Hey Friends,
We are just back from Thanksgiving with my sister’s family and my parents in West Virginia, an annual ritual we cherish. Every year we have a little more to be thankful for as Mom and Dad continue to thrive and my niece and nephew grow into their new post-college lives. Too many people can’t find shelter and uncomplicated love within their birth families, so I don’t take for granted this incredible blessing of my life. That extends to my wife of almost 20 years and our now 23-year old daughter (adopted at age 11) and how lovingly they’ve fit into my clan. Besides the traditional dinner (a meal I’d eat several times a year if I could), we did something unprecedented. The nine of us all went to an afternoon movie together - three generations! The occasion was the very new film Devotion, the true-life story of two naval aviators at the outbreak of the Korean War. My niece Hayden has a friend connection to the filmmaker and got to be an extra in a casino scene set in 1950 Cannes but filmed in Sea Island, GA. I was not sharp enough to catch her moment on screen, but we rewound iPhone video of the scene, and there she was next to “Elizabeth Taylor” as she played dice. I guess I was transfixed by “Elizabeth Taylor.”
Besides those near and dear to me, I suppose what I’m most thankful for this season is the result of the November 8 elections. We could be in a world right now with Doug Mastriano set to become governor of PA and Blake Masters heading to the Senate instead of the level-headed astronaut Mark Kelly. Dr. Oz lost resoundingly, possibly sending the signal that being a wealthy, self-absorbed TV celebrity isn’t the path to power and influence it once was. I’m beyond relieved that across the nation, Americans rejected election denial and militant Christian nationalism. I have a new essay below about that and why I think the election marked the end of the former president’s path back to the White House. Some of my faith and hope is restored. I feel lighter than I did this summer, and I’m more ready now for happy holidays. I hope you feel the same.
Also, I’m thankful for the freedom fighters in Ukraine and America’s (still inadequate) efforts on their behalf. I’m grateful to my co-host and friend Amy Alvey for a good first year of The Old Fashioned and to WMOT for letting me produce my first-ever music show. Thanks to all the musicians and musical support teams who forge ahead keeping art and culture thriving in the difficult post pandemic phase and for their remarkable optimism, resilience and freedom. Whether you’re making Americana, jazz, classical or anything else not being marketed in the mainstream, y’all are heroes. I’m also thankful that we humans continue to reach for new answers and destinations. The Artemis 1 mission launched successfully and is even now playing tag with the Moon on its shakedown flight. The James Webb Space Telescope launched last Christmas and it’s been a thrill to watch all year as it delivered its first images and science, one example of which illustrates this dispatch.
It’s been a news-heavy few weeks since I last sent an update, so there’s not a ton of new feature writing here. I link below to my memorial for the dear departed Loretta Lynn and a piece about the exciting collaboration called Plains whose album I can’t recommend enough. Recent String episodes have featured mostly out-of-towners interviewed during AmericanaFest. Some picture links follow this note, but here are the others:
* Town Mountain and 49 Winchester
* Daniel Tashian and Dan Knobler
I’ve posted a new video in my Musicality series on YouTube, a review of the excellent new book This Is What It Sounds Like by record producer turned neuroscientist Susan Rogers. In related news, I’m excited that in January I’m going to take a short leave from WMOT to push my book about listening and musicality to its next plateau. It’ll be a relief to focus on only that for a couple of weeks. Before that, it’s time to write up the year’s most outstanding roots music albums, this year with a special sidebar on bluegrass and old-time. And hopefully lots of good fellowship with y’all.
Craig H
Nov. 27, 2022
NEW WORK
As always, click the photo/headline to go to the full story…
Saturday was a big night for Texas at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl. While the Astros were clinching the 2022 World Series in Houston, two prominent artists from the indie/alternative frontier played a vibrant and joyful set of country music bathed in Lone Star light. They covered Willie Nelson, Terry Allen and The Chicks, and there were even Don’t Mess With Texas t-shirts on sale at the merch table.
But the real story is the songs that native Texan Jess Williamson and Alabama-born Katie Crutchfield, who performs under the aka Waxahatchee, wrote themselves and sang together. Fans of each other’s music, they’ve formed the new and perhaps one-time-only duo called Plains. Their album I Walked With You A Ways rocketed to the top of the Americana chart after it was released in mid October. Reviews are effusive. Jason Isbell tweeted his endorsement. Their ongoing tour is offering fans this common vision where it sounds most moving, the live stage. MORE…
Covering fast-moving new and young artists in our field is always the most fun I have in this job. I’m singling out this episode of The String as special because I’ve enjoyed these lesser-known but important musicians a lot this year.
Check out this unique episode of The String, a collaboration with the podcast Southern Songs And Stories, hosted by my friend and colleague Joe Kendrick of WNCW near Asheville NC. Here, we meet up at the Earl Scruggs Music Festival in early September and talk about our respective scenes and artists to watch from Nashville and western North Carolina.
NEW POST
We Won. He's Done.
The former guy may "run" but he's out of road.
I didn’t go public much with my optimism in recent months about the 2022 midterm elections, but whether I was wisely reading political trends or just self-medicating with hope, I was more gut-level confident than most that Republicans were heading toward a wall rather than a “red wave.” While I’m not out ahead of anybody with my astute political insights on this, Democrats defied historic patterns and the headwinds of inflation because the GOP made 2022 a national referendum on personal freedom, our democracy and the maniac who’s been poisoning American political life for seven years now, Donald Trump. I am beyond relieved that the country, my country, held the line. While there’s no room for complacency about the right wing movement the former president fomented and bolstered, I’m no longer worried about him returning to power.
TWEETS AND LINKS
What’s going to become of Twitter, now that it’s in the hands of an immature, self-absorbed power troll? I don’t know, but I’ll stay on the platform until the reasons to leave outweigh the reasons to stay. I’ve applied for an account at the new Post, but we’ll have to see how fast they can scale up and meet spiking demand.