Adam is the Executive Producer of Mountain Stage, and he welcomes the audience before each taping begins. Adam is a native of Greenbrier County and graduated from Radford University in 2005 with a degree in Music Business and minor in Media Studies. After completing an internship with Mountain Stage, he was hired as Assistant Producer in October 2005. He became Executive Producer when his predecessor and the show's co-founder Andy Ridenour retired in August 2011.
This week’s episode is a special called “The Class of ’89,” featuring notable performances from that landmark year in Mountain Stage‘s history.
Our Song of the Week is by the Father of Bluegrass Music himself, Bill Monroe, and his 1989 version of the Blue Grass Boys. Here’s the bluegrass classic “Uncle Pen,” recorded on May 21, 1989 in Charleston, W.VA.
Hear this song as well as other rare performances from the likes of Dr. John, Lucinda Williams, Mose Allison, Rick Danko & Garth Hudson, June Tabor, New Grass Revival and many others, on this week’s special edition of Mountain Stage.
Renowned singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin marked the 30th anniversary of her landmark album Steady On with acoustic treatments of the songs when she joined us last September. This week’s episode of “Mountain Stage,” with guest host Kathy Mattea, features an acoustic performance by Grammy-winning singer songwriter and recording artist Shawn Colvin, commemorating three decades since her 1989 landmark debut album Steady On. It was awarded Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1990, and in 2019 Colvin released Steady On (30th Anniversary Acoustic Edition).
Our Song of the Week, “Shotgun Down the Avalanche,” is one of several songs from Steady On that was written by Colvin and the album’s co-producer, John Levanthal.
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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Guest artists join Kathy Mattea for the finale song on this week’s episode of Mountain Stage.
Hear more of Colvin’s acoustic set on this week’s broadcast of “Mountain Stage” starting this weekend. We’ll also hear performances by Colvin’s friend, collaborator and veteran songwriter Lucy Kaplansky, plus Texas duo Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis, indie-pop darling Rebecca Loebe, and Canada’s roots-music cousins Kacy & Clayton. Find a station in your area and tune in to this week’s episode.
Be sure to follow along on social media and subscribe to our newsletter for periodic updates and more musical performances.
Songwriter’s Hall of Fame member and twice-grammy nominated artist Beth Nielsen Chapman performs on this week’s encore episode of Mountain Stage with guest host Kathy Mattea.
We’ll hear Chapman perform songs from her latest album, “Hearts of Glass,” and others from her prolific career.
Our Song of the Week, “How We Love,” appears on her 2010 release “Back to Love.” While she performs with the Mountain Stage Band for most of her set, “How We Love” features just Chapman at the piano with her powerfully expressive voice and heartfelt lyrics in the spotlight.
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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Artists join guest host Kathy Mattea for the finale song including Lisa Mednick Powell, Lillie Mae, Erin Rae, Carrie Newcomer and Beth Nielsen Chapman.
You’ll hear Chapman’s entire set, as well as performances by Carrie Newcomer, Lillie Mae, Lisa Mednick Powell and Erin Rae, on this week’s encore episode of Mountain Stage.
With unmatched musicianship and a good dose of humor, Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn are featured on this week’s episode of Mountain Stage with Larry Groce.
The first family of the banjo returns to Mountain Stage this week when Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn perform songs from their 2017 release, “Echo In the Valley.”
Our Song of the Week from this week’s episode is the couple performing “Bloomin’ Rose.”
Tune in to one of these public radio stations to hear the entire episode starting Friday, July 31. You’ll also hear sets from Kentucky song craftsman Chris Knight, blues-guitar great Sue Foley, progressive Western swing from The Quebe Sisters and former member of The Stray Birds, Maya DeVitry.
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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The Quebe Sisters and their band are a part of this week’s episode of Mountain Stage starting October 11.
The West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame has announced that “Mountain Stage” co-founder and chief engineer Francis Fisher will be among the 2020 class of inductees at the Museum of Radio and Technology, located in Huntington. Fisher joins his fellow co-founders, host and artistic director Larry Groce, and Executive Producer Andy Ridenour, as members of the prestigious hall.
“No one deserves this honor more than Francis,” Groce said upon learning of Fisher’s induction. “He has distinguished himself on every level of broadcasting from head engineer at WDNE in Elkins to designing and maintaining the statewide, multi-broadcast-tower system at West Virginia Public Broadcasting, to national engineering work with the NBC radio network in New York City.
He also engineered all but one of Mountain Stage’s 962 shows over 36 years, a Herculean accomplishment that may never be equaled. On Mountain Stage, he has mixed audio and recorded artists ranging from R.E.M., Phish, Martina McBride, Buddy Guy and Eric Church to Bill Monroe, Pops Staples, Vince Gill, Joan Baez, Ali Farke Toure and Alison Krauss. Francis Fisher is a remarkable man who has proven it again and again in a career that has lasted more than five decades and is still going strong.”
Fisher’s broadcast mix can be heard weekly on over 240 NPR stations across the country and throughout the state on WVPB’s radio network.
Credit Mountain Stage Archive
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Francis Fisher sits at an early version of his broadcast mix position backstage at Mountain Stage. Francis has engineered nearly every episode of Mountain Stage.
As a child growing up in Parkersburg, W.Va, Fisher grew up listening to the classic radio of the ‘40s and ‘50s. His earliest training in electronics began in the Navy, where he learned to repair all manner of communications and electronics equipment.
“From the time I was 15, I always knew what I wanted to do with my life,” he said in the book 20 Years of Mountain Stage. “I wanted to be a broadcast engineer and I wanted to go to New York and work at a network.”
He did just that, joining the staff at NBC radio in Rockefeller Center at age 23. After NBC, Fisher moved to Elkins, taking up film developing, candle sales and running an electronics shop. He joined WVPB in its Beckley studio, where he designed and implemented the microwave system that linked the state’s public radio stations, a first of its kind in the country, according to 20 Years of Mountain Stage. Soon after he met Ridenour, they developed the idea of a live performance radio show that would eventually become “Mountain Stage.” Originally using three 8-channel mixers bridged togeter, Fisher’s mix of the show has been recorded to every major recorded format, from reel-to-reel, to Digital Audio Tape (DAT), to Mini-Disc, to CD to now digital hard drive.
A ceremony is tentatively planned for late-October. The full release is below.
(Biographical information pulled from 20 Years of Mountain Stage profile written by Michael Lipton)
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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Fisher takes time to eat during sound-checks at one of over 960 episodes he’s mixed for Mountain Stage.
Press Release:
Museum of Radio and Technology expands its Broadcasting Hall of Fame
(Huntington, W. Va., July 23, 2020)—Three renowned broadcasting professionals will be inducted into the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame on Saturday, October 31, at the Museum of Radio and Technology in Huntington, W. Va. How the enshrinement ceremony will be conducted due to the Covid-19 Pandemic is not definite yet. In the past the event has been held with an audience of invited guests and has been broadcast live on a statewide network of radio stations. Details will be announced soon.
Tom Resler, the Museum’s Hall of Fame committee chairman, said that the selection committee chose from a wide field of nominations. “The ones who were finally selected contributed hugely to the field of broadcasting and clearly are worthy of this high honor,” he said.
The 2020 West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame inductees are:
Francis Fisher – A Parkersburg native, Fisher moved to New York and engineered shows on the NBC radio network in the mid-1960’s working alongside legends like Chet Huntley and Don Pardo. Years later he won acclaim as sound engineering expert for West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s “Mountain Stage.” He has sound-mixed performances of R.E.M, Sheryl Crow, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Randy Newman and many other musicians from around the world.
Mark Martin – He has served as Sports Director for both WCHS-TV and WVAH-TV in Charleston/Huntington since 2000. This Fairplain resident has been a broadcaster of games telecast on ESPN, has won an EMMY, was named Sportscaster of the Year in West Virginia in 2002 and was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Associated Press in 2009.
Eric McGuire – That was the radio name of Eric Howdershelt, a creative, witty and outrageously funny DJ and show host who was raised on a dairy farm in Barbour County and has retired there now. He had a brilliant career at WELK in Elkins, in Grafton at WTBZ, WHAR in Clarksburg, Weston’s WSSN-FM, and Morgantown’s WVAQ. Topping off his more than three decades in broadcasting he even had his own statewide hookup, the Eric McGuire Network.
Percussive dance blends with old-time instruments for a fresh take on traditional music by the trio called T-Mart Rounders, who have our Song of the Week.
Dancer Becky Hill, fiddler/vocalist Jesse Milnes and banjoist Kevin Chesser comprise the T-Mart Rounders, who began playing together in Elkins, W.Va. Their debut album features updated versions of traditional numbers along with a song written by Milnes. Their performance of Milnes’ original “Margaret’s Song” is our Song of the Week.
Milnes said he wrote the song based on a story he was told at a laundromat in Beverly, W.VA.
“I was waiting for my clothes to come out of the dryer, playing fiddle as you do. This woman walked in and looked at me and said, ‘My husband loved that fiddle music.’”
The result is this heartbreaking story-song of love lost to illness, and the sacrifice the husband makes for his true love.
This week’s encore episode was recorded in partnership with the Augusta Heritage Festival on the campus of Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, W.Va. Hear the entire show starting Friday July 24, with performances from past Old Crow Medicine Show member Chance McCoy (below), award winning traditional group the Big Possum String Band, folk-blues guitarist Jody Carroll, and the trio of Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer and Sam Gleaves.
Read more about the Augusta Heritage Summer Workshops and their upcoming virtual offerings for this Summer on the Augusta Heritage website.
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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Chance McCoy, a West Virginia native, recently took hiatus from Old Crow Medicine Show to work on his solo material. You can hear his performance on Mountain Stage starting Friday, July 24.
