Max Kabat’s Heavy Rotation

JAKE BLOUNT

Banjo player and fiddler Jake Blount is a scholar of ethnomusicology, specializing in the music of black and Native American communities in the southeastern United States. In 2016, Blount became the first black person to make the finals at the prestigious Appalachian String Band Music Festival, and the first to win in the traditional band category. Blount’s latest record, Spider Tales, gives voice to the black musicians whose art and voices have been co-opted and shunned from the American roots music industry. “When I listened to [Blount’s record] I was like, holy shit, this is good,” Kabat says.

BRYAN SUTTON

A flatpicking legend who first came into prominence as the lead guitarist for Ricky Skagg’s band Kentucky Thunder, Ryan Sutton has played with the (formerly known as Dixie) Chicks, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Chris Thile, and currently Hot Rize. “He’s one of my favorite guitar players,” Kabat says. “He’s probably been on 100 records.”

JOHN HARTFORD

Nobody knew Mississippi lore better than John Crawan Hartford, the singing/dancing/string-playing firecracker of an entertainer whose hit “Gentle On My Mind” went on to be covered by artists as disparate as Glen Campbell, Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin. “You didn’t want to follow John,” Ricky Skaggs once said of Hartford. “If John was playing from 9 to 10, you could forget about playing after that because the crowd was his.” Kabat says band members Zach Smith and Colleen Heine gave their son the middle name Hartford after the late, great entertainer.