Best Craig McKinnis Podcasts (2025)

1
Encore: Jessica B. Harris Believes in a Welcome Table 42:14

2d ago42:14

42:14

Episode Description: Jessica B. Harris may have been born and raised in New York City, but she has Tennessee roots through her father and has spent much of her life split between homes in the Northeast and the South – specifically New Orleans. For more than fifty years, she has been a college professor, a writer, and a lecturer, and her many books …

1
Maddie and Tae on Motherhood, Sisterhood, and Stadium Songs 40:12

10d ago40:12

40:12

Maddie Font and Taylor Kerr, better known as Maddie & Tae, are really in the thick of it these days as they balance their ever-growing music careers with their ever-growing families. Both of them now have young kids, even as they find themselves touring, recording, and playing to bigger and bigger crowds. Their new album, Love and Light, not only t…

1
Valerie June Has Joy in Her Soul 53:52

17d ago53:52

53:52

Valerie June was raised in Humboldt, Tennessee, just north of Jackson, and though she now spends a good deal of time in New York, she still has a place in Humboldt that’s been passed down through her family. In 2018, Valerie was inducted into the Humboldt Hall of Fame, which she calls one of her greatest honors, and she often returns there to write…

1
Robin Roberts Will Always Call the South Home 33:21

24d ago33:21

33:21

As a co-anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America, Robin Roberts is an icon in morning news. She’s also a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, a Peabody Award winner, an author of several books, a breast cancer survivor, and a Southerner. Robin was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, a daughter of one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen who fought in World Wa…

1
Grace Potter’s Buried Treasure 43:03

1M ago43:03

43:03

Grace Potter was raised in rural Vermont by parents who were seeking a different way of life, one with an emphasis on the arts and a connection to the land. Thanks to her parents’ extensive record collection, Grace grew up listening to a lot of soul and gospel by artists like the Staple Singers and Mahalia Jackson. You can still hear those influenc…

1
How Randy Travis Got His Voice Back 46:05

1M ago46:05

46:05

After more than 40 years as one of the most popular and recognizable voices in country music, during which he earned a pile of Grammys and a rightful place in the Country Music Hall of Fame, Randy Travis is a household name who has inspired legions of fans. A few weeks ago I was fortunate to sit down with Randy and his wife, Mary, at their home in …

1
Encore: The Indigo Girls Are Full of Gratitude 44:55

1M ago44:55

44:55

Episode Description: Since 1985, Emily Sailers and Amy Ray have been known as the Indigo Girls, and they’ve never once stopped making music or sharing their message of acceptance. The two met when they were kids in Decatur, Georgia,, and once they started playing together in high school, it didn’t take long for their unique sound to find an audienc…

1
Craig Morgan's Journey from the Army to the Opry 44:06

2M ago44:06

44:06

Craig Morgan is that rare country artist who actually grew up around Nashville, but he also breaks the mold in a lot of other ways. After finishing high school in Kingston Springs, just west of downtown Nashville, Craig joined the Army for what would become a long, intense, and distinctive military career. As a member of the 101st and 82nd Airborne…

1
Bless Your Heart, Landon Bryant 45:58

2M ago45:58

45:58

Landon Bryant stopped by the Southern Living offices recently, and it was for the staff to meet him in person after a couple of years watching his hilarious videos on our accents, traditions, quirks, and why we have endless recipes for potato salad. Landon was born and raised in the small town of Laurel, Mississippi, a close-knit community that was…

1
Wright Thompson’s New Book About Emmett Till Is a Must-Read 45:56

2M ago45:56

45:56

Wright Thompson grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, before going on to write for ESPN, The Atlantic, and the New York Times, among other publications. In 2018, he created the travel documentary show, TrueSouth, which is now in its 8th season on the SEC Network; and in 2020, he came out with a terrific book called Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine …

1
Riley Green Wishes Grandpas Never Died 39:38

2M ago39:38

39:38

Riley Green got his start playing in bars and restaurants around his hometown of Jacksonville, Alabama—and lately he’s been performing in stadiums for tens of thousands. He grew up with a close relationship with his two grandfathers, who were influential in his early musical development and who fueled his passion for the outdoors. His song "I Wish …

1
Roy Wood Jr. Wants to Connect 36:26

3M ago36:26

36:26

You may know Roy Wood Jr. from his long stint on The Daily Show, his new CNN comedy show Have I Got News For You, or from his new standup special Lonely Flowers, which you can watch on Hulu. He also got a lot of attention hosting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2023, and I got to know him a bit this past December when he was honored by th…

1
The War and Treaty Are Getting Carried Away 46:55

3M ago46:55

46:55

The War and Treaty’s Michael and Tanya Trotter grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and Washington, DC, respectively, but both have family roots in the South. They also grew up in the musical traditions of their churches – Tanya in the Black Baptist Church and Michael in the Seventh Day Adventist Church – where they learned the power of song to move people.…

1
Biscuits & Jam Returns on March 4th for Season 6 with The War & Treaty! 1:42

3M ago1:42

1:42

Join us for the launch of Season 6 of Biscuits & Jam on Tuesday, March 4th, 2025 with The War and Treaty’s Michael and Tanya Trotter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesBy Southern Living

1
Encore: The Red Clay Strays Were Made for This Moment 35:31

3M ago35:31

35:31

Sid talks to a couple of guys from Alabama who are founding members of one of the hottest young bands in the country—the Red Clay Strays. Brandon Coleman, the charismatic lead singer, spent his youth running around with siblings and cousins on a family compound outside of Turnerville, just north of Mobile. Meanwhile, Drew Nix, who plays guitar and …

1
Encore: Fawn Weaver’s Whiskey Rebellion 44:48

4M ago44:48

44:48

Since 2016, Fawn Weaver has been obsessed with uncovering the true story of Nearest Green, a former slave who helped teach Jack Daniel the complicated process of making whiskey. Along the way, Fawn became so invested in her research that she bought the farm in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where Jack Daniel and Nearest Green worked together, and she’s sinc…

1
Encore: Cody Johnson Is As Texas As They Come 42:41

4M ago42:41

42:41

Episode Description: Cody Johnson was born and raised in a little place called Sebastopol, Texas, about a half hour northeast of Huntsville. It was the kind of small community where everybody knew everybody, and his family went to a small country church where his musical interest and skill found an audience. When he was 18, he went to work with his…

1
Encore: Grace Bowers May Be 18, But She’s an Old Soul 33:57

5M ago33:57

33:57

Grace Bowers grew up in Northern California, but when she was not quite 15 years old, her parents decided to move the family to Nashville for better schools and a different kind of life. At first, the culture shock was too much for her, but as Grace became more and more serious about the guitar, she found a music community that recognized her incre…

1
Brenda Lee Is Still Rockin’ 36:55

5M ago36:55

36:55

Brenda Lee spent the early years of her life in Georgia, and though her family didn’t have a lot of money, they always made sure she had batteries to run the radio so she could listen to the Grand Ole Opry. Between that and singing at their Baptist church, her interest in music became clear, and her extraordinary talent became even clearer. She was…

1
Jessica Harris Believes in a Welcome Table 41:57

6M ago41:57

41:57

Jessica B. Harris may have been born and raised in New York City, but she has Tennessee roots through her father and has spent much of her life split between homes in the Northeast and the South – specifically New Orleans. For more than fifty years, she has been a college professor, a writer, and a lecturer, and her many books have earned her a rep…

1
Craig Conover’s Southern Charm 43:54

6M ago43:54

43:54

Craig Conover is one of the longest running stars of Bravo’s reality show, Southern Charm, which means audiences have been following his roller-coaster dating and personal life for a decade now. But part of Craig’s charm is that he wasn’t always a city kid. He grew up near the beach in rural Delaware, where his dad built a construction business and…

1
Encore: The Rise of Scotty McCreery 31:22

6M ago31:22

31:22

Scotty McCreery burst onto the country music scene when he became the youngest male singer to ever win American Idol back in 2011, when he was just 17 years old. He grew up in Garner, North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh, where he developed his talent by singing and playing music at the local Baptist Church. Scotty talks with Sid about his new a…

1
Evie McGee-Colbert’s Very Funny Cookbook 36:33

6M ago36:33

36:33

Evie McGee-Colbert grew up in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, the daughter of a true Southern hostess and a father who would take her to her dance classes on the handlebars of his bike. Now she’s got a cookbook out that leans heavily on the Lowcountry traditions she grew up with as well as the ones she’s built up with her own family in recent …

1
The Biscuits & Jam Holiday Special 42:28

7M ago42:28

42:28

In this week’s episode, Sid Evans, Editor-in-Chief of Southern Living, revisits some of his favorite conversations from Season 5 - many of which have never aired - about his guests’ holiday traditions and memories. You’ll hear stories from Kimberly Schlapman, Tyler Florence, Brittney Spencer, Scotty McCreery, and more. Happy Holidays! Learn more ab…

1
Cody Johnson Is As Texas As They Come 42:17

7M ago42:17

42:17

Cody Johnson was born and raised in a little place called Sebastopol, Texas, about a half hour northeast of Huntsville. It was the kind of small community where everybody knew everybody, and his family went to a small country church where his musical interest and skill found an audience. When he was 18, he went to work with his father in the prison…

1
Toni Tipton-Martin Is America’s Culinary Detective 49:55

7M ago49:55

49:55

Growing up in Los Angeles, Toni Tipton-Martin lived for a time with her Southern-born grandmother who happened to be a professional chef, and who exposed her to what would eventually become a lifelong passion. As Editor-in-Chief of Cook's Country Magazine and as author of books like The Jemima Code, Jubilee, and last year’s Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs,…

1
Lucy Buffett on the Power of Gumbo 47:29

7M ago47:29

47:29

Lucy Buffett grew up as the kid sister of Jimmy Buffett in a working class neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama. A self-proclaimed gypsy rebel, she had plenty of misadventures that took her from Key West to Southern California to New Orleans and the Caribbean, but eventually she moved home to open up a gumbo and burger spot called Lulu’s when she was 46…

1
Encore: Bethany Joy Lenz Has Stories to Tell 42:29

8M ago42:29

42:29

Bethany Joy Lenz was born in Florida and grew up in Texas, which is where she first got involved in the performing arts, carrying on a tradition she inherited from her grandparents. Her family eventually headed to New Jersey, where her Southerness drew the wrong kind of attention from some of the girls in her class, but she made it through the expe…

1
Grace Bowers May Be 18, But She’s an Old Soul 33:25

8M ago33:25

33:25

Grace Bowers grew up in Northern California, but when she was not quite 15 years old, her parents decided to move the family to Nashville for better schools and a different kind of life. At first, the culture shock was too much for her, but as Grace became more and more serious about the guitar, she found a music community that recognized her incre…

1
Leanne Morgan May Be the World’s Funniest Grandma 46:23

8M ago46:23

46:23

Leanne Morgan was raised in Adams, Tennessee, a little farming community not far from the Kentucky border. Her parents ran a small grocery store, and eventually a meat processing plant, but meanwhile Leeanne was nursing dreams of a career in Hollywood. It took her until her fifties to get there, but after more than 20 years of selling jewelry, doin…

1
Kelsey Barnard Clark’s Magic Recipe 39:19

8M ago39:19

39:19

Kelsey Barnard Clark was raised in Dothan, Alabama, which is a short drive from the Gulf Coast. But it wasn’t until she spent several years living in fast-paced New York City and working in the even faster-paced kitchens of Michelin-star restaurants that she truly appreciated her hometown. Since she moved back to Dothan in 2012, she’s been busy. Sh…

1
Jess Pryles Is Playing with Fire 42:23

8M ago42:23

42:23

Jess Pryles was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, but her fascination with the American South eventually led her to Austin, Texas, where she’s now lived for about 15 years. It didn’t take long for Jess to fall in love with the food in Texas, especially the barbecue, and since then she’s made it her life’s mission to learn the art and science…

1
Mitchell Tenpenny Wants to Make His Family Proud 29:20

9M ago29:20

29:20

Mitchell Tenpenny basically grew up in the music business, with a grandmother who was the CEO of Sony Publishing and a mother who advocated for songwriters throughout her career. It was this unique vantage point that made Mitchell realize he wanted to be a songwriter, too, but the journey took him a while. It wasn’t until his boss on a construction…

1
The Red Clay Strays Were Made for This Moment 33:53

9M ago33:53

33:53

Sid talks to a couple of guys from Alabama who are founding members of one of the hottest young bands in the country—the Red Clay Strays. Brandon Coleman, the charismatic lead singer, spent his youth running around with siblings and cousins on a family compound outside of Turnerville, just north of Mobile. Meanwhile, Drew Nix, who plays guitar and …

1
Anne Byrn’s Baking Masterpiece 42:52

9M ago42:52

42:52

Anne Byrn was born and raised in Nashville and, though she calls Tennessee home, her career has taken her all across the South as she’s written about the people who define this region’s extraordinary cuisine. For 15 years, she was the food editor at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, where she interviewed legends like Julia Child and Nathalie Dupree…

1
John T Edge’s Search for the True South 39:52

9M ago39:52

39:52

John T Edge grew up in Clinton, Georgia, raised in a Confederate general’s house that introduced him early on to the complicated legacy of the South. His childhood was complicated, too, and not always happy, but his mother and father shared a curiosity about food and cooking that never left him. For more than 20 years, John T headed up the Southern…

1
Hayes Carll Has a Story for You 38:50

10M ago38:50

38:50

Texas troubadour Hayes Carll was born in Houston and raised in the Woodlands, a famous planned community that was much smaller back then, surrounded by thousands of acres of pine trees. He grew up listening to Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson, and later, Jerry Jeff Walker and Townes Van Zandt, all of whom seemed like mythical figures to a kid from th…

1
The Blind Boys of Alabama’s Ricky McKinnie 37:40

10M ago37:40

37:40

Ricky McKinnie, the leader of the Blind Boys of Alabama, was born and raised in Atlanta, where he got his start singing in the church alongside his mother. Not long after that, while still in his teens, he embarked on a career as a singer and a drummer, often performing with a band called the Soul Searchers. Around the age of 20, he began to lose h…

1
Fawn Weaver’s Whiskey Rebellion 44:06

10M ago44:06

44:06

Since 2016, Fawn Weaver has been obsessed with uncovering the true story of Nearest Green, a former slave who helped teach Jack Daniel the complicated process of making whiskey. Along the way, Fawn became so invested in her research that she bought the farm in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where Jack Daniel and Nearest Green worked together, and she’s sinc…

1
Encore: Wynonna Judd Will Never Stop Singing 30:39

10M ago30:39

30:39

Wynonna Judd was one half of one of the most famous duos in country music history, and she’s also been plenty successful out on her own. She was last on the show nearly three years ago, back during the height of the pandemic, and a lot has happened since then. On April 30th, 2022, the day before the Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall o…

1
Brian Kelley Speaks His Truth 36:38

11M ago36:38

36:38

Brian Kelley was born and raised in Ormond Beach, Florida, just North of Daytona. At one point, he thought he might have a baseball career ahead of him, but when he didn’t make the road team at his beloved Florida State, he spent his free time discovering the power of music. He also ended up heading to Daytona State College where the baseball coach…

1
Ashley Christensen’s Pride of Place 43:46

11M ago43:46

43:46

Ashley Christensen is a two-time James Beard Award winning chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author from Raleigh, North Carolina, who has a way of taking classic Southern dishes and making them the talk of the food world. She grew up with parents who loved to cook, entertain, and play music in the kitchen, and Ashley has channeled that spirit of hos…

1
Encore: Jennifer Nettles Loves a Farmer 34:20

11M ago34:20

34:20

Jennifer Nettles was born and raised in rural South Georgia, where she got very involved in 4-H as a kid, a relationship that’s still a big part of her life. She went on to an extraordinary music career, winning a long list of Grammys, CMA Awards, and ACM Awards with Sugarland in the mid 2000s. By 2015, she’d started to work more in film and televi…

1
Tyler Florence Is Heating Up the Grill 41:11

11M ago41:11

41:11

Tyler Florence is a Southern chef and Food Network star who, after 16 previous cookbooks, is finally releasing one that focuses on his passion for grilling. Tyler has been working in restaurants since he was a teenager in Greenville, South Carolina. Since then he’s lived and worked in Charleston, New York City and, for more than a decade now, Calif…

1
The Indigo Girls Are Full of Gratitude 43:46

12M ago43:46

43:46

Since 1985, Emily Sailers and Amy Ray have been known as the Indigo Girls, and they’ve never once stopped making music or sharing their message of acceptance. The two met when they were kids in Decatur, Georgia,, and once they started playing together in high school, it didn’t take long for their unique sound to find an audience—first regionally, t…

1
Kimberly Schlapman Loves a Whiskey Song 41:19

12M ago41:19

41:19

Kimberly Schlapman, a founding member of the band Little Big Town, has been a musician almost all her life. As a little girl she played piano alongside her mother at a Baptist church near where she grew up in Cornelia, Georgia, and even then people knew her voice was something special. Years later, on a choir camp bus when she was at Samford Univer…

1
Brian Baumgartner Is Probably Smoking Something 41:21

12M ago41:21

41:21

Brian Baumgartner may be best known to many people, across at least a couple of generations, as Kevin from The Office, but there’s much more to the actor than his famous onscreen persona. Born and raised in Atlanta, Brian has a deep love for the South, a wicked sense of humor, an obsession with sports, and a successful podcast called Off the Beat. …

1
Darius Rucker’s Wild Ride 24:59

1y ago24:59

24:59

Darius Rucker gained fame in 1994 when David Letterman heard his band, Hootie and the Blowfish, on a local radio station and insisted they play The Late Show later that week. The band’s debut album, cracked rear view, went on to sell over 20 million units worldwide and made them a household name. Despite all that success, Darius was always drawn to…

1
Pat Martin Is Fired Up About Barbecue 34:17

1y ago34:17

34:17

Pat Martin probably knows as much about whole hog barbecue as anyone in the world. Best known for his eponymous restaurant chain, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint, he’s also the host of a new TV show on the Outdoor Channel called “Life of Fire,” cooking with barbecue legends and hearing their stories. Pat wasn’t always headed for a culinary career - at one…

1
The Rise of Scotty McCreery 29:32

1y ago29:32

29:32

Scotty McCreery burst onto the country music scene when he became the youngest male singer to ever win American Idol back in 2011, when he was just 17 years old. He grew up in Garner, North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh, where he developed his talent by singing and playing music at the local Baptist Church. Scotty talks with Sid about his new a…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Craig McKinnis Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide