Mountain Blog

It is with great enthusiasm that Mountain Stage reminds everyone that this Sunday, October 28th, we return to our home at the Culture Center Theater for our first show in a very long time. And we’d also like to remind you we’ll be spending even more time in Charleston in the very near future – click here to see our upcoming schedule of live shows that feature Robert Cray, Calexico, Kathy Mattea, and more.

But back to the matter at hand! This Sunday, we’ll be joined by Beth Orton, David Wax Museum, Lucy Kaplansky, Jessie Harris and Barnaby Bright. Tickets are available online, by phone (800.549.TIXX) and in person at Taylor Books in downtown Charleston. As always, they’re a mere $15 in advance, and $25 at the door.

With a diverse career that has mixed acoustic folk with trip-hop and electronica, U.K. singer/songwriter Beth Orton’s music has earned critical and popular acclaim. Her music has been featured in films and on television programs including “Felicity,” “How to Deal,” “Charmed,” “Dawson's Creek,” “Vanilla Sky” and “Grey's Anatomy.”

Orton came to international attention when she joined forces with British acid/house/remix pioneer William Orbit in the duo Spill and on his 1993 release “Strange Cargo 3.” But it was her 1996 full-length solo debut, “Trailer Park,” that brought her to the attention of the Americana scene. Since then, she has collaborated with ex-Whiskeytown frontman Ryan Adams and the Chemical Brothers. After a six-year hiatus from recording Orton signed to Anti Records and released “Sugaring Season” in 2012.

Named “Americana Artist of the Year” at the the 2010 Boston Music Awards, David’s Wax Museum’s creates a vibrant hybrid of traditional Mexican folk and American music. NPR described the group as “pure, irresistible joy” while Time.com praised the group for its “virtuosic musical skill and virtuous harmonies.”

While attending college in Missouri, David Wax spent summers working in rural Mexico with the American Friends Service Committee. He finished his degree at Harvard before heading back to the Mexican countryside to study its rich folk music tradition on a year-long fellowship. Utilizing Latin rhythms, call-and-response shouts, accordion and donkey jawbones, the band was featured on an NPR segment about Mexico-centric indie rock.

Its performance at the 2010 Newport Folk Festival was hailed by “All Songs Considered” as one of the weekend’s highlights. The band’s latest release, “Everything Is Saved,” has earned rave reviews from The New Yorker, Paste Magazine, and a nod from Time Magazine as one of the Top 10 acts of this year’s SXSW music conference, and an appearance on NPR’s World Café.

Raised in Chicago by a piano-playing mathematician and a homemaker, Lucy Kaplansky began singing in bars when she was a teenager. When she was just out of high school, she moved to New York City where, along with Suzanne Vega, The Roches, Steve Forbert, John Gorka, and Shawn Colvin, she became part of the renaissance of the Greenwich Village folk scene.

Although The New York Times said it was “easy to predict stardom for her,” Kaplansky earned a doctorate in psychology and started a private practice. Eventually, Colvin lured Kaplansky back to music and produced her 1994 debut “The Tide.” In addition to her six solo releases on Red House Records, Kaplansky was a member of folk supergroups Red Horse and Cry Cry Cry. Her latest release is titled “Reunion.”

Guitarist-songwriter Jesse Harris first came into prominence on Norah Jones' 2002 Grammy-winning "Come Away With Me." The New York native grew up studying classical piano and teaching himself guitar. Club dates in his late teens led to a deal with EMI and a 1995 album recorded with vocalist Rebecca Martin under the group name Once Blue. Harris went on to form the more organic Ferdinandos and through that band developed a working relationship with Jones.

The success of Jones' debut helped bring Harris' songwriting abilities to the music community's attention and led to his collaborations with other contemporary artists as well as a label deal for the Ferdinandos. The soundtrack to Ethan Hawke's "The Hottest State" featured versions of Harris' songs by performed by artists including Willie Nelson, Bright Eyes, The Black Keys, Feist and Emmylou Harris. His latest - and 11th - release, “Sub Rosa,” was recorded in Rio de Janeiro.

Since the release of its 2009 debut, “Wake the Hero,” the duo known as Barnaby Bright - Nathan and Becky Bliss - has garnered high praise for its songwriting and sound. The group’s music - which features guitars, harmonium, banjo, ukulele, thumb pianos and stunning harmonies - has been featured on television shows including “ER” and “Days of our Lives.”

The follow-up EP, “Gravity,” was named one of the “Top 100 Records of the Year” by Amazon.com. Traveling to Europe, the U.K. and throughout the U.S., Nathan and Becky average 40,000 miles and 200 shows a year. Barnaby Bright (a medieval term for the summer solstice) was among the finalists in the 2012 “Mountain Stage Newsong” competition held at Lincoln Center in NYC.

Mountain Stage returns this week with the second of our two shows recorded at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Recorded just feet away from Lake Superior, you’ll hear from Chris Hillman & Herb Pedersen, Jonathan Edwards, Mollie O’Brien & Rich Moore, Gretchen Peters, and Chip Taylor featuring Paal Flaata.

Click here to see a list of stations and times where you can tune in. And click here to preview this week’s show via our Mountain Stage Song of the Week. This time, it’s Hillman & Pedersen taking on the bluegrass standard “The Old Crossroads.”

As members of the Byrds, the Dillards, the Desert Rose Band, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen have been part of the very fabric of American Music for nearly a half-century. In the early ‘60s, Chris Hillman switched from mandolin to bass to take a job in the original Byrds lineup.

Serving time with the Byrds (including the Gram Parsons’ incarnation) and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Hillman played an important role in the evolution of folk- and country-rock and, more recently, the “Americana” movement. In the early ‘80s, Hillman joined forces with Pedersen who, for decades, was one of the top session singers and instrumentalists in the Los Angeles area, and guitar master John Jorgenson in the successful Desert Rose Band.

By the mid-‘90s, Hillman and Pedersen were performing as an acoustic duo and recorded several projects together. Their latest record, “At Edward’s Barn,” continues their long-running love for country and bluegrass music.

Born in Aitkin, MN, folk and country singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards may be best known for his Top 5 hit "Sunshine." After growing up in Virginia and studying art in Ohio, Edwards and his blues band Sugar Creek moved to Boston in the late ‘60s.

Opting to try a career as a solo artist, “Sunshine” made its way onto his solo debut as an afterthought. “Honky-Tonk Stardust Cowboy” followed in 1972 as did singing backup on Emmylou Harris’ 1976 LP “Elite Hotel.” He recorded his 1976 release “Rockin' Chair, with Harris' Hot Band.

After touring with a national production of the musical “Pump Boys and Dinettes,” Edwards joined the bluegrass group the Seldom Scene for 1983's “Blue Ridge.” After moving to Nashville, his 1989 album “The Natural Thing” spawned his biggest country hit, "We Need to Be Locked Away." In 2011, Edwards returned with the studio album “My Love Will Keep.”

Comprised of powerhouse singer - and Wheeling, WV, native - Mollie O’Brien and guitarist Rich Moore, this pair is no mere “folk duo.” Described as “national musical treasures... and truly among the best out there keeping American music alive and vital” by renowned roots rocker Dave Alvin, their repertoire spans the range of American music from ragtime, jazzy blues, gospel to Dixieland, tango and saloon cabaret.

The instrumentation on their debut “Saints and Sinners” includes with tuba, bouzouki, accordion, fiddle, trumpet, trombone, oboe, and steel guitar. Mollie, one of acoustic music’s premiere vocalists, started her career in a duo with her brother Tim O’Brien.

Respected by songwriters, musicians and critics alike, Gretchen Peters’ tunes have been covered by a who’s who of country artists including Trisha Yearwood, Pam Tillis, George Strait, Martina McBride and Patty Loveless.

Born in Westchester County, NY, she moved with her mother to Boulder when she was in her teens. In the late’80s, she relocated to Nashville to pursue songwriting. In 1995, Peters won a Grammy for “Song of the Year” with her hit "Independence Day" (recorded by Martina McBride).

At the Country Music Awards that year, the song won the same award, as well as a CMA Video of the Year in 1994. She also co-wrote "Rock Steady" with Canadian pop-rocker Bryan Adams which was covered by Bonnie Raitt. After a tumultuous year in her personal life, she released “Hello Cruel World” in 2012.

Singer, songwriter, and producer Chip Taylor has penned some of the most memorable songs in music history including “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning” and “Try - Just A Little Bit Harder.” When Chet Atkins heard some of Taylor’s country songs, he quickly started recording them with artists he was producing.

Taylor is also credited with discovering, then co-producing both James Taylor and Neil Diamond. He released six solo albums in the ‘70s and ‘80s, including “Chip Taylor's Last Chance” which “Rolling Stone” named as one of the best country albums of 1973. A true renaissance man, Taylor also finished third in Las Vegas’ World Black Jack Championship, was a professional golfer, and one of the foremost thoroughbred horse race handicappers on the east coast.

Thanks again for listening to Mountain Stage. And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr for the latest news, backstage photos, and stories.