Mountain Blog

On this week’s encore edition of Mountain Stage you’ll hear from legendary flat picking guitarist Doc Watson. He performs a set of his longtime favorites, some of which are included in his 3-disc interview/performance collection “Legacy.” 

The show was recorded in Bristol TN/VA, the historic border town where in 1927, Ralph Peer recorded what would become the first successful country music songs of the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and the Stoneman family. Now the town is formally recognized as the Birthplace of Country Music.

This makes our Song of the Week, Watson singing Jimmie Rodgers’ “T For Texas,” all the more special.

Find a radio station in your area where you can tune in and tell some friends how they can hear the show.

Also featured on the broadcast is Grammy Award-winning American folk artist David Holt. Holt performs a unique acoustic set with songs from his various releases, including “Daybreak in Dixie” off his album David Holt and the Lightning Bolts with part-time Lightning Bolts Laura Boosinger and Josh Goforth, who can also be heard later in the episode.

Also heard this week is Justin Townes Earle. He brings songs from his latest album Harlem River Blues. 

Irish-American singer-songwriter John Doyle takes the stage with his traditional Irish music. His latest, Exiles Return, is a collaboration with his former Solas partner, Karan Casey.

North Carolina’s own Laura Boosinger, and Texas musical ambassador to the world Bob Livingston join us as well.

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Fun fact: The upcoming Mountain Stage show in Bristol TN/VA featuring Vince Gill was our fastest selling event since R.E.M.'s appearance in 1991. Mountain Stage is fortunate to have had a few other fast selling shows recently, but what bears mentioning this time is that all the tickets were gone within just a couple of days of the show even being announced. Over a holiday weekend, no less.

In the past, fast selling shows were announced several days before tickets actually went on sale. Why were the good people of Bristol (as well as several West Virginians, we’ve heard) so eager to step away from their Fourth of July cookouts to scoop up Mountain Stage tickets? What's the big deal?

We’ve had a couple friends ask us that – friends who readily admit to not being the greatest of country music fans, especially the more modern stuff, which is understandable. And it is perhaps because of Vince Gill’s massive success as a contemporary country hitmaker that some remain unaware of his long ties to roots music.

Gill spent most of the mid and late 70’s as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist with outfits like the Bluegrass Alliance and Ricky Skaggs’ Boone Creek before joining country rockers Pure Prairie League – a group his high school bluegrass band had opened for – in 1979. He left in 1981 to join Rodney Crowell’s renowned backing band The Cherry Bombs. It was there he met Emory Gordy, Jr. and Tony Brown, who would go on to produce Gill’s wildly successful solo career.

In 1982 Gill appeared alongside Gordy on the on-off David Grisman project Here Today, where he recorded one of the finest traditional bluegrass vocals you will ever, ever hear:

Gill’s solo career launched in 1984, and while he managed to chart a couple of Top 10 hits, things didn’t really take off until ’89, with the release of When I Call Your Name.

It was around this time that Gill turned down an offer from Mark Knopfler to become a full-time member of Dire Straits. (Gill talked about this just a few days ago on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me )

This video was shot around that time, and while it’s not the best quality, it leaves no doubt whatsoever about what Knopfler saw in Gill’s musicianship:

It wasn’t long after this that Gill became an outright country superstar, releasing multiple Top 10 platinum-selling albums, and hosting the CMA awards a record-setting 12 consecutive times. And he’s done all this while bucking long-established Nashville conventions, writing nearly all of his own songs and featuring his own virtuoso guitar playing on his records – a path that would later be followed by country superstar / guitar heroes like Keith Urban and Brad Paisley.

Check back with us on the Mountain Stage blog for more information about this show, including additional acts as they are announced, as well as the radio broadcast and podcast schedule. Thanks for supporting live performance on public radio.