String Theories
2024’s Essential Americana Albums; Asheville In Recovery; Nashville’s Indie Music Biz; Gaby Moreno and more…
Happy New Year friends. I hope you had a rewarding Christmas or Hanukkah - or just a good year-end pause to reflect and re-energize. We stayed home and had a warm Christmas day with my girls and Taylor’s Mom. Now I get a few days’ break - a calm closeout to an adventurous and fulfilling year. Just to quickly review 2024, with links to stories in case you missed ‘em: I got to “work” my first-ever music cruise in the dead of last winter (I’ve been invited back for Jan. 2025!). In a news development that seemed tailor made for me, I covered the opening of the Jerry Garcia exhibit at the Bluegrass Hall of Fame and Museum in Owensboro, KY and wrote the cover story about Jerry for Bluegrass Unlimited magazine. I made a pilgrimage to Athens, GA and got a fascinating hour of radio out of it, plus a report if you’d rather read. I did a deep dive into my first ever trip to FloydFest in Virginia. They had to move after 20 years and that posed challenges, but it worked out great. I wrote up the wonderful 2024 edition of Americanafest. And most recently, I traveled to Asheville for a long weekend witnessing the damage from Hurricane Helene and taking stock of how the area’s music scene, which I cherish, is recovering. That’s linked down below along with other recent work.
To address the elephant in the room, I’ve written a few thousand words about how I’ve reacted to the colossally disappointing and dispiriting presidential election, but most of it sucks (like our political environment!). I’ll keep trying. Anyway, I’d rather send this out with best wishes and fond hopes for your families, your communities, your towns and cities, your life in the arts, your good spirits, and your pets. We can thrive. We are free people. My only advice is don’t pre-react and don’t expect the worst. The future is unwritten. Let’s reserve our outrage and pick our battles. Good luck to all of us!
RECENT WORK
As always, click on the story art to go to the full article.
“In the midst of all of this hardship and pain and suffering, there's been an incredible amount of grace and resilience that the community has demonstrated by showing up for each other,” said Gar Ragland. “The million dollar question is how long will people dependent on a typically vibrant entertainment economy here be able to hold out before they have to relocate to Nashville or Charlotte or somewhere where life has not been interrupted and impacted as significantly as it has been here?”
First there’s that rare voice, honey-toned and passionate, balancing refinement and realism on a knife’s edge, pouring out emotion in both English and Spanish. She dazzles, whether backed by a spare guitar, a modern pop band, a rootsy rock ensemble, and orchestral arrangements conceived by the legendary Van Dyke Parks. She’s a singer’s singer with a wide open mind about style and genre.
Is Nashville’s diversification and rapid growth ultimately compatible with the village-like, art-first ethos that’s made so many of us want to live and create here? That question has been debated in the cultural community for years, but less so in the halls of power, where decisions about zoning, development, arts funding and historic preservation are made. Now though, in a double dose of civic analysis, two studies released in the second half of this year uncover important new data and put hard policy choices on the doorstep of the Metro Council and new Mayor Freddie O’Connell. Meanwhile, a new fund-raising festival for independent venues will take place early in 2025, a sign of the sector continuing to take matters into its own hands.
I had the chance to interview one of my favorite writer/artists, and because I featured her on WMOT a few years ago, this Q&A found a home at the Bluegrass Situation.
That’s all. Write me any time: chavighurst@gmail.com
Thanks for this, Craig - and the 299 before. 🎶