This week on eTown we present Part One (of Two) of a very special show from 2019 featuring Swedish export to The Big Easy, Anders Osborne, and from North Carolina, Chatham County Line. Nick also has a sit-down with Gary Fine to discuss how reading and writing helps rehabilitate prison inmates.
Anders Osborne

Anders Osborne was born in 1966 in Uddevalla, Sweden and at a young age knew that he spoke the language of music and poetry well. He fell in love with everything from Vivaldi, Chopin and Black Sabbath to Robert Johnson, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Cat Steven’s to John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley. “Blues connected everything together for me,” Osborne recalls. “The early rock, the R&B, the jazz, the singer-songwriters. Blues was like a thread running through everything.” He began playing in open D tuning which gives his fretwork a signature sound and feel. “I first heard Open D on Joni Mitchell’s Blue, and my fingers just fit the tuning.” Osborne travelled around Europe in his late teens and in 1986, when he was nineteen years old, he visited New Orleans. He fell in love with the city, and never left.
Osborne released his first album Doin’ Fine in 1989 and as would be the case on is future releases, he wrote virtually all of the material. His songs have also appeared on recordings of other artists including two he co-wrote with Keb Mo for the latter’s Grammy winning Slow Down, and Tim McGraw’s number one Country hit Watch The Wind Blow By. Others who have recorded Osborne’s songs include Brad Paisley, Aaron Neville, and Trombone Shorty.
After living and performing there for almost four decades Osborne has become a fixture of the New Orleans musical community. Guitar Player called him “the poet laureate of Louisiana’s fertile roots music scene.” New Orleans’ Gambit Weekly has honored Osborne as the Entertainer of The Year. OffBeat named him the Crescent City’s Best Guitarist on three occasions, and the Best Songwriter twice. He has appeared at Jazz Fest for 35 years and will perform at the festival again in 2024.
In addition to his solo shows, Osborne has performed with the North Mississippi All Stars with whom he recorded the album Freedom and Dreams in 2015. He has also toured with and played with Toots and the Maytals, John Scofield to The Meters, to Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Stanton Moore Phil Lesh, Jackie Greene Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John and Taj Mahal. Osborne appeared as himself in an episode of the HBO series Treme and he has taught a course about art and the music business at Tulane University. Since 2019, Osborne has collaborated with Steve Earle at the annual Camp Copperhead songwriting camp.
Osborne works closely with the “Send Me A Friend” foundation and through writing music for New Orleans Children’s Museum. He has additionally worked closely with Million Strong, Love Rocks NYC, Stand Together, Trombone Shorty Foundation and Phoenix
Chatham County Line

Launched a little more than twenty years ago in Raleigh, North Carolina, Chatham County Line built a devoted local following on the strength of their genre-bending live show—an intoxicating blend of bluegrass, folk, country, and rock and roll—before breaking out internationally with their 2003 self-titled debut. In the years to come, the band would go on to release eight more critically acclaimed studio albums, top the Billboard Bluegrass Chart four times, collaborate with the likes of Judy Collins, Sharon Van Etten, and Norwegian star Jonas Fjeld, earn two gold records in Norway (where they were also twice nominated for the Spellemannprisen, Norway’s equivalent of a Grammy), and share bills with everyone from Guy Clark and Lyle Lovett to Steve Martin & Martin Short and The Avett Brothers.
NPR hailed the group as “a bridge between bluegrass traditions and a fresh interpretation of those influences,” while Uncut lauded their “powerful melodies and gorgeous harmonies,” and Pitchfork dubbed their music “timeless.” Nothing lasts forever, though, and when Chatham County Line shared their 2020 album, Strange Fascination, they announced it would be their final release with banjo player Chandler Holt.
Gary Fine

Gary Fine founded and runs Prisoner Express, which works to create an opportunity for incarcerated men and women to get information, education and a public forum for creative self-expression. Through their newsletters and programs, they step through the isolation and alienation of prison life – with the goal being to bring hope and foster a sense of community among the prisoners who participate.