Five Young Players Honoring Tradition While Shaping New Acoustic Sounds

As country, Americana, and bluegrass artists like the Avett Brothers, Rhiannon Giddens, Jason Isbell, Sierra Ferrell, and Billy Strings continue to shake up the national charts and rack up record crowds, a rising generation of proudly roots-faithful young players and songwriters is following in their footsteps. 

These musicians, like the five up-and-comers profiled in this piece, are exceptionally well versed in the history of American folk, country, blues, and bluegrass, admirably devoted to mastering their instruments and their songwriting skills, and stubbornly loyal about bringing their authentic musical voices as well as their personal identities and backgrounds to the evolving lexicon of roots music culture. 

Like generations of musical aspirants before them, from Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton to Kacey Musgraves, these determined young artists and players relocated to Nashville from as far away as Hawaii—uprooting from family and friends to nurture the dream of earning both a living from and recognition for their prodigious talents. 

The five young artists introduced here—Presley Haile, Kapali Long, Jobi Riccio, Presley Barker, and Lizzie No—are also very much following their own paths, putting aside the tempting polish of Nashville’s pop-country industry to create music that’s vivid and raw, honest and personal, and firmly rooted in the deep musical traditions they continue to hold sacred.

Presley Haile

Lone Star State of Mind

The first thing you notice about Presley Haile is her striking voice—authoritative and tonally rich, recalling the timbres of June Carter Cash, Loretta Lynn, and Emmylou Harris. But the 23-year-old is a strong and subtle guitarist as well, gently keeping time and bringing sensitive dynamics on the six-string. 

It’s that special vintage-approved marriage between her picking and singing that makes Haile’s music such a convincing blend of classic country and folk gestures, special enough to land a record deal with Columbia. 

On songs like “Cimarron,” “Mosquito,” and “Mountain Daughter,” the Texas native echoes that state’s great roots songwriting tradition—think Mance Lipscomb to Miranda Lambert—as well as the Southern Baptist upbringing that had her singing hymns and spirituals from an early age. 

Picking up the guitar when her gifted late older brother and accompanist Bradley joined the military, Haile saved up to buy an inexpensive acoustic and learned how to accompany herself. “I started by using a pick, and even then I played pretty gently,” she explains. “But when I started fingerpicking, that’s when I was really able to explore my vocal range and my vocal rhythms. When I’m fingerpicking, it’s relaxed, and I’m much less likely to rush through a tune. If I like what I’m playing, and I sit back with the tempo, that allows my voice the space and freedom to really find the song.”

She adds, “I use my right thumb, pointer, and middle finger for playing acoustic. I rarely use my ring finger at all, but if I do, it’s because I’m feeling extra special that day.” 

Though she says she’s had little luck shaping chords in alternate tunings like DADGAD or open G, Haile often uses double dropped D—as she does on the melancholy “Less Lonesome.” Her go-to is standard tuning, with the capo typically placed on the third or fourth fret to complement her vocal range and, she confesses, to take the guitar’s action down a bit. For her gentle style, she likes similarly gentle extra-light strings.

Still, the emotional impact of Haile’s songs is anything but light, and with guitar heroes like Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and songwriting reference points like Nanci Griffith, Guy Clark, and Shawn Camp, Haile has no shortage of weighty inspiration.

It was a performance with Camp that first inspired her admiration for Collings guitars. When a studio manager suggested Haile visit the company, she hesitated at first, worried, as she puts it, “that I would fall in love.” Convinced to make the visit anyway, Haile was handed a spruce-and-mahogany Collings OM1, and her prediction was accurate. “Everyone at Collings immediately felt like family to me, “she recalls, “and it sounds so cliché to say, but tears really did well up in my eyes when I plucked that OM1 for the first time. It’s like it was singing to me. I knew right away that I had to have it. It just felt like home.”

What She Plays 

Presley Haile plays a Collings OM1 fitted with D’Addario Custom Light (.011–.052) phosphor bronze strings and a K&K Pure Mini pickup. Her setup includes a Paige capo, an L.R. Baggs Para DI preamp, and a Fishman Loudbox Artist acoustic amp.

Kapali Long

From Hawaii to Tennessee

“It took me a while to fully understand the deep connection between Hawaiian music and blues and country,” says guitarist and songwriter Kapali Long, whose family roots in Hawaiian guitar stretch back at least several generations. “Hawaiian lap steel guitarists were already touring extensively in the U.S. by the very early 1900s, and they were playing in open-G tuning with a slide—so that gives you a pretty good idea of how stilted our perception of blues and country history really is.” 

Coming from a long line of lap-steel players—his great-great-great-grandfather studied with the instrument’s inventor, Joseph Kekuku, in the late 1800s—Long also has deep family ties to pivotal figures like slack-key guitar progenitors Gabby Pahinui and Sonny Chillingworth, as well as popular entertainers like Don Ho, with whom his grandmother was a longtime hula dancer. His great-aunt Mikilani Fo, meanwhile, widely acclaimed as a brilliant multi-instrumentalist, toured the U.S. playing lap steel and ukulele under the auspices of Arthur Godfrey in 1950, and recorded several notable records.

Long’s latest EP, The Routines, presents him as both rugged bluesman and earthy troubadour, and moves seamlessly between flatpicking, hybrid picking, fingerstyle, and slide. His main ax, a 1991 Gibson J-200, delivers a proud, booming sound, which Long praises for its “incredible consistency and warmth.” It’s also an instrument he plays as an homage to one of his heroes, blues and gospel icon Reverend Gary Davis, whose battered but beautiful 1949 SJ-200 is still the stuff of legend.

“Look, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Reverend Gary Davis and Muddy Waters,” Long enthuses. “They taught me everything about the blues, and I discovered them through my love of Hendrix and Dylan.” As a teenager, Long was likewise ignited by the raw neo-blues power of bands like the White Stripes and the banshee barre chords and cutting tongue of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. “Nirvana was a revelation to me: the idea that music could be that grand and strong, but the lyrics could be even stronger,” he says. “And that translates directly to country music for me, because it’s the same value system.” 

That epiphany is what led Long to record a surprising bluegrass take on “I’m Not Okay” by the alt-rockers My Chemical Romance for The Routines. “A good song is a good song, and most of the differences in genre we accept are only based on race or economic circumstances,” says Long, whose erudition on such matters is impressive. “Look, Leadbelly, was the ‘King of the 12-String,’ right? But he was a king of folk, blues, and country, too. I mean, he was playing ragtime and country tunes! Think about it: what’s the difference between Mississippi John Hurt and Doc Watson? Nothing but skin, man. Nothing but skin.”

What he Plays 

Favoring a 1991 Gibson J-200, Kapali Long uses GHS phosphor bronze strings (.013–.056 or .012–.054) and Elliott Elite and Kyser Quick-Change maple capos. He tunes up with a Peterson StroboClip HD and plays with BlueChip TAG60-1R and TAD50 picks. For amplification, he uses a Grace Audio FELiX2DI, along with L.R. Baggs M80 and Fishman Rare Earth Mic Blend pickups. 

Jobi Riccio

On the Trail of Tony and Joni

“When it comes to writing with the acoustic guitar, nothing is off limits,” says Colorado-born singer-songwriter Jobi Riccio, an artist in her mid-20s and winner of both the 2019 NewSong Music Competition and the 2023 Newport Folk Festival John Prine Fellowship. “I believe in the power of the capo. I believe in the power of alternate tunings, and the power of standard tuning, too. They’re all wonderful creative tools. Whatever opens up a new and interesting sound that excites you and inspires you to create is worthwhile.”

As the diverse, layered, and lush tracks on her critically acclaimed Yep Roc debut album, Whiplash, illustrate, Riccio is equally open minded in her musical influences, too, though she’ll point to two major figures as fundamental to her style: Tony Rice and Joni Mitchell. 

“I was always attracted to Tony Rice’s more sensitive tracks, like his cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ and the amazing ‘Church Street Blues,’” says Riccio, who echoes Rice’s cross picking on Whiplash’s opening track, “Summer.” “Those Rice songs have been revelations for so many acoustic players before me—that sense that there are infinite ways to approach bluegrass guitar.”

While “Summer” bounces off Riccio’s rolling cross-picked arpeggios, the atmosphere owes much to Mitchell classics such as The Hissing of Summer Lawns: ambient electric guitar swells, jazzy and punctuating tom fills, and Riccio’s mightily expressive and articulate voice. Like Mitchell, Riccio sings with an arcing, lightly grained tenor/alto with subtle dynamic details and legato phrasing. “Joni’s playing is so inventive, and her melodic choices always fit so well with the sense of the lyrics,” says Riccio. “I was and remain a huge fan.” That influence is born out in her choice of alternate tunings as well, like the title track’s open-C tuning (C G C E G C)—a favorite of Mitchell’s on songs like “Amelia” and “Big Yellow Taxi” (in the latter, raised to open D or E). 

Riccio has a particular talent for embedding passing figures and top-line melodies into her rhythm playing that join forces with the vocal melody at just the right moments—check out how the pre-chorus lifts via that partnership in “Kinder to Myself.” Another great case in point is Whiplash’s “One Last Time,” where carefully layered acoustic and clean electric guitars recall the melodic interplay in the Beatles’ “In My Life.” Riccio is no slouch on the electric guitar either, for that matter: check out the rugged but clean Bakersfield-meets-Skynyrd opening figures on “Sweet.”

All this is hardly surprising given Riccio’s legit training at Berklee College of Music, her bluegrass bonafides from the Denver grass jam scene, and her well-deserved awards and accolades from the songwriter community. Even in highly competitive Nashville, she’s a known badass who’s earned a lot of respect from fellow players and writers in just a few short years. “I do find that this town has a positive effect on us as musicians,” she offers. “I suppose my focus had always been on using guitar technique to write songs, but I’ve definitely become a much better guitar player since moving here, and have much more confidence in my abilities on both acoustic and electric.”

What She Plays 

Jobi Riccio alternates between a 1993 Martin D-35 and a Gibson Songwriter, both equipped with K&K Twin pickups. Her strings of choice are D’Addario Nickel Bronze mediums (.013–.056). For picks, she switches between a BlueChip CT55 and a D’Andrea 351 Vintage Celluloid (.96mm). A Shubb C1 and Kyser Low-Tension Quick-Change capo help shape her sound, while Fire-Eye’s Red-Eye preamp keeps her acoustic tone natural and balanced onstage.

Presley Barker

A Bluegrass Phenom Comes of Age

Presley Barker was only ten years old when he knocked the judges flat and took first place at the 2015 Old Fiddler’s Convention adult guitar competition in Galax, Virginia. A true son of the Blue Ridge Mountains—he grew up in Traphill, North Carolina, in the foothills—Barker would take the blue ribbon at Galax again in 2017, at age 13, and later that year would also snag top honors in the long-running Wayne C. Henderson Guitar Competition near Independence, Virginia. 

Barker’s prize that night was one of Henderson’s most cherished hand-built dreadnoughts from his personal stash: a guitar, like most of Henderson’s creations, that’s valued in the tens of thousands. “Wayne really took me under his wing,” says the self-effacing Barker, “and I feel really blessed to have formed a relationship with him so early on. He’s been a great friend, mentor, and role model to me, and I love his guitars and am so honored to play them.”

Barker’s current main ax, a Henderson D-18, is based on the 52nd guitar to come out of the luthier’s legendary shop some 30 years ago. While Barker’s is number 752, its red spruce top was cut from the same chunk of wood that provided no. 52 with the distinctive sound that first drew Barker to it. “It’s got such great punch,” says Barker. “It’s so warm and suits songwriting and flatpicking equally well. It definitely has a lot of sentimental value for me as well, but the sound speaks for itself.” 

Another secret to Barker’s remarkable tone, speed, and phrasing is his cross-picking technique, a closed-fist, unanchored approach that allows him to pick the strings directly over the soundhole with an uncanny precision and speed that he says grew out of the demands of his teenage guitar competition days. 

“The anchoring thing never worked for me,” he recalls. “In a competition setting, where you’re playing the same basic arrangements as other players, I believe you’ve got to stand out from the pack by having more speed, more endurance, and more strength on the pick. For me that meant keeping the other fingers out of the way, so that definitely became a habit for me.” While Barker’s technique has evolved to embrace hybrid picking and chicken pickin’, he says that efficient closed-grip technique is still his go-to: “It’s all in the wrist for me.”

Barker’s focus in the last few years has been on developing his voice as a songwriter and musical stylist—check out his 2021 singles “Time Machine” and “Middle of Somewhere.” “My deepest influences are Doc Watson and Tony Rice,” he says, “as well as my longtime teacher Steve Lewis, and of course Wayne himself. So, I’ll always remain very attached to traditional bluegrass music. But I love classic country music, too, from Merle Haggard to George Strait to Keith Whitley. My vision is to pair those two legacies in a fresh and exciting way.”

What he Plays 

Presley Barker’s go-to instrument is a Wayne C. Henderson D-18, built with old-growth mahogany back and sides and a red spruce top. He strings it up with D’Addario Nickel Bronze mediums (.013–.056) and plays with a BlueChip TD60 pick. He uses an Elliott capo. Barker’s guitar is fitted with an L.R. Baggs Anthem SL pickup, and for live settings, he runs through either an L.R. Baggs Venue preamp or a Fishman Platinum DI.

Lizzie No

Harp and Guitar Journeys

After first studying the violin as a child and later taking up the classical harp, Brooklyn-to-Nashville transplant Lizzie No eventually settled into the art of songwriting and performing with a unique sense of how the acoustic guitar integrates with the human body. 

“When you play the harp, you’re so open,” she says. “You often play in a seated position, your left hand handles the bass notes, and your right hand the higher registers. It feels like the instrument is all around you—you cradle it.” 

She continues, “The guitar is similarly full of this quality between all the parts of my body. My hands are as important as my brain are as important as my feet. I’m fully unmasked, not trying to present anything, per se. I often say that I don’t play the guitar or harp: I play the postures.” 

No, who in addition to being a singer-songwriter is a human rights activist and co-host of the podcast Basic Folk, plays the harp onstage in a style that would not sound unusual to a fingerstyle guitarist, with rolling syncopated 16th notes, and the use of her left thumb for alternating bass. “Treating the harp, so often seen as a ‘white’ instrument, in this rhythmic way is a big part of my curiosity in music,” she offers. Indeed, it was the breakthrough Black harpists Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, who pioneered an approach to the harp that went beyond the instrument’s typical role in European classical music, that most intrigued No. 

“Ashby studied what’s called the Salzedo technique, which is very ballerina-like and tough,” says No. “She’d innovate that style for jazz harp. Her records are all about the groove, and yet they’re cosmic and embodied—and that’s what I’m trying to do with folk music.” 

Groove is No’s priority on acoustic guitar, too: On her Gibson J-200 and Takamine P1M acoustic-electrics, No concentrates on tempo and accompaniment, typically playing in standard or dropped-D tuning with a capo on the third or fifth frets, to produce a Bb or C tonality with the open-position G. “I also like tuning down a half step to Eb,” says No, “which to me is like a little pocket of sky, a light blue with a little sun. Bb is a similar color, maybe more of a periwinkle blue.” 

Original and provocative ideas have a way of tumbling out of No’s mouth, in person as well as in her highly literate songs, strung together with clear narrative intent on her three acclaimed studio albums Hard Won (2017), Vanity (2019), and Halfsies (2024) and her recent live LP Commie Country (2025). 

With a gift for strong metaphorical themes (“The Heartbreak Store”), emotionally weighted travel tales (“Lagunita”), and insightful character sketches (“Narcissus”), No delivers songs with the underlying urgency of the political. That, she argues, is the inescapable role of the Black, queer, woman artist in America, whereby one’s life is a kind of protest
by association. 

“If you’re in these songs with me,” she insists, “what seems at first like my journey of self-analysis becomes a journey to get free, and to get your people free, as well.”

What She Plays 

Lizzie No’s primary guitars include a walnut Gibson J-100 and a Takamine P1M. She strings them with D’Addario phosphor bronze lights (.012–.053) and uses Cool Picks Juratex plectrums (.8 and 1.0 mm). For capo needs, she relies on the G7th Performance 3. Additionally, she plays a Triplett Christina harp crafted from bubinga.