Mountain Blog

This week’s Broadcast was recorded as part of the 2011 Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, Scotland. This was Mountain Stage's first time overseas in our show’s 28 year history and it was the third time we were honored to work with legendary soul-gospel singer Mavis Staples. You’ll hear an extended set from Mavis and her top-notch band in what was her first-ever performance in Scotland at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. You can hear a preview in our Song of the Week, featuring the title track to Staples' Jeff Tweedy produced, Grammy winning album, “You Are Not Alone” (Click to Purchase on Amazon).

Scottish folk singer Dougie MacLean also stopped by the Royal Concert Hall to record with us for what was his fifth appearance on Mountain Stage. You haven’t heard MacLean’s Scottish anthem “Caledonia” until you’ve heard an ecstatic crowd singing along with him, like they do on this week’s broadcast.

We also welcomed West Virginia native Mollie O’Brien and her husband Rich Moore to perform songs from their new CD “Saints & Sinners.” Mollie’s brother Tim, who has appeared on Mountain Stage more times than any other artist, also joined the Mountain Stage Band and performs a duet version of “The Water Is Wide” with pianist Bob Thompson.

And the show kicks off with a hot new string band out of Boston called Joy Kills Sorrow, who was definitely one of the hardest working bands at the Celtic Connections Festival. They do a couple of tunes from their critically album “Darkness Sure Becomes This City,” and a some new songs, from the soon to be released follow-up.

Check out the Playlist for a list of tunes performed, find a radio station that carries Mountain Stage in your area, and be sure to tell some friends on facebook. If Mountain Stage isn't carried in your area, consider writing to your local public station and let them know you’d like to hear Mountain Stage every week!We thank you for tuning in.

For our friends at Celtic Connections who attended the show in January, stay-tuned to our NPR MUSIC page starting Monday, where we'll have streaming access to each guest artists' performance, with a new one posted each weekday. The entire show, including songs not heard on the radio, will be available on our free podcast in our ARCHIVES.  You can also subscribe via iTunes or Feedburner. 

We're happy to announce that we've just added a new event to our Live Show Schedule for June 19th at the Culture Center Theater here in Charleston. We're excited to welcome for the first time, 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Wanda Jackson, the "Queen of Rockabilly."

A true pioneer of country and rock, Jackson has been touring and recording for more than a half-century and has reached another creative peak. Her latest album, aptly titled The Party Ain’t Over is a collaboration with Jack White of the White Stripes and recorded at his Third Man Records in Nashville.

We'll also be joined by the amazing Carolyn Wonderland. Carolyn's incendiary guitar and raw, powerful vocals draw instant comparisons to fellow Texans Janis Joplin and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Get a glimpse of what we mean on her "Miss Understood" album and in the ACL video above.

We will announce more acts for this show in the near future, but tickets are already on sale at Taylor Books. Tickets will be available for purchase online very soon.

This week’s Broadcast of Mountain Stage features alternative rockers Cake, who released their long-awaited new album, “Showroom of Compassion,” earlier this year. The band performs songs from that record, plus a couple of old favorites, on this week’s episode. We’ve got a preview in our Song of the Week with “Mustache Man (Wasted).” Order Cake’s latest via Amazon, visit our playlist for a rundown of the show, and be sure to tell some friends on facebook.

Also on the show, Western Swing revivalists Hot Club of Cowtown, whose instrumental prowess and unreserved energy can’t be beat. Their latest is a tribute to their musical mentor Bob Wills, “What Makes Bob Holler.” Honky-tonk singer and songwriter Hayes Carll joins us with his band and songs from his latest “KMAG YOYO (And Other American Stoies),” and The Old 97’s play a selection of tracks from their new live album “The Grand Theatre Vol. One.”

Here’s Larry Groce’s interview with Old 97’s Rhett Miller “Backstage at Mountain Stage.” Visit our YouTube channel for more interviews, including our chat with John McCrea of Cake and Hayes Carll, and Whitt and Alana of Hot Club of Cowtown. 

 

 

Visit our List of Affiliates for a station in your area so you can tune in to hear two-hours of great live performance, presented as only Mountain Stage can.

  

On this Sunday’s sold out show, we will be joined by vocalist Raul Malo, along with Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer & Zakir Hussain; Dar Williams and David Wax Museum.

While Raul Malo’s name might not be immediately familiar to everyone, chances are most of you will remember his golden voice from the Grammy-winning, multi-platinum-selling country band The Mavericks. The Mavericks saw most of their action in the mid and late 90’s, charting 14 singles (remember those?) on the Billboard country charts, including “All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down” and “There Goes My Heart”(click the titles to download mp3s from Amazon).

The Mavericks hung it up in 2004 (shortly after their first and only appearance on Mountain Stage), and Malo moved on to a solo career.

“My world has changed completely since those days,” Malo says. “I went from a bus and two semis to driving up and down the Jersey Turnpike with a tour manager and a rental car and my acoustic guitar playing these little clubs on the East Coast. And I found myself having more fun, and seeing more and learning more, and meeting more wonderful people than I did in all my years of touring in the Mavericks.”

One of the things that Malo's solo career has afforded him is the freedom to explore his life-long connection to Latin music. (Malo is of Cuban heritage, and grew up in Miami, Florida) While a certain degree of Latin tunes will remain forever familiar to country music fans (thanks to the iconic Mariachi horns in Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire), Sinners & Saints, his latest, finds Malo blending country and rock with flamenco melodicism and springy surf-twang in a way that might not have been possible during his years with the Mavericks.

 

We truly believe that Raul Malo one of the best vocalists working today in any genre, and we think you'll agree. We’re thrilled that he'll be joining us at this Sunday's Mountain Stage, and we can't wait for you to hear him on the radio.

This week's broadcast features the harmonies of Louisville sisters The Watson Twins (who many were introduced to through their collaboration with Jenny Lewis, “Rabbit Fur Coat”); evocative Swedish folk singer The Tallest Man on Earth, Brooklyn-based chamber-pop group Clare and the Reasons, the soaring cabaret influenced sounds of April Smith & the Great Picture Show, and Jakob Dylan and Three Legs, featuring Neko Case & Kelly Hogan.

Jakob, Neko, and Kelly have all been on the show before so this collaboration was particularly special. Click here to take a look at the playlist, and visit this page to see a list of stations that carry Mountain Stage.

 

Our Song of the Week is a bit different. This episode was recorded only a few days after the Upper Big Branch mine disaster that killed 29 miners. Instead of a song from a single artist, we feature Larry Groce leading the group finale song from the end of the show - Merle Travis' miner's lament, “Dark as a Dungeon.”

As you know, Ra Ra Riot will appear this Sunday on Mountain Stage, along with JJ Grey, Susan Werner, Elizabeth & the Catapult, and Khaïra Arby. 

Over at West Virginia Public Radio's Classically Speaking blog, our friend Mona Seghatoleslami has posted her new interview with Ra Ra Riot violinist Rebecca Zeller that will air this Friday on West Virginia Morning. Thanks to the magic of the internet, you can hear it now! Mona says of the interview...

“…they have not one, but two string players (ok, guitars are string instruments too, but I mean the kind you’d normally find in an orchestra, bowed strings). Violinist Rebecca Zeller and cellist Alexandra Long are both members of the band … We talked about the transition from classical violin studies to being in a band. Zeller discusses the things that she had to learn and unlearn, and how she and Long come up with their parts and fit their instruments into the guitar-dominated world of pop-rock music"

I would like to note that in a world dominated by interviews built around vague, open ended questions about squishy topics like “inspiration” and “creative process,” it is quite refreshing to hear an interview that simply focuses on how one winds up as a violin player in an indie rock band, and what that experience is like. And while it’s not explicitly stated in the interview, one gets the impression that one of the things that inspires Ms. Zeller is the very real challenge of creating great sounding string parts that fit seamlessly into the context of modern pop music. Which she does quite well here:

Remember, if you can't catch the interview Friday's West Virginia Morning broadcast, you can listen to it here. And of course, be sure to get your tickets to this Sunday's show at the Culture Center and support indie rock on Mountain Stage! Check out the band's latest, The Orchard, on Amazon.

This week's broadcast for the week following March 11 features country-tinged singer-songwriter Mindy Smith; veteran acoustic bluesman John Hammond; and Australian singer-songwriter (and recent Sarah McLachlan bassist)  Butterfly Boucher.

Also on the show are two legendary instrumentalists -- David Lindley, who is perhaps best know for his dizzying lap steel work with Jackson Brown; and pianist Chuck Leavell, who is almost universally regarded as the most sought after keyboardist in modern popular music. Leavell has recorded and toured with the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and the Allman Brothers Band, just to name a few.

Click here to take a look at the playlist, and visit this page to see a list of stations and times where you can listen in your area.

In our Song of the Week, we hear Lindley introduce "Soul of a Man," by Blind Willie Johnson, who he calls "the scariest slide player of all time."

Click here to purchase Jackon Browne & David Lindley's latest, "Love Is Strange" on Amazon.

This week, Mountain Stage is on the road again for a sold out show at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Bristol Tennessee. But Sunday March 20, we return to the Culture Center Theater in Charleston, for a show that features indie sensation Ra Ra Riot, along with JJ Grey, Susan Werner, Elizabeth & the Catapult, and Kharia Arby. This is the only show in our current live schedule that isn't sold out, so we encourage you to get tickets while they still remain.