Mountain Blog

Mountain Stage is thrilled to announce that we’re traveling to Athens Ohio on Sunday, October 9 for a show at the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium, where our guests will include alt-country pioneers The Jayhawks. We’ll also be joined by Hot Tuna, Karan Casey & John Doyle, Ha Ha Tonka, and Southeast Engine.

Tickets for this show will be available August 1 at the box office, online and by phone (740-593-1780). Doors open at 6:30, and showtime is 7 p.m.

Led by the sweet harmonies, gifted songwriting and crunchy guitars of Gary Louris and Mark Olson, The Jayhawks were among the first bands to combine elements of traditional country, punk, folk, and classic rock into a form of stately Americana that would eventually be labeled “alternative country.”

After the release of the two landmark albums Hollywood Town Hall in 1992 and Tomorrow the Green Grass in 1995 Mark Olson departed, launching his own acclaimed solo career, while Louris stayed on to record three more Jayhawks albums before announcing an indefinite hiatus in 2004. In 2005 Louris and Olson eventually found their way back together and began playing a series of shows together before releasing Ready for the Flood in 2009.

Now reunited as the Jayhawks, the band issued a compilation disc in 2009, and will release an eagerly-awaited album of new material in September called Mockingbird Time.

We’ll also be joined by iconic blues-roots band Hot Tuna. Formed some four decades ago by Jefferson Airplane members Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen, Hot Tuna has released its first new album in twenty years, Steady as She Goes.

Irish vocalist Karan Casey and guitar virtuoso John Doyle were founding members of traditional supergroup Solas, and for their new project Exile's Return, the two former bandmates reunite to create a stripped-down album that showcases the power of traditional songs.

Ozark based indie rockers Ha Ha Tonka wrap rural images of their native Missouri with southern rock, folk, country and bluegrass. This spring they released Death of a Decade, and the bad was recently featured in the Ozarks episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations alongside Winter’s Bone author Daniel Woodrell.

Drawing from both the rich melancholy of Appalachia and the once-thriving indie rock scene in nearby Dayton Southeast Engine was launched in 1999 by Ohio University students singer/songwriter Adam Remnant and drummer Leo DeLuca. The band signed with Misra Records in 2007, and released their first internationally distributed album, A Wheel Within A Wheel, later that year. The group’s latest album Canary tells the story of an Appalachian family struggling through the great depression.

Be sure to visit our Live Show Schedule for more information on upcoming events.

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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