At 85 years old, Bobby Rush has been playing his brand of lovably raunchy, acoustically crunchy, and soulfully rowdy blues for over six decades.
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Starting from his days as part of the Southern migration from his hometown of Homer, Louisiana, to the South Side of Chicago — where he used to have Muddy Waters himself sub for him when he couldn’t do a gig — Bobby Rush, who won his first Grammy at the humble age of 83, has no plans of slowing down.
Michael Cleveland is the record-setting, 11-time winner of the IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year award. He’s a traditionally grounded player who’s reaching into new terrain as a 38-year-old phenomenon.
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He’s also been blind since birth and he’s overcome a lot, a story told in the new documentary Flamekeeper. Rounding out the hour, the married duo bandleaders Eric and Doni of Nefesh Mountain, a New York-based band that boldly and brilliantly fuses bluegrass and Jewish music. They sing in Hebrew and English. The melodies are beguiling and ancient-feeling. The musicianship is excellent. They talk about their four-year adventure together as the first band of their kind.
The British singer songwriter known as Yola made her first significant stateside impression at the 2016 AmericanaFest in Nashville. She returned the following year and won the Artist of the Year honor at the AMA’s UK counterpart awards.
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Her charisma, her intelligent update of country soul and her astonishing voice made her an instant favorite of music fans and critics. Soon offers to record began flowing in, but the one that seemed to have the greatest potential for reaching a new level was Dan Auerbach and his Easy Eye studio and label in Nashville. The resulting debut LP Walk Through Fire is an exquisite album with classic textures and an unmistakable esthetic. We first spoke with Yola as part of a round-up review of AmericanaFest 2017, so with this in-depth conversation, she becomes the first-ever repeat visitor to The String! Also this hour, a talk with Erika Wollam Nichols, general manager of The Bluebird Cafe and instigator of a new documentary about the famous venue that premieres this week at SXSW.
Colin Linden – guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer – is one of Nashville’s most interesting musicians. You may have seen him in the Americana Awards house band, or as a key live musician on the TV series Nashville or in the dynamic Canadian country rock band Blackie and the Rodeo Kings.
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He wasn’t born into the blues but he sure found the music early and made it his own, through a very early meeting with Howlin Wolf and a pilgrimage through the Deep South in his teens. He’s also been a long-time band leader and producer for Bruce Cockburn. We talk about all that, as well as the project he’s just completed with fellow blues musician Luther Dickinson and others, a suite of vintage love songs called Amour. Plus, a visit with the new owner and proprietor of a revived historic studio in Nashville, the former home of Cowboy Jack Clement.
This week host Z. Lupetin speaks with the high priestess of Canadiana soul, Celeigh Cardinal.
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Growing up without having much connection to her Indigenous heritage, Celeigh recently reconnected to the vibrant native community in Edmonton and has become a role model for young singers who may never have had the courage to make a name for themselves in Canada’s rich festival and concert circuits. In 2018 she was named the Indigenous Artist of the Year in Western Canada, and she just became the first Indigenous DJ to get her own show on CKUA radio, which reaches far across the Canadian prairies.
This week, Z. speaks with multi-talented songwriter, singer, guitar-slinger, and activist Bhi Bhiman. His newest project is called Peace of Mind, and is being released week by week as an interactive political podcast album.
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For nearly a decade Bhi Bhiman has been diligently crafting poetic, protesty earworms with his masterful guitar work and fuzzed out harmony. Along the way he’s gained some powerful friends and fans — like the late Chris Cornell who had Bhiman sing each night on tour a few years back. He writes about our broken immigration policies, our abandoned mental health system, the continued fight for women’s rights, voter suppression, and that’s just the first few songs off Peace of Mind. Somehow, he’s not preaching at you while he’s doing it. He’s simply putting a stunned smile on your face as you sing along with a renewed faith in the democratic process and freedom of speech.
Fifteen years ago, Mindy Smith rocketed from local sets in Nashville to the national stage in a matter of a few months on the strength of a duet on “Jolene” with Dolly Parton and the January 2004 release of her debut album One Moment More.
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She became the first winner of the Americana Music Association Emerging Artist award, and wide audiences embraced her empathic songs and translucent voice. The years since have seen periods of high profile touring and periods of quiet. She’s preparing to step back out and working on a new album. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary release of One Moment More on vinyl, we catch up about her life and path and a recent discovery.
This week, the long, diverse career of Nashville’s Bill Lloyd.
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From country hits as a writer and artist to collaborations with leading lights of rock and pop, Bill is a dynamo. And he’s got a fantastic new album out called Working The Long Game. He met fellow writer Radney Foster and they shot to fame in 1987 as Foster & Lloyd, with a sound that swam upstream from the country radio mainstream. In more recent years, he’s led the band the Long Players, Nashville favorites that perform live cut-by-cut covers of full classic albums. He keeps up a steady run of solo albums that blend top-flight Nashville songcraft with the timeless sound of pop music.
This week on the show, Z. speaks with Oakland’s soulful singing T Sisters. For this trio of sisters, singing harmony-rich songs isn’t just their full-time job, it’s a way of life. It’s what they do — and damn do they do it well.
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Sisters Erika, Chloe, and Rachel Tietjen are harmonic masters. Whether it’s demonstrated in their sassy originals accompanied by upright bass, guitar, banjo, and mandolin, or with their delicious vocal-layer-cake covers of hits by Kylie Minogue and Paul Simon, family runs deep through the music. T Sisters will be releasing their next EP, We Are Bound, produced by Oliver Wood (The Wood Brothers) in March 2019.
This week, we’re talking with Australian singer/songwriter Jordie Lane and his Aussie producing/harmonizing partner Clare Reynolds. Jordie has been making dark-hearted, voluptuously verbose folk music with a grinning rock ‘n roll spirit for nearly a decade.
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While he’s just making a name for himself in the US, Lane has been playing huge venues all over Australia for years as one of Melbourne’s most beloved and respected roots music artists. Have a listen, and then tell your American amigos to give this Aussie kid a shot — you won’t regret it.
