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| | | | Knoxville Broadcast Starts Tomorrow! |
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| The wait is almost over. Tomorrow, hundreds of Knoxville musicians will flow across World’s Fair Park in Lisa Bielawa’s Knoxville Broadcast. Bring your friends and family for this one-of-a-kind experience of music, movement, and community. Free and open to all!
Knoxville Broadcast Friday, Oct. 17 · 6:00 pm Saturday, Oct. 18 · 11:00 am & 2:00 pm World’s Fair Park, Tennessee Amphitheater |
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| | | Folk and Roots Reimagined at Big Ears (Part 1) |
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| Folk, roots, and Americana music have always been about stories—told through raw voices, weathered strings, and melodies that keep collective memory strong. In Knoxville, nestled between the river and the mountains, those traditions feel right at home. At Big Ears 2026, the next generation of artists like Madison Cunningham, Gwenifer Raymond, Cleo Reed, Hayden Pedigo, S.G. Goodman, Annahstasia, Hayley Heynderickx, John Mailander’s Forecast, and more arrive in full force, weaving folk tradition into something alive with the present moment. Today we’re highlighting just a few of these artists carrying music forward with fearless imagination. |
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Maidson Cunningham Plays Her Ace |
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| Already a Grammy winner but still in the early arc of her career, Madison Cunningham is rewriting the singer-songwriter playbook. Her sharp, percussive guitar work and layered, intimate songwriting would have situated her well within the Laurel Canyon scene, yet she’s emerging on a path all her own. Her latest album Ace arrived last week via Verve Forecast, and there’s so much behind the music. In this fresh New York Times feature by Grayson Haver Currin, it’s clear she’s freed herself to further expand what modern folk can be—defiant, inventive, and brimming with emotional clarity. |
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| | | | Gwenifer Raymond’s Latest Earns Praise |
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| Welsh-born, U.S.-based guitarist, Gwenifer Raymond, conjures the ghosts of Appalachian ballads and Delta with a punk urgency. Her virtuosic fingerpicking and gritty intensity make her performances feel timeless yet cutting-edge, bridging centuries of tradition with a rebellious spirit that keeps roots music pushing forward. Songlines’ Glenn Klimpton highlights her latest, Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark, with unequivocal praise as an album that blends her frenetic, minor key guitar work toward the cosmic. |
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| | | | Cleo Reed’s Defiant Grace |
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Brooklyn’s Cleo Reed dismantles and rebuilds Americana from the ground up. Blending folk, R&B, and experimental electronics, Reed reframes the sound of “country” through a Black, queer, and futuristic lens. Their recent album Cuntry is both a reclamation and a rebellion—an earthy, shimmering soundtrack to survival and self-definition. Whether whispering over banjo loops or shouting through distortion, Reed’s voice insists on new ways of hearing America. Pitchfork calls it, “…a proud and emphatically Black update on the American folk tradition of anticapitalist protest.” |
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| | | | Hayden Pedigo Keeps Amarillo Weird |
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| From West Texas plains to avant-folk stages, Hayden Pedigo embraces the absurd and the sublime in equal measure. His instrumental guitar work folds together country, minimalism, and experimental textures, but his offbeat persona—equal parts humorist and serious craftsman—keeps things fresh. Pedigo’s music makes Americana delightfully weird, always tethered to the landscape that raised him. Beats Per Minute reviews his latest, I’ll Be Waving My Hand as You Drive Away, the third in his “Motor Trilogy,” released earlier this year on Mexican Summer. |
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