is momentarily suspended from actual accountability for it. They’re just tortured to illness by their thoughts. As it turns out, that suspension of accountability is gripping. At least, I think so. What we do in those moments or what we think we would do or think is worth a bit more exploration.
Most songs aren’t quite so directly inspired by another particular work as this, but I know I’ve often taken songs I had that seem unfocused and I’ll back up and try to imagine a central character and maybe even plot out a bit of a storyline, thinking about the main conflict. When I do that, I think I’m always trying to conjure up some feeling of a subtle and human and well-developed character in a book. A novel does this thing of pulling you in close to a character by sustained familiarity and rich development. And a good song might do something similar, it’s just that maybe it’s presented as more of a puzzle box using all kinds of literary devices, meaning-laden language, and rhythm, etc. But if it’s like a puzzle box, then you as the writer still have to be intimate with the characters so that you can unfold them with precision. You have to have everything in its right place.
What’s your favorite memory of being on stage ?
The first year I started touring back in 2012, I was playing with the Claire Lynch Band at MerleFest. I think we had a mainstage afternoon set on Saturday, maybe. Russ Jordan was there and all the usual Wilkesboro crew and there was a decent crowd out in the old Lowe’s lawn chairs. So we finished our set and I walked off and was striking the stage for the next act, which was the Tony Rice Unit. Well at some point I start hearing rumblings that Tony didn’t have a fiddler with him. He had planned on getting king Stu [Stuart Duncan] over for the set, but MerleFest had booked the Nashville Bluegrass Band on like the Creekside Stage opposite Tony’s mainstage set. As it turned out, all the names of great fiddlers being thrown around were over there watching Stu, of course.
Anyway, I was there at the mainstage. Right place, right time. He didn’t know me from Adam, but Tony’s bass player was bending his ear giving me a good recommendation, because he was also the bass player for the Claire Lynch Band. Tony got up there and did the whole line check with the band and walked backstage as if they would play the set as a four-piece, but Mark Schatz must’ve been selling me hard, because five minutes before set time he pulls me back to their little green room and Tony walks up and sticks out his hand and says in his kind of broken-up voice, “How would you like to be a member of the Unit?” He seemed really frail even then and I remember consciously kind of being careful shaking his hand. I got up and did a quick mic check and the tech put a wash of the band in the monitors. Russ announced the Unit and I walked up and played the set with my stomach in my throat and looking fresh off the turnip truck.
I really hope Tony enjoyed it, or at least that he didn’t mind me much over there. He seemed to be having a good time, anyway. It’s the only time I ever got to play with or even speak with him, but his albums were probably the single biggest influence on my musicianship. I was going to Rice Unit concerts before I was born and had played his tapes until the pitch was all messed up and then switched to CDs and played them until they were all scratched to hell – and on and on. Sometime later I found out that Sierra Hull had decided to hire me based on that set with Tony (she was listening out in the VIP section) and then as a result I think I ended up getting a lot of good work with people down the road. I’ve had a lot of good memories on stage now and been able to sit in with many of my heroes, but that one still stands out.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do they impact your work?
I got really into section hiking during and before COVID, when I was back in Carolina and I ended up doing some of the Appalachian Trail up in Pennsylvania. At one point I could’ve walked out my front door and a mile up the road was a hundred miles of trails I could link up with that eventually led up to Mount Mitchell, the tallest peak east of the Mississippi. Such a great use of a week or weekend. Woods, mountains, and the quiet are my home. I hear the sweet decomposing forest floor smell is particularly good for mental health.
It doesn’t take long walking like that before everything I should be doing just falls into place. Musically, in life, with people. It all works itself out. I have an important line of a song come to me or a new crooked fiddle tune just falls out. There’s an old-timey tune I haven’t named yet that came to me like that. I think we all have much better versions of ourselves – our more authentic selves – that come back rising up once we get out from under the weight of these daily intrusions.
The sociologist Habermas called it a “colonization of the life world,” crept up slowly over the last 100 years with all the markets reaching their tendrils into our daily lives, encroaching on the time that we have to just be human and experience the world without dealing with being persuaded by something or someone. Going to the woods for me is just a remembering of yourself as a person and who you are in the world, which is the thing I think that modernity would like us most to forget.
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
I’m a big fan of Wayne Shorter’s Witch Hunt. I used to listen to that album incessantly back in the day. He’s one of my favorite musicians, generally, but there was some strange and good voodoo happening with the crew on that recording. Everyone was at their most tasteful. That music was greater than the sum of its parts, and the sum of its parts is no small sum if you look at the album personnel. Great writing, great playing.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
If I didn’t work in music, I’d own a boutique cheese curds shop that’s word of mouth only and hard to find. I’d call it the Squeakeasy. Just need backers.
In this episode of the podcast, Ismay sits down with Finding Lucinda director Joel Fendelman. They discuss how Joel approached the making of the documentary and concepts like developing the language of a film to build trust with the audience, the artist’s experience of not being where you thought you should be at a certain age – including how to constructively confront that – and the idea of trusting others in collaborations. They also talk about how there is overlap in the craft of filmmaking and music-making, including ideas like contrasts and consistency.
With roots in Miami, Austin, and New York City, Fendelman has written, produced, and directed a number of award-winning narrative and documentary films. An award-winning filmmaker, he is dedicated to telling stories that reveal the underlying connections between us all. His documentary Man on Fire received an IDA Documentary Award and premiered nationally on PBS’s Independent Lens (2018–19 season). He went on to direct North Putnam, which won the Indiana Spotlight Award at the Heartland International Film Festival. In 2016, his short film Game Night premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won Best Super Short at the Savannah Film Festival. His second narrative feature, Remittance, earned multiple festival awards, including Best Actress and Best Screenplay at the Brooklyn Film Festival, and is distributed worldwide. His debut feature, David (2011), won the Ecumenical Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival. His most recent short film, The Spiritual Advisor, is premiering at DOC NYC 2025 and is being distributed by Rolling Stone Films.
Produced in partnership with BGS and distributed through the BGS Podcast Network, Finding Lucinda expands on the themes of Ismay’s eponymous documentary film, exploring artistic influence, creative resilience, and the impact of Williams’ music. New episodes are released twice a month. Listen right here on BGS or wherever you get podcasts.
Finding Lucinda, the documentary film that inspired and instigated the podcast, is now available to purchase, rent, or stream via video on demand. (Watch the film, listen to the soundtrack, or find a screening near you here.) Both the film and podcast showcase never-before-heard archival material, intimate conversations, and a visual journey through the literal and figurative landscapes that molded Lucinda’s songwriting.
Credits: Produced, recorded, and mixed by Avery Hellman for Neanderthal Records, LLC. Music by Ismay, Special thanks to: Rose Bush, Liz McBee, Mick Hellman, Jonathan McHugh, Sydney Lane, Jacqueline Sabec, Rosemary Carroll, Lucinda Williams, and Tom Overby
Find more information on Finding Lucinda here. Find our full Finding Lucinda episode archive here.
Watch Finding Lucinda, listen to the soundtrack, or find a screening near you here.
The nominees for the 2026 GRAMMY Awards have been announced by the Recording Academy, looking ahead to “Music’s Biggest Night” on Sunday, February 1, 2026 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California. The primetime show will be broadcast live on CBS and will stream live and on demand on Paramount+.
Legends, icons, familiar names, and first-time nominees can all be found across the 95 GRAMMY categories that have been unveiled. In the Country & American Roots Music field, standouts include Tyler Childers (4 nominations), Lainey Wilson (3 nominations), Sierra Hull (4 nominations, including Best Instrumental Composition), Jesse Welles (4 nominations), and I’m With Her (3 nominations). Alison Krauss & Union Station, who released their first album in 14 years, Arcadia, earlier this year, have been nominated twice for 2026, bringing Krauss’ total number of nominations across her career to 46. Krauss is one of the most-nominated and most-awarded artists in GRAMMY history.
Unsurprisingly, one of those nominations for Krauss & Union Station finds Arcadia in the running for Best Bluegrass Album. The LP will compete with Carter & Cleveland by Jason Carter & Michael Cleveland, A Tip Toe High Wire by Sierra Hull, Outrun by the SteelDrivers, and Highway Prayers by Billy Strings for the Best Bluegrass Album gramophone. (This year, Best Bluegrass Album is Strings’ sole nomination.)
In country, for the first time Best Country Album has been split into two constituent categories, Best Contemporary Country Album and Best Traditional Country Album. Kelsea Ballerini, Tyler Childers, Eric Church, Jelly Roll, and Miranda Lambert will vie for Best Contemporary Country Album this year, while Charley Crockett, Margo Price, and Zach Top find themselves nominated for Best Traditional Country Album – with father-and-son Willie and Lukas Nelson nominated as well, pitted against each other for the very first time.
Outside of the Country & American Roots Music field, roots musicians are represented far and wide. Béla Fleck, Edmar Castañeda, and Antonio Sánchez’s BEATrio self-titled record is nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. Dan Auerbach is up for Producer of the Year (Non-Classical). Elton John and Brandi Carlile are nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album and Best Song Written For Visual Media. Plus, Sinners, the phenomenal and horrifying Ryan Coogler film steeped in various roots music traditions, has racked up five nominations across categories and fields.
It’s certainly an exciting roster of nominees for the 2026 GRAMMY Awards! Below, find the complete list of nominations from the Country & American Roots Music field, plus select categories featuring roots musicians, artists, and projects from across the various other GRAMMY fields and categories.
The 68th Annual GRAMMY Awards will take place on Sunday, February 1, 2026.
Country & American Roots Music
Best Country Solo Performance
“Nose On The Grindstone” – Tyler Childers “Good News” – Shaboozey “Bad As I Used To Be” – Chris Stapleton “I Never Lie” – Zach Top “Somewhere Over Laredo” – Lainey Wilson
Best Country Duo/Group Performance
“A Song To Sing” – Miranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton “Trailblazer” – Reba McEntire, Miranda Lambert, Lainey Wilson “Love Me Like You Used To Do” – Margo Price, Tyler Childers “Amen” – Shaboozey, Jelly Roll “Honky Tonk Hall Of Fame” – George Strait, Chris Stapleton
Best Country Song
“Bitin’ List” – Tyler Childers, songwriter. (Tyler Childers) “Good News” – Michael Ross Pollack, Sam Elliot Roman, Jacob Torrey, songwriters. (Shaboozey) “I Never Lie” – Carson Chamberlain, Tim Nichols, Zach Top, songwriters. (Zach Top) “Somewhere Over Laredo” – Andy Albert, Trannie Anderson, Dallas Wilson, Lainey Wilson, songwriters. (Lainey Wilson) “A Song To Sing” – Jenee Fleenor, Jesse Frasure, Miranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton, songwriters. (Miranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton)
Best Traditional Country Album
Dollar A Day – Charley Crockett American Romance – Lukas Nelson Oh What A Beautiful World – Willie Nelson Hard Headed Woman – Margo Price Ain’t In It For My Health – Zach Top
Best Contemporary Country Album
Patterns – Kelsea Ballerini Snipe Hunter – Tyler Childers Evangeline Vs. The Machine – Eric Church Beautifully Broken – Jelly Roll Postcards From Texas – Miranda Lambert
Best American Roots Performance
“LONELY AVENUE” – Jon Batiste, Featuring Randy Newman “Ancient Light” – I’m With Her “Crimson And Clay” – Jason Isbell “Richmond On The James” – Alison Krauss & Union Station “Beautiful Strangers” – Mavis Staples
Best Americana Performance
“Boom” – Sierra Hull “Poison In My Well” – Maggie Rose, Grace Potter “Godspeed” – Mavis Staples “That’s Gonna Leave A Mark” – Molly Tuttle “Horses” – Jesse Welles
Best American Roots Song
“Ancient Light” – Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, Sara Watkins, songwriters. (I’m With Her) “BIG MONEY” – Jon Batiste, Mike Elizondo, Steve McEwan, songwriters. (Jon Batiste) “Foxes In The Snow” – Jason Isbell, songwriter. (Jason Isbell) “Middle” – Jesse Welles, songwriter. (Jesse Welles) “Spitfire” – Sierra Hull, songwriter. (Sierra Hull)
Best Americana Album
BIG MONEY – Jon Batiste Bloom – Larkin Poe Last Leaf On The Tree – Willie Nelson So Long Little Miss Sunshine – Molly Tuttle Middle – Jesse Welles
Best Bluegrass Album
Carter & Cleveland – Michael Cleveland & Jason Carter A Tip Toe High Wire – Sierra Hull Arcadia – Alison Krauss & Union Station Outrun – The SteelDrivers Highway Prayers – Billy Strings
Best Traditional Blues Album
Ain’t Done With The Blues – Buddy Guy Room On The Porch – Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ One Hour Mama: The Blues Of Victoria Spivey – Maria Muldaur Look Out Highway – Charlie Musselwhite Young Fashioned Ways – Kenny Wayne Shepherd & Bobby Rush
Best Contemporary Blues Album
Breakthrough – Joe Bonamassa Paper Doll – Samantha Fish A Tribute To LJK – Eric Gales Preacher Kids – Robert Randolph Family – Southern Avenue
Best Folk Album
What Did The Blackbird Say To The Crow – Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson Crown Of Roses – Patty Griffin Wild And Clear And Blue – I’m With Her Foxes In The Snow – Jason Isbell Under The Powerlines (April 24 – September 24) – Jesse Welles
Best Regional Roots Music Album
Live At Vaughan’s – Corey Henry & The Treme Funktet For Fat Man – Preservation Brass & Preservation Hall Jazz Band Church Of New Orleans – Kyle Roussel Second Line Sunday – Trombone Shorty And New Breed Brass Band A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco – Various Artists
General Field
Producer of the Year (Non-Classical)
Dan Auerbach Cirkut Dijon Blake Mills Sounwave
Jazz, Traditional Pop, Contemporary Instrumental & Musical Theater
Best Jazz Performance
“Noble Rise” – Lakecia Benjamin, Featuring Immanuel Wilkins & Mark Whitfield “Windows – Live” – Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian Blade “Peace Of Mind / Dreams Come True” – Samara Joy “Four” – Michael Mayo “All Stars Lead To You – Live” – Nicole Zuraitis, Dan Pugach, Tom Scott, Idan Morim, Keyon Harrold & Rachel Eckroth
Best Jazz Instrumental Album
Trilogy 3 (Live) – Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian Blade Southern Nights – Sullivan Fortner, Featuring Peter Washington & Marcus Gilmore Belonging – Branford Marsalis Quartet Spirit Fall – John Patitucci, Featuring Chris Potter & Brian Blade Fasten Up – Yellowjackets
Best Alternative Jazz Album
honey from a winter stone – Ambrose Akinmusire Keys To The CityVolume One – Robert Glasper Ride into the Sun – Brad Mehldau LIVE-ACTION – Nate Smith Blues Blood – Immanuel Wilkins
Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
Wintersongs – Laila Biali The Gift Of Love – Jennifer Hudson Who Believes In Angels? – Elton John & Brandi Carlile Harlequin – Lady Gaga A Matter Of Time – Laufey The Secret Of Life: Partners, Volume 2 – Barbra Streisand
Best Contemporary Instrumental Album
Brightside – ARKAI Ones & Twos – Gerald Clayton BEATrio – Béla Fleck, Edmar Castañeda, Antonio Sánchez Just Us – Bob James & Dave Koz Shayan – Charu Suri
Gospel & Contemporary Christian Music
Best Roots Gospel Album
I Will Not Be Moved (Live) – The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir Then Came The Morning – Gaither Vocal Band Praise & Worship: More Than A Hollow Hallelujah – The Isaacs Good Answers – Karen Peck & New River Back To My Roots – Candi Staton
Latin, Global, Reggae & New Age, Ambient, or Chant
Best Música Mexicana Album (Including Tejano)
MALA MÍA – Fuerza Regida, Grupo Frontera Y Lo Que Viene – Grupo Frontera Sin Rodeos – Paola Jara Palabra De To’s (Seca) – Carín León Bobby Pulido & Friends Una Tuya Y Una Mía – Por La Puerta Grande(En Vivo) – Bobby Pulido
Best Global Music Performance
“EoO” – Bad Bunny “Cantando en el Camino” – Ciro Hurtado “JERUSALEMA” – Angélique Kidjo “Inmigrante Y Que?” – Yeisy Rojas “Shrini’s Dream (Live)” – Shakti “Daybreak” – Anoushka Shankar, Featuring Alam Khan, Sarathy Korwar
Children’s, Comedy, Audio Books, Visual Media & Music Video/Film
Best Song Written For Visual Media
“As Alive As You Need Me To Be” [From TRON: Ares] – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, songwriters. (Nine Inch Nails) “Golden” [From KPop Demon Hunters] – EJAE & Mark Sonnenblick, songwriters. (HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna, REI AMI) “I Lied to You” [From Sinners] – Ludwig Göransson & Raphael Saadiq, songwriters. (Miles Caton) “Never Too Late” [From Elton John: Never Too Late] – Brandi Carlile, Elton John, Bernie Taupin & Andrew Watt, songwriters. (Elton John, Brandi Carlile) “Pale, Pale Moon” [From Sinners] – Ludwig Göransson & Brittany Howard, songwriters. (Jayme Lawson) “Sinners” [From Sinners] – Leonard Denisenko, Rodarius Green, Travis Harrington, Tarkan Kozluklu, Kyris Mingo & Darius Povilinus, songwriters. (Rod Wave)
“First Snow” – Remy Le Boeuf, composer. (Nordkraft Big Band, Remy Le Boeuf & Danielle Wertz) “Live Life This Day: Movement I” – Miho Hazama, composer. (Miho Hazama, Danish Radio Big Band & Danish National Symphony Orchestra) “Lord, That’s A Long Way” – Sierra Hull, composer. (Sierra Hull) “Opening” – Zain Effendi, composer. (Zain Effendi) “Train To Emerald City” – John Powell & Stephen Schwartz, composers (John Powell & Stephen Schwartz) “Why You Here / Before The Sun Went Down” – Ludwig Göransson, composer. (Ludwig Göransson, Featuring Miles Caton)
Photo Credit: Tyler Childers by Sam Waxman; Sierra Hull courtesy of the artist.
Happy first Friday of November! Let’s kick off a month of new music roundups with our first edition of our usual weekly collection for November.
To begin, banjoist Gena Britt – whom you may know from Sister Sadie – releases her brand new solo album, Streets, Rivers, Dreams & Heartaches today. We’re sharing “What Kind of Memory Will You Be” off the new project to celebrate its launch. It’s one of Britt’s favorite tracks from the album. Her Sister Sadie bandmate, fiddler Deanie Richardson, is also included in our roundup today, joining fellow fiddler Kimber Ludiker (of Della Mae) on a twin fiddle rendition of a rip-roaring original instrumental, “No-See-Um Stomp.” It’ll have you dancing and smacking the hell out of some sandflies, too.
Singer-songwriter and guitarist Sammy Brue previews his upcoming album that pays tribute to one of his creative heroes, Justin Townes Earle, by crafting songs from inhabiting and being inspired by Earle’s journals. Brue wrote “Lonely Mornings” based on snippets of unrecorded lyrics in Earle’s journals, before Earle’s own recording of “Lonely Mornings” was released on ALL IN last year. The tunes stem from the same source, and feel connected, but show the intricate ways a single origin point can grow into two distinct songs. Watch the video for Brue’s “Lonely Mornings” below.
Our Missouri bluegrass pals the HillBenders bring us a brand new music video for their most recent single, a rock and roll and disco-infused string band version of Ola Belle Reed’s classic, “I’ve Endured.” The band leans into their genre-blending tendencies and highlight a couple of new members in the new studio music video, too. Plus, Americana-folk singer-songwriter Brendan Walter launches his new album, Disappearing Days, today and we’re sharing a new music video for his song “Pipe Dream.” Contemplating the realities and trials of building a career in the music industry, “Pipe Dream” and the album together demonstrate Walter’s goals in music are anything but far-fetched.
Make sure to check out a new single from guitarist-writer-archivist Cameron Knowler, as well, who covers Elizabeth Cotten’s “Wilson Rag” in a simple, pared-down arrangement featuring acoustic guitar, pedal steel, and kick drum. Knowler tweaks Cotten’s original arrangement slightly, continuing the age-old tradition of musical transfer and cross-pollination in bluegrass, old-time, and beyond.
It’s quite a nice roundup to get the month rolling, isn’t it? Check it out for yourself below, ’cause You Gotta Hear This.
Gena Britt, “What Kind of Memory Will You Be”
Artist:Gena Britt Hometown: Star, North Carolina Song: “What Kind of Memory Will You Be” Album:Streets, Rivers, Dreams & Heartaches Release Date: November 7, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “This song was penned by one of my Sister Sadie bandmates Dani Flowers and co-written by Paul Sikes. She had actually sent it to us several years before she ever joined the band. I remembered it and pulled it back out when I was starting to gather songs for this recording. I asked her if she would mind if I recorded it one weekend that we were on the road and she graciously agreed. We had so much fun working this up and recording it in the studio. It ended up being one of my favorite tunes on the album. And, that Dobro ride at the end of the song by Jeff Partin is out of this world good! I hope everyone enjoys listening as much as we did recording it!” – Gena Britt
Track Credits: Gena Britt – Banjo, lead vocal John Meador – Guitar, harmony vocal Alan Bartram – Acoustic bass, harmony vocal Jason Carter – Fiddle Jonathan Dillon – Mandolin Jeff Partin – Resonator guitar Tony Creasman – Drums, percussion
Sammy Brue, “Lonely Mornings”
Artist:Sammy Brue Hometown: Ogden, Utah Song: “Lonely Mornings” Album:The Journals Release Date: November 12, 2025 (video); January 23, 2026 (album) Label: Bloodshot Records
In Their Words: “The song ‘Lonely Mornings’ was written in collaboration with Justin Townes Earle’s journals. After I wrote this song, New West Records released a new album of Justin’s called ALL IN which contained unreleased recordings and songs of his. I was ecstatic to find a song called ‘Lonely Mornings’; it was like a sign. Even though our songs didn’t sound similar, they are connected through a couple lines at the end of his last verse and a similar cadence on the tag line. I found the early rendition of his lyrics and they seemed to be almost a decade old, which goes to show how long Justin really carved a song like it was made of marble. I found inspiration and a whole song in just one verse of his true version of ‘Lonely Mornings’ before I even knew it existed. To me, this song holds the mundane scenes that go with living the artist lifestyle. It also holds a sentiment that we both share, which is the love of spending a morning alone… a writer’s heaven.” – Sammy Brue
The HillBenders, “Tradical Volume 1: I’ve Endured”
In Their Words: “We’ve always leaned into ‘bluegrass meets rock ’n’ roll,’ a tag our late manager Louis Myers, co-founder of SXSW, gave us early on. So when we started talking about a new recording project, we didn’t feel the need to change course. Like I tell people, we blame our love for traditional roots music and classic rock on our parents’ vinyl collections. There are so many great legacies to pull from in that wax.
“Instead of putting out a standard album or EP, we decided to start a new series called Tradical, where we let those two loves live together. The first release is Tradical Volume 1: I’ve Endured. For the traditional side we went to Appalachian songwriter Ola Belle Reed’s classic ‘I’ve Endured’ and gave it a rock almost disco groove.
“This track also lets you hear our newest bandmates and singer-songwriters, Andrew Morris (banjo/mandolin) and Jody Bilyeu (keys/mandolin). Jody takes the lead vocal on this first Tradical release. This song is our nod to the rocky road that is show business and to the people who keep going against the odds simply because they love music and performing.” – Jimmy Rea
Track Credits: Jim Rea – Guitar, harmony vocal Gary Rea – Bass, harmony vocal Jody Bilyeu – Mandolin, lead vocal Andrew Morris – Banjo John Anderson – Drums
Cameron Knowler, “Wilson Rag”
Artist:Cameron Knowler Hometown: Yuma, Arizona Song: “Wilson Rag” Album:East of the Gilas (Lagniappe Session) Release Date: November 14, 2025 (EP) Label: Castle Dome Records
In Their Words: “As far as anyone knows, Elizabeth Cotten composed ‘Wilson Rag’ and recorded it a few times on various projects. Though her performances often include a third part which changes slightly from take to take, I decided to focus on the first two parts, adding a bit of reharmonization to make the tune sing with my buddy Will Ellis’ pedal steel playing. Ellis also engineered this track at his home studio in East Nashville, where varied bird songs quietly spilled through a large window. I’m the one playing the ratty Lyon & Healy kick drum from the nineteen teens or twenties, which was performed live with an early-1900s Antonio Grauso acoustic guitar, tuned quite low. I’m also using one of Guy Clark’s old thumbpicks. This tune sure feels great under the fingers and is one that I’ve played for quite some time.” – Cameron Knowler
Artist:Deanie Richardson & Kimber Ludiker Song: “No-See-Um Stomp” Release Date: November 7, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “I wrote ‘No-See-Um Stomp’ after meeting a flock of no-see-ums for the first time on the East Coast. As a PNW girl, I was mortified by their existence and the one billion bites I suffered. This tune came out of me very quickly. The first part is the swarm and the second part… human agony. I recorded it once with my band Della Mae and, although there’s an amazing ‘twin guitar’ moment with Avril Smith and Molly Tuttle, I always heard this tune as a twin fiddle tune. As you know, you never encounter just one of these bugs, so I’m very excited to have a twin fiddle version of this with Deanie Richardson. We took a mild ‘controlled chaos’ approach to this, which fits the tune perfectly. Instead of linear twin fiddle parts, we depart here and there, swarming around each other just like the little critters this tune was written for.” – Kimber Ludiker
Artist:Brendan Walter Hometown: Dallas, Texas Album:Disappearing Days Song: “Pipe Dream” Release Date: November 7, 2025 Label: RECORDS/Sony Music Nashville
In Their Words: “I started writing this song while I was still in college, when I was figuring out if I wanted to pursue my majors or follow my lifelong dream of being a musician. At first, music felt like a pipe dream due to the fact that I knew nothing about the industry or how to get started. During college and for about a year after graduating, I bartended full-time to survive while nurturing this dream to make music my full-time gig. Those long nights definitely lit a fire under me to fully pursue music. I had no idea how I was going to accomplish my dreams in this wildly new world, but I knew I wanted it more than anything else and I wasn’t going to stop until I could make it a reality.
“Now, having a couple years in the industry under my belt, I still feel like I’m the new kid on the block, but I know a lot of other artists have felt that way so I thought it was fitting to show a glimpse of my struggles and aspirations along the way. I also worked in a strum pattern inspired by Mumford & Sons, because their music got me into playing guitar and writing songs. I had the opportunity to play with session musicians for the first time when making my debut album and, on this song specifically, I got to play with the very talented Kurt Ozan. Hope everyone enjoys this one!” – Brendan Walter
Photo Credit: Gena Britt by Tom Turk; Sammy Brue by Joshua Black Wilkins.
Through the windshield of their Ford Transit van, the duo Briscoe drew songwriting inspiration from the Southwestern landscape during a long, meandering road trip after graduating from the University of Texas. However, this trek was more than just a rite of passage, as band members Philip Lupton and Truett Heintzelman were launching their first national tour. In those seemingly endless miles between show dates, they would trade lyrical ideas to flesh out once they got back home to Austin.
Described by the band as “Texas folk-rock,” those cinematic songs have now surfaced on Briscoe’s second album, Heat of July. Produced by Brad Cook and released by ATO Records, the collection is a generally optimistic highway companion set against the backdrop of sunsets somewhere south of Alpine, Texas, long drives to Denver, and Mexican eagles circling overhead.
During a brief break from the road, Briscoe spoke with Good Country about how banjo fits into their sound, discovering bluegrass through YouTube videos, and the John Prine classic that set it all in motion.
I found it interesting that you were writing this album as you were driving around the country. You’re going 80 miles an hour as these songs are coming to you. Can you set the scene of what that looked like?
Philip Lupton: Yeah, that’s a great question. A lot of this record was written on the road just because we were touring hard on our debut album, West of It All. You’re in the van for so many hours a day that you eventually get tired of listening to music, no matter how much you like music. You just need some silence. I think that’s when Truett and I can find a little bit of inspiration. Like, “OK, cut the music.”
“Arizona Shining,” the second song on the record, is very much written as I’m taking in the landscape through the window. You just start to mumble a few things under your breath. And then you hold up your phone and take a little voice memo. You get back home in a couple weeks, you come back to that idea, and then, finally, get to put it to a progression and bring it to life.
When you’re out on tour, coming out of your hotel, and you see that van hooked up to a trailer, does it ever strike you, like, “We’re really out here making this happen”?
PL: Yeah, absolutely it does! There’s this old Hayes Carll song called “I Got a Gig.” I listen to that song and I’m like, “OK, we’re doing it. We’re road dogging it.” We’re staying at the cheap hotels and playing gigs for cash at the door and whatever. We’ve seen a lot of growth and success in a lot of markets, but when you’re taking it all across the country, up into Canada, there’s a lot of those same stories you can experience any time on the road.
The opening song, “Saving Grace,” seems to set a tone for the album. There’s a very positive tone in that song. Is that a fair statement, do you think?
Truett Heintzelman: Super fair, yeah. A lot of this record is written over the last year and a half to two years and one of the big components of that time for both of us is that we both got married. So that’s what we were wanting to convey. We view marriage in a positive light and, God willing, we’ll always view it in a positive light. “Saving Grace” was written about marrying our respective wives.
For me, that song was about meeting my wife and realizing early on, “OK, this feels different and I don’t want this to go away.” We just tried to write as much as we could about our lives and experiences and our time between now and the last record. And, obviously, getting married is something that takes up a lot of your brain, you naturally end up thinking about it a lot.
You’ve got a cool banjo vibe on “Saving Grace” and a couple other songs on the album, too. Philip, what pulled you into the sound of the banjo?
PL: It goes back to learning guitar when I was middle school-age. I just had a desire to learn an instrument that was different and would allow me to jam with my buddies. So, I bought a banjo at a secondhand music store in San Angelo, where I’m from, for like 150 bucks, and I ended up really falling in love with the Avett Brothers. Back in the day, when Truett and I were both learning to play guitar and sing, I’d play the banjo and Truett would play the guitar and we’d cover the Avett Brothers. That was how we fell in love with playing together.
The banjo always had a strong presence. When we started writing, it was almost second nature to incorporate the banjo in some way. If Truett was handling most of the rhythm guitar, I picked up the banjo in lieu of a lead guitar. We just kind of rolled with that, way back when.
You mentioned middle school. Is that around the same time you guys met?
PL: Yeah, I was a year older than Truett in school and we met at summer camp. We just hit it off and we were both learning guitar and both interested in similar music. We saw each other every year after that at camp and became really close in high school. San Angelo is a smaller town and we’d have to go to a major city for any big need, like a big hospital system. So, my family would go to San Antonio quite a bit. I’d get dropped off at Truett’s house and we’d play guitar until my family was ready to go back to San Angelo.
Do you guys remember the first time you sang together?
TH: Oh yeah, that first summer we met at camp, we met on the first day of the session, which was two weeks long. We both brought acoustic guitars, so it was like, “All right. You play, I play.” “What do you like to play?” “Oh, I like that song too.”
We started going back and forth, kind of jamming all throughout that week. At the end of that week, we played “Paradise” by John Prine at our camp talent show, which was really just for us. We joke that I don’t think anyone else in that camp auditorium had any idea what we were saying, but they were just excited that we were singing and we were too.
How did John Prine hit your radar in middle school?
TH: There’s a guy named Joshua Lee Turner who’s in a band called the Other Favorites and he has this YouTube channel, it’s like a gold mine. He’s super talented, an awesome artist, and he and his buddies cover all these incredible songs. I owe watching Joshua Lee Turner on YouTube for a good chunk of the artists and the music that I love. I consume a ton of bluegrass music and a lot of that is because of him. The song “Old Home Place” is one that I fell in love with after watching him. When Philip and I put it together that we both loved him, that served as a blueprint, too, for us to start posting videos on YouTube.
How did you come up with the name Briscoe?
PL: Briscoe was my grandfather’s middle name. I never met that granddad, but I always loved that name. It’s a name that goes back in my family on that side a few generations. It was in consideration for my name before I was born, but my grandma on the other side of the family didn’t like it. I always liked the name and I started Briscoe in San Angelo before we got to UT, just as a name to put music under. I knew someday Truett and I would be able to do it together, so I just chose Briscoe and rolled with it and then we never had any reason to consider changing it. And that was that.
You guys have seen the whole country by now, touring coast to coast. What is it about living in Texas that makes you want to settle there?
TH: I’ll just get this out of the way now – when you’re born in Texas and raised in Texas, you’re just inherently proud of that. So, from the get-go, you probably have an inflated sense of pride to be from Texas. But we’re now at this place where we’ve gotten to see everything in North America, pretty much. There are so many beautiful parts of this country, and of Canada and Mexico. In all these cities, you’re like, “Wow, this is such a great city. It would be fun to live here.” But I have never found a place where I’ve been like, “I would rather live here than where I live in Texas.” This is where our roots are.
Philip, how about you?
PL: The older I get, the more I appreciate Texas’ contribution in the music world on all different levels, and especially this Texas country/outlaw kind of thing. To name a few guys in particular, Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett, and Robert Earl Keen. The more we appreciate them, the more that we want to resemble what they did. No matter what level of popularity or success they achieved as musicians, they never forgot where they were from. We respect those guys a lot for that, and how they blazed their own path.
We are very proud to be part of the greater Texas subgenre of Americana, folk, and country music, and we feel like that’s where we’re always going to want to be.
Recently I was on the Outlaw Country Tour with Waxahatchee. Sheryl Crow had invited us all to join her on stage for the last night. Her production folks started passing out little percussion instruments, I think I traded the tambourine with Spencer (drummer) for something reasonable I could play. We all stepped up on the drum riser, me with a drumstick and a cowbell. Then Sheryl turned around and took her guitar off in one smooth motion. She passed it to me and whispered, “D.” Once I made it through the first chorus and got the nod from her guitar player that I was hearing the right chords, I knew this would be the peak of my entire life.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
The next one. Not to be cliché, but it’s true. I’m constantly in fear of having written my last song. I always start from a place of “how the hell do you do this?” I’m on tour right now and I’ve been working on a song whenever I have a guitar in my hands. I oscillate between knowing exactly what I think should happen next and feeling like starting over. Both can be the right answer and that’s pretty par for the course. But every once in a while they fall out of you like a dime from your pocket. Wish I knew how to make that happen every time.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
Flaubert said, “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.”
It’s all me and none of it’s true. I don’t think I could avoid myself if I tried, but I also pull little visions and observations from the people around me all the time. I think you have to be curious about people to be a good writer.
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
I would say 50% of the music I listen to is instrumental. Jazz from the ’40s and ’50s in particular. Hard bop and big band music is a constant. Duke Ellington is my favorite American artist. Endlessly inspiring and a huge influence on my melodic sensibility.
Although, recently I have been listening to a lot of Romantic symphonies. Beautiful and mind-altering!
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
I think Woody Guthrie might have said it better than I ever could: take it easy, but take it.
This month, BGS is celebrating 100 years of the Grand Ole Opry! It would be hard to overstate the influence of the Opry on American roots music – hell, on music in general – over the past century.
From Earl Scruggs joining Bill Monroe to create the sound of bluegrass; to DeFord Bailey becoming the first Black Opry star and the first Black musician to break into the commercial music scene in Nashville; to the legendary meeting of Johnny Cash and June Carter; the Opry has been a catalyst for so many iconic moments. Below, we kick off our “Artist of the Month” celebration with our Opry 100 Essentials Playlist, which includes some of our favorite live recordings from the Opry, songs famously debuted on that legendary stage, and some of our favorite roots songs written about the Opry and its lore, too.
Did you know that Dolly Parton made her first Grand Ole Opry appearance in 1959 at the age of 13 and received three encores? To get a sense of how young Dolly might have sounded on that stage, we’ve included one of her very first singles, “Girl Left Alone,” (the B-side of the now well-known “Puppy Love”), recorded when she was just 11 years old and released the same year as her Opry debut.
Elvis famously made his Opry debut in 1954 at the age of 19, singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky” in a style that was so poorly received a manager told him to “go back to driving a truck,” or something of that nature. You can hear his rockabilly version on our playlist.
In 1969, Linda Martell was the first solo Black woman to perform on the Opry, singing “Color Him Father” for her debut. Although she faced rampant racism throughout her career, her first performance on the Opry was met with two standing ovations and she went on to perform there 12 times over the years.
The Opry has also been fodder for songwriting, inspiring many tracks over the years. Early Opry star David “Stringbean” Akeman met Bill Monroe while playing semi-professional baseball and went on to play clawhammer-style banjo in his band from 1943 to 1945. After parting ways with Monroe’s band, Stringbean became an Opry star in his own right and penned the song “Opry Time in Tennessee.”
Stringbean and his wife were tragically murdered in 1973 by thieves who had heard of him storing cash in his home. In 2009, Sam Bush released his song, “The Ballad of Stringbean and Estelle,” co-written with Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson. “The thieves laid in wait for hours/ But things didn’t go their way/ But he wouldn’t let go of his Opry pay,” sings Bush on his album, Circles Around Me.
Shortly before the Opry was moved from downtown Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium to the newly built Opry House in 1974, John Hartford released “Tear Down the Grand Ole Opry,” a scathing commentary on the commercialization of country music. “Right across from the wax museum/ They used to line up around the block/ From east Tennessee and back down home again … Broad Street will never be the same,” Hartford sings nostalgically on his legendary Aereo-Plain album.
While the Opry is known as a country music gold standard, over its 100 years as a live-broadcast radio show it has held clout across the genres and in popular culture – not just in country. This year, as part of the celebration of its 100th anniversary, the Opry has been featuring 100 Opry debuts and first-time performances. These special appearances have showcased the broad impact of the Opry, hosting the likes of pop star Sabrina Carpenter who said, “My mom raised me on the artists who have stood up here.”
Whether in country, bluegrass, Americana, or beyond, the Grand Ole Opry continues to be a musical powerhouse, 100 years after its barn dance birth. While we look ahead to the next century of Opry magic, we’re beyond excited to join the Grand Ole Opry family in celebrating Opry 100 for the entire month of November. Enjoy our Opry 100 Essentials Playlist below and relive the Opry 100: A Live Celebration television special on NBC from earlier this year here, too. You can read our primary feature on Opry 100 right here. Plus, stay tuned all month as we have brand new and archive articles, interviews, and features we’ll be sharing here and on socials all spotlighting the incredibly legacy and community of our beloved Grand Ole Opry as we countdown to November 28, 2025 – the Opry’s official 100th birthday!
Lead Image: Opening of the Grand Ole Opry House in 1974, courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.
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