Mountain Blog

Just a quick reminder, folks – this Sunday, Mountain Stage will make the short trip to the campus of Ohio University in Athens. Our guests include the incomparable country singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, Memphis roots rock powerhouse Lucero, singer-songwriter Sara Watkins (formally of Nickel Creek), The Lost Brothers, and Doug Paisley.

Tickets for this show are still available, but moving fast. Get yours online, by phone (740.593.1780) or in person at Templeton Blackburn Memorial Auditorium box office.

 Click here to see our rather extensive, and still growing live show schedule.

See you at the show.

This week’s broadcast of Mountain Stage is a special archive edition, recorded in April of 2003. You’ll hear from legendary folk singer and activist Joan Baez, along with the incomparable Guy Clark, Roseanne Cash, Josh Ritter, and Tracy Grammer. Click here to find a list of times and stationswhere you can listen in your area. And preview the show via our Mountain Stage song of the week – this time, it’s Joan Baez singing the traditional tune “Lily of the West (Flora).”

Joan Baez needs little introduction to anyone who has listened to American Music over the past 50 years. In fact, even that’s an understatement, because Baez’s legion of fans is worldwide, and it started with her appearance as a teenager at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. Besides having a voice that’s earned millions of fans and spawned thousands of imitators, Baez is known almost as well for her social and political activism. As host Larry Groce said in his original introduction to this set, which was recorded in April of 2003, “I wish I could be the first to introduce you to her, but I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

Roseanne Cash got her start working with her father, Johnny, but it wasn’t long before she was doing her own thing, with an album released in 1978. Since then, she’s had a steady stream of successful records, including 11 more albums, and 11 number one singles. She’s defied categories, and known variously as a rock, pop, country, and roots performer. Her last album, The List, made up from a list of songs that her father said were important, was voted Album of the Year by the American Music Association in 2009.

Guy Clarkwas born in Texas and moved to California for a while as a young man before relocating to Nashville in 1971. He stepped into the spotlight in the early 70’s with songs like “L.A. Freeway” and “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” both recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker. Over the years, drawn from the 20 albums Clark has released on his own. Clark was a good friend and road buddy of Townes Van Zandt – the two toured together, and even visited Mountain Stage together. Clark has appeared on the show ten times, always bringing a handful of new songs that are as well crafted as the guitars he also makes. A Guy Clark tribute album, This One’s For Him, featuring a who’s who of Americana artists was released this year, and recently named Album of the Year by the Americana Music Association  

Josh Ritter had just released, or rather re-released his album The Golden Age of Radio when he appeared on Mountain Stage in April of 2003. He had recorded and released the album himself in 2000, but it was picked up by Signature Sounds and given a more national release in 2002. Ritter left his native Idaho for Oberlin College, where he studied folk music and opened for Joan Baez. He’s a serious prose writer as well as songwriter, and he published his first novel Bright’s Passage in 2011 - a story about a West Virginia man around the time of the first World War. His latest studio album is 2010’s So Runs The World Away. Earlier this year he released an EP called Bringing In the Darlings.

Contemporary folk singer Tracy Grammer began her journey in music with her partner Dave Carter, and the duo made three albums before Carter’s untimely death in 2002, which was less than a year before this episode was originally recorded in April of 2003. She’s continued as a solo performer and released three albums on her own, but she often records and performs Carter’s songs – in fact, all of the songs in this set were written by him.

Find a time and radio station in your area where you can tune in. Connect with Mountain Stage on Facebook and Tumblr to stay in touch with the latest information, and follow us on Twitter for news about upcoming shows.  

Thank you for listening to Mountain Stage! 

We’ve made several exciting additions to our fall and winter schedule that we’d like to pass along.

First, on November 11, we’ll travel once again to Morgantown, where we’ll be joined by Mike Doughty. Formerly the frontman of the jazzy experimental rock band Soul Coughing, singer-songwriter and guitarist Mike Doughty cut his first solo record while that group was still together.

Soul Coughing disbanded in 2000, but Doughty's 2005 album Haughty Melodic spawned his hit "Looking at the World Through the Bottom of a Well." An avid blogger with a wry sense of humor, the title of his new album, Yes And Also Yes was taken from the headline of his profile on an online dating site. We’re not making this up.

Tickets for this show are already on sale, online, by phone (304.293.SHOW) and in person at the CAC Box Office in Morgantown. Four more acts will be added to this show in the very near future. Watch this space for the latest.

On December 9, we’ll return to our home at the Culture Center Theater here in Charleston, where our guests will be the Robert Cray Band, Shemekia Copeland, and Kelly Hogan.

As one of the foremost names in blues music for decades now, Robert Cray needs no introduction. He’s out on the road with his band again, but this time with a refreshed lineup that includes bassist Richard Cousins, whose original tenure with Cray included his landmark Strong Persuader and Don’t be Afraid of the Dark albums; along with longtime Cray keyboardist Jim Pugh, and drummer Tony Braunagel (who has worked with Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, B.B King and many more).

“Blues is one of the foundations of our music, but it’s not all that we play,” Cray says. “When I first started playing guitar, I wanted to be George Harrison – that is, until I heard Jimi Hendrix. After that, I wanted to be Albert Collins and Buddy Guy and B.B. King. And then there are singers like O.V. Wright and Bobby Blue Bland. It’s all mixed up in there.” Cray’s latest album is This Time.

Blues singer  Shemekia Copeland  is a force of nature. With a voice like a blast-furnace, her music has the kind of timeless power and a heart-pounding urgency that few can achieve. Born in Harlem, New York, in 1979, Copeland actually came to her singing career slowly. Her father, the late Texas blues guitar legend Johnny Clyde Copeland, brought her on stage to sing at Harlem’s famed Cotton Club when she was just eight.

At the time, Shemekia’s embarrassment outweighed her desire to sing. But when she was fifteen and her father’s health began to fail, her outlook changed. At only 19, Shemekia stepped out of her father’s shadow with the Alligator release of 1998 debut recording, Turn the Heat Up! She’s just released her brilliant new album, 33 1/3, which was produced by Oliver Wood for Telarc records.

Kelly Hogan  will also be there. Many music fans will recognize Hogan as the prominently featured backing vocalist who has shared the stage with Neko Case on hundreds of tour dates, along with Jakob Dylan, Mavis Staples, Otis Clay and Andrew Bird. Her extraordinary new solo album, I Like to Keep Myself in Pain has already wound up on several critics “best of” lists, and features songs written by Vic Chesnutt, The Magnetic Fields, The Mekons’ Jon Langford, John Wesley Harding, Robbie Fulks, Robyn Hitchcock, M. Ward and more.  

 Tickets for this show are available now online, by phone (800.549.TIXX), and in person at Taylor Books in downtown Charleston. 

 We’ll be adding a couple more acts to this show in the future. Check back with us for the latest, right here, on Twitter, and via Facebook.  

 See you at the show.