The Old Fashioned is a weekly bluegrass and old-time program, hosted by Craig Havighurst and Amy Alvey. As they say on the air, The Old Fashioned (yes, named for the world-famous cocktail) stirs up strong spirits with a bit of sugar, a dash of bitters and a twist of zest, telling the ongoing story of traditional music in Americana. With commentary and context to bring their listeners along for the journey, Craig and Amy spin old-time bands, traditional bluegrass, regional folk styles, acoustic blues, and gospel.
The Grammy Awards launched the Best Bluegrass Album category in 1989. Bill Monroe won for Southern Flavor. A young banjo player named Bela Fleck was nominated for his album Drive. More than three decades later, Mr. Fleck won in 2022 for his epic My Bluegrass Heart instrumental masterwork. Just before we put together this show, the nominees were announced for the February 5, 2023 awards and the nominees included artists we love and albums we’ve been playing: the Infamous Stringdusters, Molly Tuttle, Peter Rowan, Del McCoury and Yonder Mountain String Band. We’ve sprinkled music from those nominees, not necessarily from the new recordings, in to shows #36 and 37. Yonder launches us this week with “I Just Can’t” from their 2022 album Get Yourself Outside, which is not hard advice to those from their Colorado mountain home base. Also in the hour, new music from Colorado’s Jake Leg and Breakin’ Strings from Maine. And we remember what it sounded like when Chris Stapleton was a
#iVoted Festival has announced that they’ll host a conversation with W Kamau Bell and Tom Morello and welcome appearances by Billie Eilish, FINNEAS, Steph