The tenth Big Ears Music Festival would have been a landmark for 21st century music even with a lineup half as large, even without some of its biggest-drawing stars of jazz and indie folk. That an event this radically eclectic and this demanding in its curation could survive and thrive over more than a decade suggests something encouraging about our highly distracted and fractured 2020s culture. In Episode 242 of The String, I take a field trip to Knoxville, TN to share the story of the Big Ears idea, my impressions of some outstanding performances, and the voices of important creators who span the roots/jazz bridge – bassist and broadcaster Christian McBride, banjo innovator Béla Fleck, throwback country singer Sierra Ferrell, folk song collector and interpreter Jake Xerxes Fussell, and ambient jazz bandleader Rich Ruth.