March 2026 Edition

Howdy Friend,

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to play some shows across the pond with Ms. Molly Tuttle opening for the great Tyler Childers and it sure was a joy to be back in the old country. Playing music in Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales was always a premier goal of mine when our band first started. Whenever you saw down on a fiddle or plunk against the skin head of the banjo somewhere in the sunny south and you close your eyes tight you just might feel transported to the green hills of these islands, so close is our shared musical kinship. They say people are friendly down south, but I’ve found our neighbors across the pond to be even more hospitable in the care they show American travelers. In Dublin it was rewarding to see Tyler’s music, so uniquely tied to the Appalachian region, be so revered by Kentucky’s cousins, the Irish. And coming from the pubs up and down Temple Bar after the show, I heard strains of American music peppered amidst the traditional Irish session sounds, Country Roads Take Me Home, and yes, Wagon Wheel. Yet despite the myriad sounds in my head from The Pogues to The Irish Rovers, it was the strains of Stuart Duncan’s fiddling and Mike Compton’s mandolin trill ringing foremost in my heart, as I reflected on the festivities at the Grand Ole Opry the week prior where we joined the chorus of a literal who’s who in traditional southern music in celebration of the 25th anniversary of O Brother Where Art Thou. 

I first became aware of the project a few weeks after Christmas when T Bone Burnett asked me to help coproduce the event, a dream come true request. My first call was to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a Nashville music treasure under the leadership of a new director, Dr Preston Wilson, himself a former Jubilee Singer, who responded to my text requesting an Alison Krauss collaboration with an emphatic all-caps “YES!”  Next up was the DM I sent to the Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters, an exciting youth bluegrass a band of sisters who got back to me in mere minutes saying they’d already begun woodshedding  “In The Highways”, originally recorded 25 years ago by another spirited youth act, White House TN’s The Peasall Sisters. The calls and texts were flying. Zoom calls were set up with Lost Highway records, Disney, and the Opry. Billy Strings was confirmed, then Emmylou Harris. Then Del McCoury, Sarah Jarosz, and Dan Tyminksi. A stand-in for Gillian Welch, who would be performing in Australia during the week of the show, was determined to be Molly. Dozens of songs were charted and Opry scripts written for hosts Bill Cody, Mike Terry, and myself to read.  Week after week we prepared for what was shaping up to be a night for the ages. 

Then, a few days before the special Saturday night that had been circled on so many calendars, our full band rehearsals at the Opry began, and for the first time T Bone and I could see our beautiful creation.  But the fine tuning remained, there was staging and rearrangement, mics were swapped, instruments preferred, and by Friday night we left the Opry’s Studio A confidant we had a winning combination. Of course, I couldn’t sleep at all that night. The day started early on the Grand Ole Opry stage as we ran the entire show start to finish. Immediately it was clear that this was no run of the mill tribute show. The music was absolutely explosive. From my perch on a bench in front of the artists my eyes kept refocusing to take in all I was bearing witness to. The performances were jaw dropping. For a fiddler like me from a string band like Old Crow to have had such a lead role in one of Country music’s most important nights was nothing short of staggering. It was like everything i had worked on and for had led me to this moment. Every jam session, every mile, every fiddler’s convention, every old scratchy record I’d ever scanned, my ears straining beauty from every crack, pop, and hiss, all the roads had led to this one. 

I’ve played some pretty big nights in this life of music maker, big crowds in the tens of thousands, but nothing parallels that Saturday, February 28, 2026 at the Opry. It was a cleansing, a renewal; from deep in the soul of Country music came forth a primal sound, one demanding to heard, a voice thundering loud. It seemed to say that the traditions of our genre are as alive as they were in the beginning, and would always be. And as the curtains rose on the O Brother 25th anniversary show it dawned on me that if there is in fact a honky tonk heaven then surely the angels were visiting upon the Grand Ole Opry that night, strumming harps and signing along.

Well, that’ll do it for me. I started this newsletter on an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin and I’m finishing it with the Crows and Willie Watson in North Carolina for our Back to the Roots tour. Take care and come see us on the road sometime soon. Like they say in Gaelic, it’s sure to be a craicing good time.

Ketch