By the time I spoke with Allison Moorer at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida this January, she had been touring in support of her memoir and accompanying full-length album, 'Blood' for several months and had become accustomed to the way her audiences were inclined to bond with her, across their own traumas. In this Folk Alley Session, we discussed all of this and more, and Moorer also gifted us with some excellent performances of songs from the album.

It’s hard not to throw around words like “prodigious” when talking about someone like Sierra Hull. At just 28 years old, she has already released five albums, worked with many of the biggest names in Nashville, taken home a half-dozen IBMA awards, and earned a Grammy nomination for her sparsely arranged mandolin-and-bass 2017 singer-songwriter album Weighted Mind. So, when one hears her sing about wanting to slow down for a bit after “25 trips around the sun” on the title track of her new album, 25 Trips, one might understand the impulse. Lucky for fans, the new album doesn’t actually slow the gifted mandolinist and songwriter down a bit.

During a Folk Alley Session at the 30A Songwriters Festival, we sat down with Hull for a conversation about all of this and more.

Fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves and banjo player Allison de Groot first started their collaboration over the term “old-time music” and realized, pretty quickly, that their definition of the term was very similar. We like the same kinds of music, they say, and so it was easy to become musical partners and share that love with other music fans. The duo put out a self-titled album in 2019 and they came to Beehive Productions Studios in Saranac Lake, NY to talk about it and about their musical partnership.

From breakups to childhood memories, romantic entanglements and friends in trouble, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin duo Dead Horses (Sarah Vos and Daniel Wolff) tackle anything and everything that comes their way. Recently, they let us in to see how they think about music and musicianship and shared a song from their 2018 release, My Mother the Moon, as well as a couple of new songs for 2019 during an exclusive in-studio session at Beehive Productions Studios in Saranac Lake, NY.

Lula Wiles (Mali Obomsawin, Ellie Buckland, and Isa Burke) were friends for years in their native Maine before coming together, officially, in 2016 in Boston. The trio believes that music has the power to bring out the humanity in all of us. They gathered together at the Upper Jay Arts Center’s Recovery Lounge in Upper Jay, New York to share some songs from their new album, What Will We Do - their first on the Smithsonian Folkways label.

Anna Tivel joins us for a Folk Alley Session taping at CitySpace in Easthampton, Massachusetts to share some thoughts about, and music from, her 2019 release, The Question. With Dietrich Strause joining her on backing vocals and guitar, Tivel dove into the inspiration behind a few songs on the recording…and explained why the music on this record, music from the guts, she says, feels oh so good.

In late March of 2019, guitarist extraordinaire and songwriter, Molly Tuttle came by the studios of Beehive Productions in Saranac Lake, NY to share some thoughts about her musical history and to perform songs from her debut full-length album, When You’re Ready.

Former Stray Birds frontwoman, Maya de Vitry joined us in the studio to share some eye-opening thoughts about what it really took to put together her debut solo album, Adaptations, during a recent session in Nashville, Tennessee.

Winnipeg duo, The Small Glories' (JD Edwards & Cara Luft) new album, Assiniboine & the Red, is a collection of collaborative songs of strength, resilience, and connection. They joined Folk Alley at the Lake Flower Landing in Saranac Lake, NY to talk about their history, their music, and their very exciting plans for the future.

The FreshGrass Band Award recognizes and rewards an unsigned, up-and-coming band from the U.S. and beyond who offers a fresh take on the tradition of bluegrass. This year's award finalists included Meadow Mountain (Denver, CO,) The Trailblazers (Wilkesboro, NC,) and this year's award winner, AJ Lee & Blue Summit from Santa Cruz, CA.