WMOT’s Americanafest Day Stage has a new home for 2025. We’ve just announced that our largest-ever slate of artists will perform live on the air from the stage of Riverside Revival, WMOT’s home-away-from-home in East Nashville, at 1600 Riverside Drive. It’s a change provoked by an earlier-than-usual Americanafest, but our time-tested approach remains - some of the most notable names in roots music performing live on the air between noon and six, Wednesday to Friday, Sept. 10-12 in the serene old church sanctuary. Click through to see our daily lineups!
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These doggy days of July and August invite us to stay indoors, and I’m fine with that, because I can listen to records. With so many good albums arriving and with so much noise and nonsense out there to sift through, I felt inspired to pause and recognize some of the best recent and local music being released in our Americana space, especially those that might be off the popular radar. We’ll all have opinions about the new Tyler Childers album soon enough. Ketch Secor’s new one is a major statement that I’m working on covering in depth. But here are profiles of eight recent records with Nashville origins and originality. I’m grateful to our Local Brew host Ana Lee for suggesting some of these titles.
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Few fully independent artists in any genre have been able to grow to the scale and influence that Cody Jinks has pulled off in the outlaw country space. He sells out iconic venues like Red Rocks in Colorado with a sound that layers his boyhood influence from Lefty Frizzell with the edge of the thrash metal rocker he once was. The Fort Worth native “put in the reps” for countless years in bars and honky tonks, nearly going broke, before albums like I’m Not The Devil and Lifers vaulted him to the big time in the years before the pandemic. He’s now out with In My Blood, an album that basks in his newfound sobriety and a new focus on himself and his family, making this a very candid and fascinating interview with a self-made country star whom mainstream radio virtually overlooks.
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While it’s one of the great music cities in the world, the story of Memphis, TN is generally told as one about Elvis, BB King, Isaac Hayes, and possibly Justin Timberlake - artists from the history books or well on in their careers. Roots music fans might know more contemporary talents like songwriters Amy LaVere and John Paul Keith. Many others simmer along in that city’s bars and clubs, but one has to go there to get up to speed on the talent pool. Southern Avenue is different - a breakout band from Bluff City with national acclaim, a renowned record label, and a musical voice grounded in native soil and native soul. It’s the band today’s Memphis has needed.
LINER NOTES
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Jessie Scott sat down with Carlene Carter for a WMOT Words & Music session at Riverside Revival.
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Jessie Scott sat down with Judy Collins for a special Words & Music session at WMOT's Riverside Revival studio in East Nashville.
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Listen to Jessie Scott as she sits down with William Prince for a Words & Music session.
WMOT VIDEO: LIVE SESSIONS ON NPR MUSIC
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Ahead of their main stage performances at last week's Wired In at Riverside Revival, Anderson East and Hayes Carll dropped by WMOT's backstage studio to play a stripped-down set of songs from their latest records. Watch the full sessions here.
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Carolyn Wonderland stopped by the WMOT studio to perform "Texas Girl", "I Ain't Goin Back", and "Truth Is" for WMOT's Words & Music, where we invite artists to perform and discuss their latest projects. In an interview with Jessie Scott, Carolyn reflects on being the first female member of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, the making of 'Truth Is' (produced by Dave Alvin), the Austin music scene, and more.
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Watchhouse is this week's guest on Words & Music, where we invite artists to discuss and perform stripped-down versions of their latest projects. The duo performed the title track of their latest record 'Rituals', along with "Shape" and "All Around You".
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Ahead of her main stage performance at last week's Wired In at Riverside Revival, Kristina Murray, one of Nashville's most respected country songwriters, stopped by WMOT's backstage studio. She and her guys played stripped-down versions of "Watchin’ the World Pass Me By," "Just A Little While Longer," and "Get Down To It" from Little Blue, her latest album and her first for New West Records' Normaltown imprint.
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Win a pair of tickets for the Earl Scruggs Music Festival, Aug 29 - 31, 2025, at Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, NC
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