The String
The String is weekly think radio featuring conversations and features on culture, media and American music - anchored by veteran journalist and broadcaster Craig Havighurst. Music makers, enablers, instigators and documentarians are featured with enough time to go deep and burrow into issues, while letting the music play too. Music news, previews, Time Machine Tape and 90 Second Spins round out the hour.
- Update frequency
- every 9 days
- Average duration
- 59 minutes
- Episodes
- 308
- Years Active
- 2017 - 2025
Alice Randall's My Black Country
Episode 293: The conversation about Black influence on and presence in country music has been intense and restorative over the past decade, and nobody has a more authoritative or informed take on the…
Madeleine Peyroux
Episode 292: When singer Madeleine Peyroux released her breakout album Careless Love in 2004, her voice and phrasing, with echoes of Billie Holiday and Joni Mitchell, had more verve than the newly fa…
Kim Richey plus Jared Deck
Episode 291: Thirty years into her late-blooming music career, Kim Richey feels like Americana music’s favorite aunt. She’s hip, youthful, incredibly kind and brimming with ideas and good words, many…
Kyshona
Episode 290: In a bit over a decade in Nashville, Kyshona has become a figure respected for her wisdom and valued as a songwriter/artist. Her 2020 album Listen, released just before the Covid shutdow…
Ellen Angelico
Episode 289: Ellen Angelico has emerged in the past few years as a go-to stringed instrument musician in the Americana and indie sectors of Nashville. Raised in Chicago, she was gigging in her teens,…
Athens, Georgia
Episode 288: In this special edition of The String, I present an audio postcard from Athens GA, a city of about 125,000 people just east of Atlanta that for forty years has been punching above its w…
Cris Jacobs plus Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams
Episode 287: Cris Jacobs has been tagged the “King of Baltimore rock and roll” by a leading local publication, but a quick look at his catalog and certainly his newest album suggests that and more. H…
John Craigie plus Chatham County Line
Episode 285: As I say in the opening of this week’s show, it’s one thing to get applause for your songs, and it’s another to get laughs. John Craigie of Portland, OR has quietly built a robust tourin…
Maggie Rose
Episode 284: Maggie Rose returns to the String for a full hour this time, because her new album No One Gets Out Alive marks yet another leap for this magnificent singer and songwriter from Nashville.…
Rev. Shawn Amos and The Secret Sisters
Episode 283: It’s a split episode this week featuring a renaissance man of roots music from a “famous” background and a duo from Alabama who’ve been on a wild career ride since they were first discov…
Charlie Parr
Episode 282: For twenty years, Duluth, MN troubadour Charlie Parr has been touring every corner of the nation, sleeping in his van and living lean, to bring his unique take on the country blues to th…
Bahamas And Kelsey Waldon
Episode 281: There are countless reasons to pay homage to the legacy of country music and almost as many different ways to do so. Both of my guests this week - the Canadian artist Bahamas and Nashvil…
Jerry Garcia's Bluegrass Journey
Episode 280: It's taken decades for the nature and impact of Jerry Garcia’s formative years as a musician and band leader to emerge and become semi-common knowledge, because for many, his devotion to…
Suzy Bogguss
Episode 278: Suzy Bogguss started playing and performing on a hand-me-down guitar from her sister in small-town Illinois. After a few years making a living out west playing at ski lodges, she moved t…
Vince Herman plus Kyle Tuttle
Episode 277: Few pickers have toured harder or traveled farther than jamgrass veteran Vince Herman, who co-founded the iconic Leftover Salmon 34 years ago in Colorado. Yet there are always new things…
John Leventhal
Episode 276: John Leventhal is one of the quiet achievers of American roots music going back more than 30 years. Early on as a guitar player in his native New York City, he connected with Jim Lauderd…
Byron House with Kyle Frederick
Episode 275: This week's show begins with an ode to the studio and stage musicians who come up with parts and make the singers and stars sound great, while being relegated to the sexist, ungenerous t…
Clay Ross and The American Patchwork Quartet
Episode 274: Beyond his skills as a guitarist and singer, Clay Ross is what I like to call a Musical Instigator. Since heading to his current base in New York 20 years ago from his home town of Charl…
Delbert McClinton's Sandy Beaches Cruise
Episode 273: Thirty years ago, legendary R&B singer Delbert McClinton proved he was ahead of his time by launching his Sandy Beaches Cruise, a January festival at sea that featured his friends and as…
Lola Kirke
Episode 272: Lola Kirke got on America’s cultural radar as an actress - starring in the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, along with roles in Gone Girl and Mistress America alongside Greta Gerwig. …