Twenty years after Marty Stuart’s concept album The Pilgrim was released, it’s out again, with a deluxe edition that includes a coffee...

Cindy Emch and her band are making a new album, and everyone’s invited to the party. The Secret Emchy Society, as the alt-country,...

Dom Flemons’ latest musical journey explores folk music, American history, the West, and the African-American experience Growing up in...

It’s a long way from San Francisco to Mississippi, but singer-songwriter and banjo player Tyler Stegall of The High Water Line has...

Elton John and songwriting partner Bernie Taupin were star-struck when the members of The Band filed into John’s dressing room after a...

Emmylou Harris is one of the most important artists in country and American roots music. Beyond her stunning voice, which always soars...

On any given night in Nashville, magic can happen, legendary songwriter (and my friend) Marshall Chapman often says. This certainly was...

The African-American influence--and white appropriation--in country music goes even deeper than Ken Burns’ important new documentary...

I spoke in depth with filmmaker Ken Burns a few weeks ago about his forthcoming eight-part documentary, Ken Burns: Country Music, which...

FEW BLUESMEN AS AUTHENTIC (AND AUDACIOUS) AS BOBBY RUSH: Bobby Rush came from Louisiana and Arkansas, fled to Chicago, played the blues,...

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION’S NEWEST MUSEUM SHOWS RELICS OF SOUL, GOSPEL, COUNTRY AND MORE The National Museum of African-American History...

LEGENDARY STAX COLLECTION SHOWS OFF GOOD-NEWS GROOVES One of my favorite soul albums is actually a gospel album. The Gospel Truth: The...

Nashville songwriter laments modern-day lynching, finds family in blues and Americana "Picked up by some folks Took to me to the woods...

Los Angeles-based master guitarist Ry Cooder’s remarkable 2018 album The Prodigal Son is perhaps the best--out of his many--records that...

Two of Nashville's best emerging singer-songwriters, Mary Bragg and Kyshona (Armstrong), brought their show to Eddie’s Attic, the music...

Rosanne Cash told the audience at the Ryman Auditorium how she’d spent 40 years mostly avoiding playing her father’s songs. But the...

Yola’s melodies and vocals soar on her new record, Walk Through Fire, the most country-soul-focused album of the year (as far as I know),...

Memphis is one of the most culturally rich destinations in America, and today’s touristy Beale Street is the least of the reasons why. My...

My good friend and writer John Gehring and I spent Memorial Day visiting the Mississippi Delta and Memphis, where we ventured to lots of...

Mavis Staples brought one of her pre-80th-birthday concert celebrations to Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on May 15, celebrating her more...