Craig Havighurst

It is always a good year to be a McCoury in bluegrass, but 2024 may be especially memorable for the Nashville family, as the Del McCoury Band became Entertainers of the Year for the first time since 2004, while the Travelin' McCourys were named Instrumental Group of the Year at the 35th annual IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards. As a bonus, Del's son Rob was named Banjo Player of the Year for the second time at a ceremony at Raleigh, NC’s Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, hosted by Missy Raines and John Cowan.

Kris Kristofferson, a man who seemingly could have been successful at just about anything he tried, turned his cathedral-like mind and working man’s heart to the arts. He was a scholar, a soldier, a pilot, an athlete, an actor, and, as most people know, one of America’s greatest songwriters. He was a member of several exclusive societies, including Oxford University’s Rhodes Scholars and country music’s epochal Outlaws, as well as a free thinker and activist across decades. And on Saturday, his exceptional life came to an end, when Kristofferson died at home in Maui, HI at the age of 88.

It’s an immigrant story like no other. JesseLee Jones pined for something bigger growing up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He got glimpses of American music and a guitar, and with that a long journey began. After landing in the states, and getting robbed by the way, he found his way to a family in the midwest who took him in and helped him build a life. In the early 90s, destiny brought him to Nashville and a ramshackle honky tonk and boot store that he would help turn into Robert’s Western World, the pivotal and most famous honky tonk in Nashville. On the 25th anniversary of owning and running this legendary club, Jones tells his story, including the formation of his own long-running band, Brazilbilly.

This week on The String, Molly Tuttle is the link in common between two of the exceptional breakout artists during an exciting era of bluegrass music. Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is the electrifying fiddle player in Tuttle’s band Golden Highway and a two time IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year. We get into her journey from Charlottesville, VA to school at Berklee to Nashville and the latest chapter in her solo life, the wonderful album I Built A World. AJ Lee and Tuttle go back even farther, to the family band they shared growing up in the fertile bluegrass community of California. AJ Lee, an exceptional and original singer, has led her own band Blue Summit for nine years, and their newest album City Of Glass is one reason they were nominated as IBMA New Artist of the Year for 2024.

When the curtain falls on 2024, it will be hard to name an Americana/roots band that had a better year than Alabama’s Red Clay Strays. Last October, they traveled by van and played 3rd & Lindsley to a few hundred people. By the time they pulled their new bus in for their debut at the Ryman Auditorium in September, they had enough momentum to sell out three nights. That run has been curated into Live At The Ryman, announced recently for a quick turn Nov. 15 release, and that’s just the latest landmark in a remarkable rise.

Brenna MacMillan is ready for her closeup. The Kentucky native has been a fixture of the Nashville bluegrass brigade for a few years now, collaborating widely and touring for a time with her brother as Theo & Brenna. Now the banjo player and singer has written and recorded a moving, effervescent new solo debut album called Dear Life, featuring some hot guests like Peter Rowan, Sarah Jarosz, and Ronnie McCoury. We start this week’s show with my current favorite cut, “Sweet Thing,” a classic country duet with East Nash Grass dobro man Gavin Largent. Also in the hour, a new old-time album from Brad Kolodner (banjo) and George Jackson (fiddle), a hot duet No. 1 bluegrass single from fiddle geniuses Michael Cleveland and Jason Carter, and fiery flatpicking from England’s Charlotte Carrivick, an international bluegrass guitarist you need to know. I hosted this one solo while Amy was in Louisiana finding accordions to play with.

Americana music has been most conspicuously represented in the last few years by songwriting, band-leading artists, including Jason Isbell, Sierra Ferrell, and Billy Strings. Flash back to the origins of the alt-country and Americana movement, and the conversation was more often about bands, such as Son Volt, Whiskeytown, and the Old 97s. Such outfits made well-written roots music that rocked with that collective commitment that makes bandcraft so fascinating. This week I present two veteran and venerable roots rock bands that came along in the second Americana wave, bands that have weathered changes and renewed their vows - Austin’s revived Uncle Lucius and Raleigh, NC-based Blake Christiana of Yarn.

Welcome, Beyoncé, to the Americana movement. Among the R&B superstar’s personal record of 11 Grammy Award nominations announced on Friday is her song “Yaya”, a wild, finger-snapping, drum-line pounding, explicit track from the album Cowboy Carter. The innovative, country-inspired concept opus is up for Album of the Year overall and Best Country album too. The rest of the Americana and American roots fields look more conventional, with strong showings by Sierra Ferrell, Shemekia Copeland, and Aoife O’Donovan.

The Americana Music Association was born at a series of meetings by roots music executives and advocates in 1999. As the AMA wraps up its 25th anniversary year, the scene it’s helped foster is bigger and more star-studded than its original organizers might have predicted. The 4,000-member organization has achieved many goals, from Grammy recognition to a more diverse and inclusive artist community. It has launched an educational foundation. To find out what’s next, Craig Havighurst and a team of MTSU student reporters surveyed members and sector veterans to find out what AMA might do next to maintain its momentum.

John Cowan didn’t plan, even remotely, on being in a bluegrass band. But when he was a 22-year-old in Bowling Green, KY, he tried out for New Grass Revival, hoping maybe to play bass for a weird hybrid band that was making national noise. Sam Bush heard him sing one and declared him the lead singer AND bass player, and off they went for decades together and a career that landed them in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. Cowan made a run of excellent solo albums, finding his personal balance of string band and soul music. His voice is magisterial. And he collaborates brilliantly. Thus, we have