Mountain Blog

Mountain Stage is back this week with a premier broadcast recorded live during FestivALL Charleston, featuring bluegrass stars Mountain Heart, along with the Charlie Sizemore Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Diana Jones, and Shawn Camp.

Known for their uncommon ability to combine traditional bluegrass sounds with live energy evocative of the best rock & roll shows, Mountain Heart has won a loyal following across genres. Formed by members of bluegrass legend Doyle Lawson’s band Quicksilver, founding members Gary Abernathy (banjo, vocals) and Jim Van Cleve (fiddle) are joined by Jason Moore on bass, Aaron Ramsey on mandolin and dobro, Jake Stargel on guitar, and Josh Shilling on lead vocals, guitar and piano.

The final track from their new album That Just Happened (and the final song from their lively Mountain Stage set) came about when Shilling took to Facebook to ask fans what they’d like to hear. The result was a fiery cover of the Allman Brothers’ Whipping Post, a compelling showcase for Shillings’ soaring vocals and piano.

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Shawn Camp makes his second appearance on Mountain Stage. After leaving the family farm in Arkansas at age 20, Camp soon became one country music's most sought-after sidemen. He charted a Top 40 single of his own in the '90s with “Fallin’ Never Felt So Good,” and since then has earned respect as one of Nashville’s premier songwriters, penning hits for Garth Brooks (“Two Pina Coladas”) The Del McCoury Band ("My Love Will Not Change") Josh Turner (“Would You Go With Me”) and others.

Camp recently came to the attention of Warner Music Nashville President John Esposito, who discovered that Warner/Reprise had shelved an album he recorded nearly two decades ago. Available at last, it has been re-titled 1994. His set features a song from that album, the unsentimental tearjerker “The Grandpa That I Know,” which you can preview now as our Mountain Stage Song of the Week.

Greensky Bluegrass also appears. Since winning the 2006 Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Competition, Greensky Bluegrass have been playing more than 170 shows a year and sharing stages with Sam Bush, Yonder Mountain String Band and Railroad Earth. (The group’s fourth album, Five Interstates was produced by Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone.) The group’s Mountain Stage set features a preview of their forthcoming album, Handguns.

You’ll also hear from Charlie Sizemore. A clear, crisp tenor and a respected songwriter, Sizemore spent nine years as a singer for Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, directly following in the footsteps of Keith Whitley. Balancing his career as a lawyer, family man and bluegrass singer, Sizemore’s set includes the tune “Alison’s Band,” which spent several weeks atop the Bluegrass Unlimited’s Top 30 Single Chart. His most recent effort is Heartache Looking For a Home.

Finally, Diana Jones returns to Mountain Stage with her own blend of country, blues and mountain music in the vein of Gillian Welch and Iris DeMent. The title of her current release, High Atmosphere, refers to flooding that occurred in Nashville in 2010 and how her house - built on top of hill in 1900 - escaped damage.

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