Mountain Blog

This week’s broadcast of Mountain Stage was recorded in Athens Georgia, and features Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers, with a guest appearance from Mike Mills from REM. Also on this show is legendary lyricist, musical arranger and all-around character Van Dyke Parks. This episodes feeds to our stations this Friday, May 4. Click here to see the playlist.

Right now, you can preview Patterson’s performance via our Backstage at Mountain Stage vid, where he talks about how his solo project differs from his work with the Truckers. And you can also stream the song “Pride of the Yankees” from our upcoming broadcast.

Patterson Hood’s last solo album, Murdering Oscar was released in 2009, and his latest, Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance, is set to be released in the near future. Patterson brought along a band he dubbed “The Downtown Rumblers” (which included several members of the Drive-By Truckers) to help capture the quieter textures of his solo work.

Mike Mills of REM made an unannounced guest appearance, joining Patterson for his closing song, “After It’s Gone.” The two live in Athens, Georgia, and are both involved in a project that promotes the preservation of their downtown. Needless to say, the audience ate it up.

For music fans who pay attention to album credits, the name Van Dyke Parks is nothing short of legendary. As a session musician, composer, arranger, lyricist, and singer, he's contributed significantly to several decades' worth of inimitable masterpieces credited to other artists, as well as releasing notable projects of his own.

Working with a wide array of musicians, from The Byrds and Sonny and Cher to Ry Cooder and Vic Chesnutt, Parks is perhaps best known for collaborating with Brian Wilson on the storied classic SmiLE. In 2011, Parks released his first new music in more than 15 years, a series of singles that features the artwork of artists including Art Spiegelman and WV’s Billy Edd Wheeler.

Singer-songwriter Teitur kicks off the show. Hailing from Denmark's Faroe Islands, a small, remote group of islands between Iceland and Scotland, Teitur Lassen issued his debut, Poetry & Aeroplanes, on Universal Records in 2003.

Supporting the disc, he was featured on MTV’s “You Heard It First,” VH1 and CNN, and his songs were included on the soundtracks of the films My Super Ex-Girlfriend and Aquamarine. He also toured with Rufus Wainwright, Aimee Mann and John Mayer. His latest is titled Let the Dog Drive Home. 

Born and raised on the Georgia Sea island, St. Simons, Caroline Aiken’s first musical influence was Emma Lee Ramsey of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. She moved to NY in the late ‘60s and joined the rock band Father Time.

From there, music took her to California during the early ‘70s, to South America, Seattle, east to Greenwich Village and, in the early ‘80s, back to Atlanta. It was then that she heard the Indigo Girls - still teenagers - singing a CSNY song in an alley behind the club Good Old Days. Aiken invited them onstage and sang on their first recording.

Dubbed the “the William Faulkner of Southern music,” Randall Bramblett came to prominence in the ‘70s as a member of the fusion band Sea Level. Since then, his credits include work with Steve Winwood, Gregg Allman, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson.

Called “one of Georgia’s musical treasures” by Widespread Panic’s Dave Schools, Bramblett is a multi-instrumentalist who excels on keyboards, saxophone and guitar, and a respected songwriter whose songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Widespread Panic, and Delbert McClinton.

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Thanks again for listening to Mountain Stage!