Toy Heart with Tom Power (A Podcast About Bluegrass)

About Toy Heart with Tom Power (A Podcast About Bluegrass)

CBC radio host Tom Power ("q (https://www.cbc.ca/arts/q)") and BGS (The Bluegrass Situation (TheBluegrassSituation.com)) bring you the most in-depth podcast about the origins of bluegrass ever created. Power sits down with luminaries of the genre such as Del McCoury, Ricky Skaggs, Alice Gerrard, Jesse McReynolds, Jerry Douglas and more for an intimate conversation about their origins within the world of bluegrass music. Episodes will be released bi-weekly on TheBluegrassSituation.com (TheBluegrassSituation.com) and wherever you get your podcasts. PRODUCED BY: Tom Power and Amy Reitnouer Jacobs / BGS CO-PRODUCED AND EDITED BY: Stephanie Coleman THEME MUSIC BY: Chris Eldridge and Kristin Andreassen

Publisher

Tom Power

Category

music

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Jan 2020

Latest episode

24 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 23 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   24 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Billy Strings

   Host Tom Power interviews GRAMMY-winning musician Billy Strings about his journey from childhood bluegrass prodigy to genre-defining artist, exploring his influences and the profound role music played in overcoming adversity.

2. 

   23 Apr 2024

   Alison Krauss

   We could hardly think of a better guest with whom we’d conclude our second season of Toy Heart than 27-time Grammy Award winner, Alison Krauss (https://www.instagram.com/alisonkrauss/?hl=en). Arguably the most prominent bluegrass musician in the genre’s nearly one hundred year history – certainly the most well-known in her own generation – host Tom Power’s laughter-filled conversation with Krauss weaves through her childhood and upbringing, from her grandparents immigrating to Chicago (then her parents to Champaign, Illinois) and Alison's first fiddle contests all the way to her first Grammy win as a young adult. In a rare podcast interview, Krauss is funny, charming, and open, her candor painting a picture of the bluegrass community's lifelong support and the winding journey that has brought her to the present, as one of the most recognizable voices and musicians in American roots music. From her earliest hits like “Steel Rails” and “Every Time You Say Goodbye” to collaborating with Robert Plant, James Taylor, the Cox Family, and more, to her Buddy Cannon-produced 2017 album, Windy City, Power and Krauss talk about song selection, her early days touring and road-dogging with Union Station, and how it felt when her musical career really began to take off. But these stories aren’t just about awards and accolades. They chat about many moments, the big and small, that define Krauss, the festivals that became like homes, and the bonds that music forged with her band, Union Station, and her many collaborators. They explore how Krauss creates on the boundaries of many roots genres – plus what she views as bluegrass and what’s not bluegrass – the authenticity that she’s tried to capture throughout her career, and the cultural waves made by projects like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Down From the Mountain tour. From personal anecdotes about Ralph Stanley and Larry Sparks to her feelings about Billy Strings’ massive success to a jaw-dropping and exciting revelation that she and Union Station are working on a new bluegrass album, our season finale with Alison Krauss is truly one of our best Toy Heart episodes to date. Interested in sponsoring us? Contact BGS: https://bit.ly/sponsorBGSpods (http://bit.ly/sponsorBGSpods)

3. 

   9 Apr 2024

   Jody Stecher

   For the latest episode of Toy Heart, we embark on a journey through the primordial, musical ooze that birthed bluegrass, old-time, and country music with the incredible Jody Stecher. A multi-instrumentalist adept in many styles and traditions – he even plays sarod, a Hindustani instrument – Stecher’s entire career is a fascinating case study in the interconnectedness of American folk music styles. Host Tom Power begins their engaging and philosophical conversation by asking Stecher about his childhood in New York City. A grandchild of eastern European immigrants, he “discovered” country and bluegrass like many in his generation, listening to the Wheeling Jamboree radio program on WWVA and hearing first generation pickers like the Osborne Brothers and Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, including “Baby Crowe,” a young, just-hired banjo player who went by “J.D.” Soon after, Stecher replaced mandolinist (and one-day industry power player) Ralph Rinzler in bluegrass band, the Greenbriar Boys, before joining another group, the New York Ramblers. From those early years, cutting his teeth in local, regional, and eventually national outfits to iconic albums like Going Up On The Mountain and his current status as a venerated expert and acclaimed elder in American roots music, Jody Stecher utilizes music and his expertise to demonstrate how blurry the lines really are between these folk genres. Power and Stecher discuss teaching, David Grisman – and collaborating with Jerry Garcia! – meditation and music, early sounds and recordings by folks like Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers, being a member of Peter Rowan’s band, his duo with Kate Brislin, Utah Phillips, and so much more. Whether you're a lifelong fan of roots music or new to these scenes, Tom Power and Jody Stecher’s Toy Heart episode will inspire, highlighting stories, traditions, and techniques that make bluegrass, old-time, and country music exactly what they are today. Presented by BGS (The Bluegrass Situation) (https://thebluegrasssituation.com/) Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/toy-heart-with-tom-power-a-podcast-about-bluegrass3537/donations (https://redcircle.com/toy-heart-with-tom-power-a-podcast-about-bluegrass3537/donations) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands (https://redcircle.com/brands)

Inside a recent episode

Billy Strings

Published 24 Aug 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] And then you acquire a taste for it and You know, it's, like I said, a lot of my favorite music, I just, at first, I'm like, what the heck is this, you know? But I think that goes for the audience, too. Like, I don't even know if I have a question around this, but one thing I find really interesting about you, and I'm, like, doing my best not to talk about any other bands or, like, you guys versus any other bands. I'm not going to do it. But it's not all jamming, and what I find really interesting is that you have arenas, like, arenas full of people. Oh, man. And we are kind of told in the music that that's not possible to play, like, a three and a half minute bluegrass song to play, I'm on my way back to the old home, to play John Deere Tractor, that you would have to do something different to it, that you'd have to turn it into a different groove, that you'd have to make it 25 minutes. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

109 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

29 ratings