Toy Heart with Tom Power (A Podcast About Bluegrass) – Détails, épisodes et analyse

We could hardly think of a better guest with whom we’d conclude our second season of Toy Heart than 27-time Grammy Award winner, Alison Krauss. Arguably the most prominent bluegrass musician in the genre’s nearly one hundred year history – certainly the most well-known in her own generation – host Tom Power’s laughter-filled conversation with Krauss weaves through her childhood and upbringing, from her grandparents immigrating to Chicago (then her parents to Champaign, Illinois) and Alison's first fiddle contests all the way to her first Grammy win as a young adult.

In a rare podcast interview, Krauss is funny, charming, and open, her candor painting a picture of the bluegrass community's lifelong support and the winding journey that has brought her to the present, as one of the most recognizable voices and musicians in American roots music. From her earliest hits like “Steel Rails” and “Every Time You Say Goodbye” to collaborating with Robert Plant, James Taylor, the Cox Family, and more, to her Buddy Cannon-produced 2017 album, Windy City, Power and Krauss talk about song selection, her early days touring and road-dogging with Union Station, and how it felt when her musical career really began to take off. 

 But these stories aren’t just about awards and accolades. They chat about many moments, the big and small, that define Krauss, the festivals that became like homes, and the bonds that music forged with her band, Union Station, and her many collaborators. They explore how Krauss creates on the boundaries of many roots genres – plus what she views as bluegrass and what’s not bluegrass – the authenticity that she’s tried to capture throughout her career, and the cultural waves made by projects like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Down From the Mountain tour.

From personal anecdotes about Ralph Stanley and Larry Sparks to her feelings about Billy Strings’ massive success to a jaw-dropping and exciting revelation that she and Union Station are working on a new bluegrass album, our season finale with Alison Krauss is truly one of our best Toy Heart episodes to date. 

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For the latest episode of Toy Heart, we embark on a journey through the primordial, musical ooze that birthed bluegrass, old-time, and country music with the incredible Jody Stecher. A multi-instrumentalist adept in many styles and traditions – he even plays sarod, a Hindustani instrument – Stecher’s entire career is a fascinating case study in the interconnectedness of American folk music styles. 

Host Tom Power begins their engaging and philosophical conversation by asking Stecher about his childhood in New York City. A grandchild of eastern European immigrants, he “discovered” country and bluegrass like many in his generation, listening to the Wheeling Jamboree radio program on WWVA and hearing first generation pickers like the Osborne Brothers and Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, including “Baby Crowe,” a young, just-hired banjo player who went by “J.D.” Soon after, Stecher replaced mandolinist (and one-day industry power player) Ralph Rinzler in bluegrass band, the Greenbriar Boys, before joining another group, the New York Ramblers. 

From those early years, cutting his teeth in local, regional, and eventually national outfits to iconic albums like Going Up On The Mountain and his current status as a venerated expert and acclaimed elder in American roots music, Jody Stecher utilizes music and his expertise to demonstrate how blurry the lines really are between these folk genres. Power and Stecher discuss teaching, David Grisman – and collaborating with Jerry Garcia! – meditation and music, early sounds and recordings by folks like Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers, being a member of Peter Rowan’s band, his duo with Kate Brislin, Utah Phillips, and so much more. 

Whether you're a lifelong fan of roots music or new to these scenes, Tom Power and Jody Stecher’s Toy Heart episode will inspire, highlighting stories, traditions, and techniques that make bluegrass, old-time, and country music exactly what they are today. 

Presented by BGS (The Bluegrass Situation)

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