World Cafe

It was 1975 when Emmylou Harris had to figure out how to make a solo album after her classic work as Gram Parsons' duet partner. Her record company told her to "get a hot band." So she got The Hot Band with James Burton on lead, as well as a newcomer, Rodney Crowell, on rhythm guitar and, more importantly, songwriting.

So you think you know country music? Our friend Michael Gray, curator at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn., will tell you what you need to know in just a few music-filled minutes. The Hall of Fame is right in downtown Nashville and is a must visit.

Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale have contributed to roots music to an immeasurable degree throughout their careers. As songwriters and players, both solo and together, they've led bands, worked as sidemen and written great songs.

You might be tempted to call World Cafe's Sense of Place: Nashville guest Moon Taxi a jam band — that is, if its instrumental excursions weren't so concise, carefully thought-out and frequently refined in the years it's spent touring.

The quintet formed at Belmont University in Nashville and released its debut, Melodica, in 2007. Moon Taxi's second studio album, Cabaret, came out last year. Here, the band performs an intricate live set and discusses what makes Nashville's independent music scene special.

Jack White's Third Man Records has quickly become a cultural force in Nashville. The Third Man complex is situated in an industrial section of downtown, where it houses a retail store, the Third Man studio, a mail-order business and a music venue.

In an attempt to discover the best new local music in Nashville, we headed to Grimey's Records, the mecca for indie music in town. It was opened by Mike Grimes in 1999, who also manages The Basement, the club in Grimey's basement. And the institution is still growing, recently opening a satellite store next to its already expanded store.

In this segment, co-founder Doyle Davis (who also hosts a local music show, "The Indie Underground Hour" on local station Lightning 100) picks his five best local bands.

For World Cafe's Sense of Place: Nashville edition, we knew we wanted to talk with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings to get their take on changes in the city over the last couple of decades. The country-folk singer-songwriters moved to Nashville in 1993 and have worked there ever since, recording at historic studios like RCA Studio B before buying the legendary Woodland Studios.

A young darling of Nashville's music scene, Caitlin Rose just released her second album, The Stand-In. Rose moved to Nashville when she was 7, but resisted country music at first because her parents worked in the industry. Indie-rock was more her thing; she first discovered Merle Haggard via a Mountain Goats record.

For our Sense of Place: Nashville week, we just had to showcase Luella and the Sun, which has made major fans out of Grimey's Records' Doyle Davis, other bands like Moon Taxi and NPR Music's Ann Powers.

Today's guest, Leagues, provides a perfect start to World Cafe's week-long visit to Nashville, because it perfectly encapsulates the change going on there. A new rock band, Leagues was formed by an amazing singer, Thad Cockrell, who'd been so disenchanted with his alt-country career that he was ready to leave the music business altogether.