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The String

WMOT/Roots Radio 89.5 FM

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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Saturday · 58 min
Sean Sullivan
Episode 369: In his almost 20 years of recording Americana music in Nashville, 39-year-old Sean Sullivan has earned a reputation for impeccable recording and mixing of quality instruments, be they antique acoustic or classic electric. Working since the pandemic out of the Tractor Shed in Goodlettsville, he's accumulated five Grammy Awards and immense respect in the bluegrass and Americana communities. We talk about the art of capturing great musicians and about working with Sturgill Simpson, Del McCoury, Molly Tuttle and others.
September 1 · 59 min
Charlie Worsham
Episode 368: He's one of Music City's most respected "multi-hyphenate" music-makers - an artist-singer-songwriter-picker-producer who's had his hand in scores of hit records while releasing much-admired albums of his own over a 20 year career in town. Craig regards him as a "Music Row whisperer," a guy with his finger on the pulse of the industry and a well-rooted point of view in the music he makes. He returns to the String with the new album Once Upon A Second Time Around and, though he didn't know it at the time, a new Grand Ole Opry member trophy.
August 14 · 58 min
Sweet Megg
Episode 367: One of the stars of Nashville's recent honky tonk boom first found her muse playing in late night jazz clubs of New York and Paris. That set Sweet Megg apart when she moved here just after the pandemic - a flair for early blues and hot club swing. In Music City, she's also developed as a songwriter releasing stylish Americana fare, but she continues to mine the catalog for golden nuggets she can make her own, as on her latest Massive Negroni.
August 6 · 59 min
Allison Russell
Episode 366: In The Hour Of Chaos, Allison Russell's third solo album, brings the power of harmony and solidarity into a time of division and fear. In an interview days before its release, the songwriter says her "rainbow coalition" of collaborators has grown since her breakout album Outside Child of 2021, and many of them, including Brittany Spencer, Norah Jones, and Kashus Culpepper, sing duets with her. She also gets into her foundations in folk music during her pre-Nashville years.
July 30 · 58 min
Aaron Lee Tasjan
Episode 365: His biography sounds like several different people: accomplished jazz guitar player, New York City glam rocker, progressive Americana songwriter in Nashville. That's why Aaron Lee Tasjan comes across as a true American original. Over 13 years in Music City, Tasjan's been prolific and acclaimed, releasing half a dozen albums touching many colors of pop music. His latest came after a time of discouragement and personal re-building, so it's called Get Over It, Underdog.
July 21 · 59 min
ISMAY
Episode 364: As Avery Hellman came of age in California, she took advantage of her good fortune of being from the family that established the game-changing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco. It exposed her to standard-setting songwriting and artistry in folk and roots music, and with a bit of reluctance, she became an artist too under the name Ismay. Her two albums, Desert Pavement and the new Half Truth, are alive with a poet's ear for language and eye for landscape, plus a crafty marriage of melodies and chords. She's also the filmmaker behind the exploratory documentary Finding Lucinda, about Lucinda Williams.
July 13 · 59 min
Devon Gilfillian
Episode 363: Devon Gilfillian has been a key artist fulfilling the promise of a New Music City - a Nashville that's been welcome to the widest-ever range of genres, influences and innovations. He came to town with no contacts and a job with AmeriCorps in 2013. But before very long he'd landed a major label deal and national radio hits - all with an iconoclastic take on soul, funk and Americana. His newest album - his second for the prestigious Fantasy Records - is a beautiful grooving swirl called Time Will Tell.
July 7 · 59 min
Tenille Townes
Episode 362: Songwriter and artist Tenille Townes is a certified star in Canada where she's won heaps of awards and seen her moving songs top the country charts. In over a dozen years in Nashville, she's been an impressive songwriter with one foot in major label country and another in Americana. Now with a lovely self-produced acoustic album called The Acrobat, Townes points to an independent future with a unique vision and a renewed sense of self.
July 3 · 59 min
John R. Miller
Episode 361: Folk rocker John R. Miller can be dry and understated, but get beneath the surface and you'll find an artist keen to write music that helps people be better people. Inspired by John Prine and others, the Nashville based West Virginian has earned widespread acclaim and released three albums for the prestigious Rounder Records, the latest being the sweeping and fiery The Great Unknowning. He spoke with Craig at his Madison home studio.
June 11 · 59 min
Andy Leftwich
Episode 360: Andy Leftwich was a Tennessee string picking prodigy who crushed it at fiddle competitions and was working by his late teens. Then, before he turned twenty, he was offered a job (on stage no less) by legend Ricky Skaggs. For 15 years with Kentucky Thunder, he built a reputation as one of the most complete and technically gifted musicians in bluegrass, sharing in numerous IBMA and Grammy Awards. Now, after a few years of being independent, he's fired up his solo career with two enthralling instrumental albums.
June 3 · 59 min
Kashus Culpepper
Episode 359: We love it when great things happen to good people, especially when the story is a total surprise, and that's what's been going on with Alabama-raised singer and songwriter Kashus Culpepper. He'd never been on a stage or played the guitar before 2020, but a confluence of free time, an encouraging group of friends, and a timely instrument helped Kashus find his voice and his calling. He's been celebrated by the media and stars like Elton John, and his debut album Act 1 has surprised many with its depth and power.
May 13 · 58 min
The Milk Carton Kids
Episode 358: Fifteen years into their close and literally harmonious relationship, Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale sound as satisfied and enriched as ever by the audience and aura they've established in Americana music. The Milk Carton Kids name was a self-effacing joke about how quickly they expected to be forgotten, but it's been quite the opposite. They've earned four Grammy nominations and an Americana Award as Duo/Group of the Year. Audiences still lean in to hear the nuances of their quiet and thoughtful sound. Their seventh album Lost Cause Lover Fool is the latest iteration of their less-is-more approach to folk artistry.
May 8 · 58 min
Boy Golden
Episode 357: Liam Duncan grew up in the small city of Brandon, Manitoba and moved to the provincial capitol and musical hotbed of Winnipeg as soon as he could, thinking he might be a session musician and sideman. But post pandemic, he's been Boy Golden, a quirky, neo-romantic persona making some of Canada's most compelling folk rock. During a swing through Nashville, Boy Golden talked about shifting focus from Canada to the US, his tight band of old friends, and his new album Best Of Our Possible Lives.
April 22 · 58 min
Brit Taylor and Adam Chaffins
Episode 356: Brit Taylor came to town from eastern Kentucky chasing the US Route 23 dream that brought us Loretta Lynn and Patty Loveless - and wound up working with Cowboy Jack Clement and Sturgill Simpson. Adam Chaffins grew up one or two counties over and ensconced himself, as a bass player and singer, in the East Nashville bluegrass scene. Eventually, a friend was smart enough to introduce them, and they became a super-talented Americana couple. But not a duo. Taylor has four albums out, including two produced by her husband. Chaffins dropped a debut LP in 2020 and a soulful EP last year, with Taylor's harmony vocals. Craig visited their homestead near Mt. Juliet to hear their story around their kitchen table.
April 16 · 59 min
Kevin Martin and Honky Tonk Tuesdays
Episode 355: Nearly 12 years ago, an informal arrangement between the caretakers of a down-on-its-luck American Legion Post and a handful of young honky tonk musicians led to the creation of Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights, one of the most vibrant residency music series of the past two decades. It's been a haven for people who love to dance, for East Nashville community, for visits from stars, and for talent development in roots/Americana music. Craig spends time with the event's founders and takes you to the scene, now moved to Eastside Bowl in Madison.
April 13 · 59 min
The Infamous Stringdusters At 20
Episode 354: The Infamous Stringdusters emerged out of Nashville's world-class but somewhat undiscovered bluegrass scene of the 2000s. Six guys with different professional pathways into the music and wide ranging tastes in other genres got to know each other at gigs, picking parties, and the IBMA World of Bluegrass. And their first gesture as a band - the 2007 album Fork In The Road - was a triumph, winning three IBMA Awards. Since those days and after a couple of early personnel changes, today's quintet has become a huge force in jamgrass music with a fierce and in-demand live show. Yet they turn back to some of the simpler and more blues-based elements of their core heritage on their new 20th anniversary release, 20/20. Craig speaks with Chris Pandolfi (banjo), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle), and Andy Falco (guitar).
April 2 · 59 min
Trey Hensley
Episode 353: He was an East Tennessee country guitar prodigy who was invited on the Grand Ole Opry at age 11 by Marty Stuart, and Trey Hensley has made good on that promise by emerging as one of the finest singers and pickers in contemporary roots music. His national profile took shape after forming a super-flexible duo with dobro master Rob Ickes around 2016. Now, after four albums, collaborations with Taj Mahal and a Grammy nomination, Hensley has revved up his songwriting and made Can't Outrun The Blues, which is not his first solo album but the one he regards as his true artistic debut.
March 27 · 59 min
Emily Scott Robinson
Episode 352: When Emily Scott Robinson released Appalachia, her fifth album in a 10-year career and her third for Nashville boutique Oh Boy Records, it spiked up into the Americana airplay top ten, something that had never happened to her before. But she had set the table through quality songwriting, ambitious touring, and a luminous voice that embraces the dark and the light with a rare alchemy. At WMOT's Eastside studio, Craig and Emily speak about her newest work with super-producer Josh Kaufman and the hard work that led to it.
March 20 · 59 min
Sammy Brue and Jonathan Bernstein Remember Justin Townes Earle
Episode 351: Justin Townes Earle, blazingly gifted and deeply troubled, died of an accidental drug overdose in 2020 at the age of 38, after a life beset by addiction. Six years later, two coincident projects expand on what we knew about the songwriter with a mix of compassion and regret. Sammy Brue, Earle's much younger friend and protegé, has written a song cycle based on Justin's private notebooks, shared by his widow. Rolling Stone journalist Jonathan Bernstein recently published the first definitive biography of Steve Earle's son. Both join Craig in this hour of remembrance and appreciation.
March 10 · 59 min
David Wilcox
Episode 350: Since breaking out with his 1989 major-label album How Did You Find Me Here, North Carolina's David Wilcox has been a consistently excellent practitioner of the new folk, fingerstyle guitar arts. The songwriter, known for his empathic writing and audience-embracing shows, is now 67 and still thinking deep thoughts about the world, compassion, art, and the arc of life. He stopped through Nashville last November to talk about maintaining a "visionary attitude" over time and his latest album The Way I Tell The Story.

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