Adam Wright is one of the most thoughtful wordsmiths in the Nashville songwriting community, one who’s seen all sides of the Music Row machine. Working for a dozen years with Carnival Music, he’s carved a niche for himself, scoring a couple of Grammy Award nominations and landing cuts by Lee Ann Womack, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Brandy Clark and Bruce Robison, among others. When he sets aside time to write songs purely for himself as an artist, remarkable things happen, and now he’s releasing an epic 18-song collection called Nature Of Necessity, a masterwork that could only have been realized in Music City.

The Devil Makes Three has been one of roots music’s outstanding if quiet success stories of the past twenty years. Formed in Santa Cruz, CA in 2001, they got out ahead of the O Brother phenomenon and built a unique, crowd-pleasing sound through a renegade admixture of early blues, hard country and gospel. In this hour, founding singer and songwriter Pete Bernhard reflects on a career that’s surprised him and the joyful process behind the rather dark and candid album Spirits, their tenths as a band.

We’re halfway between Americanafest 2024 and 2025 - the Roots Music Equinox if you will. And we bring that up because we’ve recently posted the last in a long string of performance videos from last Fall’s famous WMOT Day Stage. It’s our carefully curated showcase at East Side Bowl, with lineups so good that many folks bring a chair and post up for entire days or even the entire three days of the annual festival-within-a-festival. And we’re hoping that this collection of performances takes you back - or brings to your attention - to the superb music we’ve been sharing this winter.