It was 50 years ago this month that a 23-year-old Mickey Raphael felt his way through his first recording session with his relatively new band boss Willie Nelson. And it was no small thing, producing the iconic Red Headed Stranger. It was one event in a charmed life that set this Dallas musician on a path to the ultimate steady gig for more than 50 years, plus stature as the world’s most on-call harmonica player. Raphael’s played and recorded with Merle Haggard, Leon Russell, Don Williams, Emmylou Harris, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Norah Jones, Wynton Marsalis, and even U2 and Motley Crue. In a session taped at WMOT’s East Nashville satellite studio, we talk about it all.

This one’s personal. Eight years ago, when we launched the Roots Radio format on the historic signal WMOT 89.5 FM, a few of us knew we could have no better program director than Jessie Scott, and we were fortunate that she was in the right time and place to come on board. Her 50 years of on-air experience, her expertise in Americana music, and her warm and knowledgeable voice have become the core of WMOT’s sound. She governs the deep and excellent WMOT playlist and its mix of new and legacy music, plus she’s a fountain of enthusiasm on the air every weekday afternoon from 4 to 7 pm. So after all this time and hearing some of her career stories, it was time to invite her on The String for a special year-end episode.

Traditional acoustic blues has seen one of its periodic revivals, with more younger African American artists involved than any time I can remember. No survey of the scene would be legit without sizing up the career of 35-year-old Jerron Paxton, sometimes known as “Blind Boy” for a severe myopia that’s affected his life since his teens. We should be grateful he’s committed to music - as a revivalist of the old and a writer of the new in a range of styles from Delta to ragtime to stride to spiritual. His variety and vivacity bursts forward on Things Done Changed, his first album for Smithsonian Folkways Records. In a zoom from his base in New York City, we talk about his upbringing in Los Angeles and his approach to developing his advanced understanding of foundational American music.