My guest this week is author Dan Gutstein, who joins me to chat about his book 'Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane'. The book traces the history of one of America's most recorded folk songs, from its origins amongst enslaved people on southern plantations, through the Civl War and minstrelsy, to the…
Read MoreMy guest this week is Darol Anger, one of the leading lights of progressive string band music over the last 50 years. Through his work with the David Grisman Quintet, the Turtle Island String Quartet, bands like Psychograss and New Grange and his long standing collaboration with Mike Marshall (not to mention his own wonderful…
Read MoreMy guest this week is Charlotte Carrivick. Charlotte is one of my favourite guitarists, so I'm delighted she's back on the podcast to talk about her new record Sensible or Otherwise. We chat about why, despite having written tunes for years, it took so long to make an instrumental record; the new guitar she commissioned for…
Read MoreMy guests this week is Olli Chanoff, Director of Programming at the FreshGrass Foundation. So much music I love has its roots in FreshGrass Commissions, from albums like Becky Buller's Jubilee, Sarah Jarosz's Blue Heron Suite and Aoife O'Donovan's All My Friends, to instrumental works by Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas and Jacob Jolliff. So I was…
Read MoreMy guest this week is Sarah Jarosz. Sarah joins me to talk about one of my favourite albums, 'Blue Heron Suite', which is getting a physical reissue on November 22nd. We chat about how the record developed out of a FreshGrass commission, what that process was like, the central themes that underpin the album, the…
Read MoreThis week I'm joined by bluegrass legend Bryan Sutton for a very special episode to benefit the IBMA Trust Fund and help people suffering the devastation of Hurricane Helene. In the run up to recording the episode we asked for questions for Bryan for Bluegrass Jam Along listeners – in this interview you'll hear me…
Read MoreMy guest this week is Daniel Patrick, host of the excellent Mandolins and Beer podcast. Daniel has interviewed dozens of great mandolin players for his podcast, but today we're going to talk about his new record Around the Clock, which features him playing with eleven of his heroes, including Tim O'Brien, Ronnie McCoury and Sam…
Read MoreMy guests on the podcast this week are Lillian Werbin and Kristina Gaddy. I caught up with them at IBMA to chat about Roots Revival : A Black Stringband Symposium, a collaboration between IBMA and The Banjo Gathering. Hosted at IBMA's World of Bluegrass, the symposium celebrated and explored Black contributions to Bluegrass and other…
Read MoreThis week's episode is a selection of interviews I carried out at IBMA World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, North Carolina last week. It was the last IBMA in Raleigh before the event moves to Chattanooga in 2025, and was an amazing week, full of great conversations, events, music, instruments, picking and people. I had a…
Read MoreThis week’s episode is all about learning to play music. I’ve been listening back to the interviews I’ve done over the past 3 years and so many of them touch on some really core stuff when it comes to being a musician. All of it has helped me at one point or another, so I…
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