Phil Madeira and John Lomax III

Music fans have seen and heard him on stage for years with Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris and others. He’s the guy with the pork pie hat (which the evidence will show he was wearing before it was a fad) playing the organ and the accordion. He’s also a successful producer and songwriter. His story is fascinating. His journey of faith is personal and challenging. And he’s one of Nashville’s deep thinkers and understated musical heroes. Phil Madeira is my guest.

Madeira grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island in a religious family. His father was a Baptist minister - albeit a moderate one he says. In his 2011 memoir God On The Rocks, Distilling Religion, Savoring Faith, Phil says he was obsessed from an early age with the blues and gospel music of the deep south. He played drums, then guitar and keyboards, and his first working band was several years on the road with Christian rocker and guitar player Phil Keaggy.

In Nashville, where he’s lived for more than thirty years, Madeira migrated from Christian music to Americana, sometimes in tandem with his friends and collaborators Buddy and Julie Miller. Madeira’s songs have been recorded by Alison Krauss, Garth Brooks and Bruce Hornsby among many others. His highest profile achievement to date however may have been producing the 2011 anthology Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us.

The project included contributions from a multitude of top tier artists. Emmylou Harris, Shawn Mullins, Dan Tyminski and others took on the producer’s challenge to write about God as Love and nothing more. It was hailed by critics, spawned a remarkable live event at the 2012 Americana convention in Nashville and ultimately inspired a second volume in 2016.

Also this hour, a conversation with John Lomax III of Nashville, grandson of John Avery Lomax, one of America's foremost folklorists and song hunters. On the occasion of a new release of a cappella songs by John's father called FOLK, we talk about stewardship of a huge music legacy.