Toy Heart with Tom Power (A Podcast About Bluegrass) – Details, episodes & analysis

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Toy Heart with Tom Power (A Podcast About Bluegrass)

Tom Power

Music

Frequency: 1 episode/74d. Total Eps: 23

CBC radio host Tom Power ("q") and BGS (The Bluegrass Situation) bring you the most in-depth podcast about the origins of bluegrass ever created.

Power sits down with luminaries of the genre such as Del McCoury, Ricky Skaggs, Alice Gerrard, Jesse McReynolds, Jerry Douglas and more for an intimate conversation about their origins within the world of bluegrass music. Episodes will be released bi-weekly on TheBluegrassSituation.com and wherever you get your podcasts.

PRODUCED BY: Tom Power and Amy Reitnouer Jacobs / BGS

CO-PRODUCED AND EDITED BY: Stephanie Coleman

THEME MUSIC BY: Chris Eldridge and Kristin Andreassen

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Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.

Apple Podcasts

🇨🇦 Canada - musicInterviews
25/08/2026
#45
🇺🇸 USA - musicInterviews
25/08/2026
#38
🇬🇧 Great Britain - musicInterviews
17/08/2026
#96
🇨🇦 Canada - musicInterviews
16/08/2026
#80
🇬🇧 Great Britain - musicInterviews
16/08/2026
#67
🇨🇦 Canada - musicInterviews
15/08/2026
#51
🇬🇧 Great Britain - musicInterviews
15/08/2026
#48
🇨🇦 Canada - musicInterviews
14/08/2026
#33
🇨🇦 Canada - musicInterviews
12/08/2026
#90
🇨🇦 Canada - musicInterviews
11/08/2026
#100

Spotify

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https://thebluegrasssituation.com/
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https://timobrien.net/
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Score global : 63%

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Alison Krauss

Tuesday, April 23, 2024 • Duration 01:22:13

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.

Interested in sponsoring us? Contact BGS: https://bit.ly/sponsorBGSpods

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Jody Stecher

Season 2 · Episode 18

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 • Duration 01:09:30

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)

Interested in sponsoring us? Contact BGS: https://bit.ly/sponsorBGSpods

Remembering Tony Rice - Episode 2 (Peter Rowan, Béla Fleck, Sharon Gilchrist, and Josh Williams)

Season 1

Friday, January 29, 2021 • Duration 01:59:43

On episode 2 of our limited series, Toy Heart: Remembering Tony Rice, host Tom Power begins with Béla Fleck, talking about the making of two legendary albums: Drive and The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol.2. Fleck relates what it was like to work with Tony in studio and some wild stories about their touring together. Also in the episode, mandolinist and instructor Sharon Gilchrist displays a rare perspective on Tony's life. Something of a recluse, Tony would often drive by himself after gigs, hours and hours overnight. Gilchrist had the rare opportunity to join him for some of these drives and tells some stories of what she learned on those trips to and from Quartet shows. Later in the episode, a conversation with Peter Rowan about his early memories of Tony – and how he compared with his mentor Clarence White. To conclude, Josh Williams talks about being Tony Rice's "voice" in his band, the Unit, how Tony helped him get through one of the darkest periods in his life, and why Tony was and is his hero

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Remembering Tony Rice - Episode 1 (Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, David Grisman)

Season 1

Friday, January 22, 2021 • Duration 01:45:27

Host Tom Power speaks with Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, and David Grisman about their old friend and bandmate Tony Rice, in the first edition of our special tribute, Toy Heart: Remembering Tony Rice. Critically acclaimed bluegrass podcast Toy Heart returns with a special, limited series, Toy Heart: Remembering Tony Rice. In the first installment of three, host Tom Power (CBC's Q) interviews Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, and David Grisman, each lifelong friends and collaborators with Rice, who passed away unexpectedly on Christmas day. This extra-length episode includes reminiscing, storytelling, and remembrances of the flatpicking legend and Bluegrass Hall of Famer who not only blazed an innovative, often jaw-dropping trail in bluegrass – and all of American roots music – with his technical prowess, but also left a limitless musical legacy with his warm-honey voice, his tender songwriting, and his uncanny ability to inhabit each and every note he emitted, each and every stroke of his pick. We hope you enjoy the first in this trio of episodes, Power's and Toy Heart's humble attempt to pay homage to a towering figure in bluegrass."

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The Bluegrass Breakdown Podcast - Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs - Second Generation Bluegrass

Season 1

Thursday, November 5, 2020 • Duration 53:48

In lieu of new episodes of Toy Heart, host Tom Power introduces an episode of "The Bluegrass Breakdown" podcast featuring a deep-dive into the making of Second Generation Bluegrass by Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley. Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley were only 17 years old when they recorded Second Generation Bluegrass. Ricky Skaggs joins The Breakdown to talk about this iconic album. Both went on to be country megastars – until Whitley died of alcohol poisoning at 34. Bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs joins us to explain how two teenagers managed to perfectly replicate the bygone sound of the Stanley Brothers – and share his final moments with Keith. On each episode of "The Breakdown", Fiddler Patrick McGonigle and music journalist Emma John uncover bluegrass music one iconic record at a time in The Breakdown, a limited series from The Bluegrass Situation. Peeling back the layers of a sometimes under appreciated genre, The Breakdown reveals the bizarre, compelling, and often completely mad stories from bluegrass players past and present.

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Jerry Douglas

Season 1

Tuesday, June 9, 2020 • Duration 01:28:04

For the final episode of season one of Toy Heart, we have host Tom Power’s 2019 sit down with legendary artist, musician, and sideman Jerry Douglas at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual business conference in Raleigh, NC. Douglas talks all about hearing “Uncle Josh” Graves for the first time with Flatt & Scruggs and, in the early days, using a toothbrush to turn his own guitar into something like a Dobro. He tells stories of his father’s band, the The West Virginia Travellers, and being discovered by the Country Gentlemen. He shares about his lifelong friendship with Ricky Skaggs — and his connections with Tony Rice, J.D. Crowe, Alison Krauss, Ray Charles, to O Brother, and more. Jerry Douglas will go down as one of the finest American musicians of his generation, but for this episode we focus on his true love — his life in bluegrass.

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Tony Trischka

Season 1

Thursday, May 28, 2020 • Duration 56:32

Host Tom Power speaks with progressive banjo legend Tony Trischka at the home of his friend and former student, Béla Fleck. Trischka and Power talk about the time he saw and met Bob Dylan when no one was sure how to pronounce his name, and when he went to the first bluegrass festival weekend. An innovator on an archetypically traditional instrument, Trischka also discusses how he fuses jazz and experimental music with bluegrass, the intersection of the folk boom and bluegrass, and the time he played "progressive" banjo in front of Ralph Stanley. The episode covers ground from his recording debut with the band Country Cooking, to his first solo album, Bluegrass Light, having had Bill Monroe over for dinner when he was a kid, his teaching Béla, to carving out a life in acoustic music (and about what the term "bluegrass-adjacent music" means, too).

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Jesse McReynolds

Season 1

Thursday, May 14, 2020 • Duration 01:06:29

Host Tom Power talks to Bluegrass Hall of Fame member Jesse McReynolds of Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys about his career in bluegrass. One of the last founding fathers of bluegrass, Jesse McReynold’s story is the story of bluegrass — a music that emerged out of the country, into rural schoolhouses, onto rural radio, finding sponsorship along the way, enmeshing itself into the mainstream of American culture. McReynolds tells the story of his grandfather, who played in the first recorded country music session, talks about being offered a gig with the Stanley Brothers, serving with the armed forces in Korea and singing alongside Charlie Louvin. He relates hunting down record deals and successes with his brother Jim, starting their own label, being sought out by counter cultural icons like the Grateful Dead and The Doors. Now nearing the age of 91, McReynolds spends some time reflecting as well, on his brother Jim’s death, his own struggles with the Opry, and how he feels about his legacy in the music. This is an icon of American music whose story isn’t often told, and we’re honored to play a part.

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Alison Brown

Season 1

Thursday, April 30, 2020 • Duration 01:08:59

Banjoist and record label head Alison Brown speaks with host Tom Power from her studio at Compass Records headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. They begin with her early records made with Stuart Duncan, "finding her people," and winning the Canadian National Banjo Championship (as an American). Brown then headed to Harvard, and playing banjo became "something you'd talk about at cocktail parties." She describes the moment she decided to leave investment banking and commit to music full time, her cocktail napkin dream, and playing with Alison Krauss, Indigo Girls, and Michelle Shocked. Power and Brown talk women in bluegrass, women in banjo, and the First Ladies of Bluegrass. The story they dive into together is ultimately about figuring out what makes you happy, and pursuing it bravely, against all odds.

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Béla Fleck

Season 1

Thursday, April 16, 2020 • Duration 01:26:31

On this episode of Toy Heart, Béla Fleck talks to host Tom Power from his home studio and for the first time, he tells his story in bluegrass. Fleck started out in New York hearing Earl Scruggs for the first time, learning from Tony Trischka, and then making the decision to go (new) south to learn from J.D. Crowe. He auditioned for Bill Monroe, but eventually found 'his people' and joined New Grass Revival. He tells of mistakes the band made along the way, the hard decision to leave that band and start the Flecktones, recording with his hero Earl Scruggs, and how he found his way back to bluegrass after all. He also unveils the one change he thinks anyone can make to their practicing to become a better musician.

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Toy Heart with Tom Power (A Podcast About Bluegrass) – Details, episodes & analysis

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Toy Heart with Tom Power (A Podcast About Bluegrass) – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

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RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

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Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

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