Dave Lavender, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Listen: Hear the Entire Set by Wynonna & the Big Noise from 2016

Do you remember the 18th of September, 2016? If you were at Mountain Stage you sure do. It was a ladies’ night and the feeling was oh so right.

Recorded at Mountain’s Stage home-base, the Culture Center Theater at the West Virginia Capitol Grounds, the show featured iconic folk heroes the Indigo Girls, up-and-coming alt-country roots rocker Lydia Loveless, songwriting and guitar goddess Patty Larkin, and the one and only wild-eyed Kentucky soul of Wynonna Judd.

Wynonna made her first trip to Mountain Stage, emerging that night with songs from her 2016 album Wynonna & The Big Noise, her first album in 13 years. Host and artistic director Larry Groce immediately made her feel at home framing her career in a hallowed light. “She is an American music icon, a country music superstar. She has won over 60 awards in country music. She has also won five Grammy Awards,” Groce said as the crowd erupted for Judd, who has sold more than 30 million records, including more than 20 million with her mom Naomi as The Judds – the most successful duo in country music history.

Groce said perhaps the most incredible gift of Judd’s is a voice so good she could sing any genre. “If you had never heard this woman before – and you know what she was in country music – she could have been the same thing in rock music and the same thing in blues music and the same thing in jazz music.”

Throwing down the kickstand and revving up her band, Wynonna, who has notched up six No. 1 singles of her own as a solo artist, threw back her hair and let the crowd know they were in for a ride. “How many of you have never seen me in concert before? Well, it’s about frickin’ time!” The sold out audience had bought their tickets before the country icon had even been announced as part of the bill, and by the time this set wrapped up, they were all converts to her rock-infused style of country and soul.

Wynonna let loose a call of the wild growl and the band slid straight and hard into the good ‘n’ greasy blues belter, “Ain’t No Thing,” co-written by fellow country soul singer and Eastern Kentucky native Chris Stapleton with John Scott Sherrill.

Staying right in pocket in that slide-guitar blues rivulet carved through hearts by Bonnie Raitt, Wynonna burned up “Staying in Love,” by Raphael Saadiq, famed R&B and neo soul producer and founder of Tony! Toni! Tone!

Wynonna gave a sweet confessional intro to “You Are So Beautiful” co-written by Ashley Warren with her husband and drummer Cactus Moser. “So, let’s talk about me. I am in love with a concept. At my age, there is hope girls… Everything just looks different, it tastes different, and it looks like that, ” Wynonna told the crowd pointing at her husband Cactus, formerly of Highway 101, on the drums.

Wynonna, who would share a total of seven songs from Wynonna & the Big Noise (Curb, 2016), was at her best viewing her visit through the lens of home.

"My people.” Wynonna cried out to the audience introducing the haunting song, "Keeps Me Alive." "My hometown is an hour from here, I have been thinking all day about the years we spent here in Appalachia. My mama raised me and my sister with nothing, but our hopes and dreams. I had my guitar and I would stand out on the back porch and sing to the heavens and beg God to take me off of that mountain and he did. But as life would have it, I have to return to the well. It reminds me of who I am – that 18 year old singing from my toenails and playing my guitar like it was on fire. That is where my dreams began. A girl that had nothing and that wanted everything and that is what this song is all about."

Then slowly, surgically and soulfully, she peeled back the emotional layers of Sarah Siskind’s “Keeps Me Alive,” which featured Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi on the recorded version. With a hushed acoustic burn and Charlie White’s searing slide guitar, Wynonna cried out for all the lonely dreamers like her. “This is my story, this is my glory/this is what keeps me alive/This is me flying, this is me trying/This is what keeps me alive.”

In early 2019 Wynonna signed with Anti- Records and released her first single on the label, “The Child,” in September. On July 3 the band have a Drive-In style concert scheduled in Ocala, FL.

Set list:

Ain’t No Thing (John Scott Sherrill/Chris Stapleton)
Staying in Love (Raphael Saadiq)
Keeps Me Alive (Sarah Siskind)
You are So Beautiful (Ashley Warren/Cactus Moser)
Cool Ya (Lisa Carver/Andrew Ripp)
Things That I Lean On (Travis Meadows/Mark Daniel Sanders)
You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast (Julie Miller)

Listen: Chris Stapleton's 2015 Appearance on Mountain Stage

When country superstar Chris Stapleton stopped by a special FestivALL Charleston edition of Mountain Stage on June 28, 2015, he brought songs from arguably one of country music’s greatest debut albums in recent memory. His performance – full of polish, genius and passion – foreshadowed the fame and fortune that would soon come for the workhorse Nashville songwriter who had only just begun to build a reputation for his own crowd-pleasing performances as an opening act and at bars, clubs and bluegrass festivals.

Hidden in plain view in Nashville, the well-established songwriter, Stapleton, had by then already written six No.1 hits for other artists like George Strait and Kenny Chesney. He had recently released his game-changing solo album Traveller the previous month. That album on Mercury Records would go to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts, win three CMA Awards for “Album of the Year,” “New Artist of the Year,” and “Male Vocalist of the Year” and two Grammys for “Best Country Album” and “Best Country Solo Performance.”

Stapleton came barreling out of the gates like a thoroughbred, with his well-rehearsed studio and touring band that includes his wife Morgane, on her trademark harmony vocals, Robby Turner on steel guitar Derek Mixon, drums, and childhood friend and bandleader, J.T. Cure on bass.

In his introduction, Mountain Stage host and artistic director Larry Groce prophesied exactly what was to happen later that year for Stapleton, who grew up across the Big Sandy River near Paintsville, Kentucky, a day-trip from the show’s hometown of Charleston, W.Va. As a proud son of the region, located along the famed Country Music Highway known for such country stars as Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gayle, Ricky Skaggs, and now Tyler Childers, Stapleton donated money for new band uniforms for his high-school about a year after this performance.

“We’ve had him on once before singing with The SteelDrivers,” Groce said, “The last 15 years he has been one of the most successful songwriters in Nashville, and now he is about to become one of the most successful singers in Nashville.”

Chris Stapleton met audience members after Mountain Stage, June 28, 2015 at the Clay Center in Charleston, W.VA.

Well aware of Stapleton’s long-list of barn burners he wrote and sang with The SteelDrivers, this sold-out and rowdy regional crowd was simply electric with waves of whistles, claps and love hollers as Chris and Morgane poured out some hurtin’ on the honky-tonk ballad “Nobody to Blame.”

“I can tell that a few of you might have bought the record we have out and we appreciate it,” said Stapleton, of the album that would go triple platinum and secure him his first musical appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”

One of the set highlights comes from one of the best road songs written in recent times – the title cut “Traveller,” that Stapleton penned on a cross country trip from Phoenix to Nashville in 2013 after his father passed away.

“I couldn't tell you honey, I don't know/Where I'm going but I've got to go/'Cause every turn reveals some other road/And I'm a traveler, oh, I'm a traveler.”

Stapleton sets up two back-to-back 100 proof musical shots with “Tennessee Whiskey,” and “Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey.” The former, “Tennessee Whiskey,” is the David Allan Coe cover that he would sing later in 2015 on the CMAs with Justin Timberlake, forging a musical friendship that saw the two collaborating on three songs from Timberlake’s last album, including the Top 10 hit “Say Something.”

Stapleton’s hidden secret though is that- while he may look the part – he is far from being just whiskey-bent and lonesome, ornery and mean. Stapleton showcases his lyrical versatility and vulnerability, which make him simply one of the best. No wonder he received the Academy of Country Music’s first ever ACM Artist-Songwriter of the Decade Award in 2019. His talents are at their clearest on the teary-eyed set closer, “Sometimes I Cry.” Shedding his burly biker exterior, Stapleton shows there is no shame in the crying game and that everybody needs to let it go.

“There are days that I can walk around like I'm alright/And I pretend to wear a smile on my face And I could keep the pain from comin' out of my eyes/But sometimes, sometimes/ Sometimes I cry.”

In today’s world, as strange and troubled as it ever was, that’s a message and song worth repeating.

You can find out more about Chris Stapleton, his music, and charitable efforts with Outlaw State of Kind, on his website.

Set List:

Nobody to Blame
Traveller
Fire Away
Tennessee Whiskey
Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey
Sometimes I Cry

Chris Stapleton – guitar, lead vocals

Morgan Stapleton – tambourine, backing vocals

Robby Turner – Steel Guitar

Derek Mixon- Drums

Jarrod JT Cure – Bass (band leader)

Recorded June 28, 2015, at The Clay Center Charleston, WV during FestivALL Charleston.

Listen: Dumpstaphunk Brought the Modern Sounds of New Orleans to Mountain Stage in 2014

With essentially every large American music festival canceled for the summer of 2020, we sure could use a dance-inciting funky live set to pry us off the couch and help us shout it out, shake it off and get our groove back.

Straight from the New Orleans hot-funk time machine comes Dumpstaphunk, which stopped by the Culture Center Theater in Charleston on March 23, 2014, for a smoking set on an all-star night that also included blues ‘n’ soul veterans The Robert Cray Band, gospel legends The Blind Boys of Alabama, and blues torchbearer John Hammond.

Keyboardist Ivan Neville, who’s toured and played with everyone from The Rolling Stones to The Neville Brothers, leads the band, which includes his younger cousin, Ian Neville, son of Art Neville who organically built the band in the early 2000s. Dumpstaphunk debuted at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2003, and has returned every year since, resulting in a couple of live releases.

On this legendary March night in 2014 at Mountain Stage, the band kept everyone on their feet rolling a sweet wave of funk over fans with an infectious double-bass fusion and funk jam style that has made Dumpstaphunk main stage favorites at massive festivals from Bonnaroo to Lockn, and helped draw in everyone from Carlos Santana and Bob Weir to Trombone Shorty, Flea and Chaka Khan to perform with them.

“People have gone crazy about them for a decade and compared them to some greatest funk bands of all time – The Meters, James Brown, Parliament, Booker T – and I think they are carrying on in all that tradition,” said Mountain Stage founder and host Larry Groce introducing the band.

Playing songs mostly off of their album Dirty Word, on Louisiana Red Hot Records, Dumpstaphunk transported the crowd down to the Big Easy in their groove-powered mothership with the set opener “Dancing to the Truth.” Drummer Nikki Glaspie — who spent half a decade as Beyonce’s hand-picked percussionist – trades lead vocals with the band’s two bassists Tony Hall and Nick Daniels, before blasting full steam ahead into the fast-paced rocker, “Blueswave” showcasing the sound and fury of Ian Neville’s shredding lead electric guitar.

Dumpstaphunk performing on Mountain Stage in 2014.

Glaspie took over lead vocals to pay respect to Betty Mabry Davis, the female funk pioneer on her smoking hot song “If I’m in Luck,” which was recorded with Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea sitting in on the album cut. After the smoke cleared, Dumpstaphunk slid back comfortably into their Sly and the Family Stone-like funk revival with more of their sweet trade-off lead vocals and harmonies served up on two powerful message-packed songs preaching unity and social equality – “Reality of the Situation,” and “Everybody Want Sum.”

“Everybody just can’t get along – that is the reality of the situation/ Instead of hurting each other, let’s look out for one another,” the band sang on “Reality of the Situation.”

Dumpstaphunk continued its powerful voice for unity on their topical 2017 single and music video, “Justice,” featuring fellow NOLA super rocker Trombone Shorty, which bears revisiting in light of recent events.

Currently Ivan is offering virtual “Piano Sessions” on the band’s Facebook page, and they have plans to release their fourth studio album later in 2020.

Dumpstaphunk is one of 60 bands performing at Quarantine Comes Alive, a one-day virtual music fest on Saturday, May 30. This donation-based event will directly benefit the participating musicians as well as Sweet Relief, MusiCares, Center for Disaster Philanthropy, World Central Kitchen, Partners In Health, Trans Lifeline, Backline, and local organizations helping the homeless. Those who donate will be e-mailed a link to watch the event on various platforms.

Go deeper with Dumpstaphunk on their website.

Setlist:
“Dancing To the Truth”
“Blueswave”
“If I’m in Luck” (written by Betty Mabry Davis)
“Reality of the Situation”
“Everybody Want Sum”

Band Members:
Nick Daniels III – Bass/Vocals

Ian Neville – Guitar

Nikki Glaspie – Drums/Vocals

Tony Hall – Bass/Guitar/Vocals

Ivan Neville – Organ/Clavinet/Vocals

Revisit a 2011 Set by Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit on Mountain Stage

In the midst of a historical lockdown with people spending a hazy daze of unprecedented hours in their house, what a time to dive back into a set of music written about home’s comforts and complexities. Who better to pull back the complicated shades of home than a seasoned veteran of the road, like Jason Isbell.

It was October 23, 2011 when Green Hill, Alabama native Isbell stopped by Mountain Stage with his well-oiled alt-country machine, The 400 Unit, to take the audience on a trip down South. This kinetic four-song set of material comes from Isbell’s third solo album, Here We Rest; an album whose themes revolve around the idea of home.

Mountain Stage founder and host Larry Groce gave a welcoming nod to the road warrior, who had played the Grand Ole Opry by 16 and spent his 20s rocking, writing and living furiously with The Drive-By Truckers from 2001-2007. “This album is a wonderful, wonderful CD,” Groce said, “Here We Rest,” is an early motto of the state of Alabama. When you hear the songs, you will know why it is named that way.”

Held in equally high regard as a guitarist and as a songwriter, Isbell made his first appearance on Mountain Stage in 2010. He marched into this 2011 set with his trusted comrades- bassist Jimbo Hart, drummer Chad Gamble, former Son Volt keyboardist Derry DeBorja- who make up the 400 Unit. The name was derived from a psychiatric ward of Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital in Florence, Alabama, near Isbell’s hometown on the border of Alabama and Tennessee.

With a train shuffling snare, jangling guitars and swirling organ, Isbell and the 400 Unit warm up in style walking a soldier home in “Tour of Duty”- written about an Iraq War soldier stepping off the train and straight into the cobwebs of civilian life – trying to devour the missed goodness of home, while bottling up emotional demons to hide his fears.

“I promise not to bore you with my stories/I promise not to scare you with my tears/I never would exaggerate the glory/I'll seem so satisfied here.”

The band pours a flurry of hurt into his now classic “Go It Alone,” about the wake of his first divorce and being left with himself in a quiet house of regret.

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, seen here performing on Mountain Stage in Charleston, W.Va. in October 2011.

Isbell and the 400 Unit saved the best for last, closing with what have become two of his most recognized songs from Here We Rest: “Alabama Pines,” which would go on to win the 2012 Americana Music Association’s Song of the Year, and the crowd-pleasing set-closing jam of “Codeine.”

In “Alabama Pines” Isbell captures that illusive feeling of truly feeling at home with yourself. And while we may all feel a bit unanchored in our current state, we are not in this alone. Take a deep fresh breath in these evergreens. We still have these songs to transport us musically back home, “through those Alabama Pines.”

Isbell, who has gone on to win four Grammy Awards, has a new album, Reunions, produced by Dave Cobb and featuring such guests as David Crosby, and his wife Amanda Shires.

Set List:
Tour of Duty
Go It Alone
Alabama Pines
Codeine

Hear A 2011 Set by Vince Gill On Mountain Stage

Between 2006 and 2014, Mountain Stage made regular trips to the Paramount Center for the Arts in the Virginia/Tennessee border town of Bristol to raise awareness about the now completed Birthplace of Country Music Museum.

On August 21, 2011, Mountain Stage host Larry Groce welcomed one of the greatest and multi-talented country music artists – Vince Gill, who gave what Groce has described as one of the best sets ever performed on Mountain Stage.

“When we come to Bristol, we like to do some special things in celebration of the Birthplace of Country Music,” Groce said introducing Gill, who has won 21 country music Grammy Awards – the most of any country male artist. “Here is a man who has explored every part of country music and far beyond

He started out in bluegrass, got into mainstream country and pop. If there as anything as a triathlon for music he would no doubt win because he can not only sing wonderfully but he writes great songs, is a wonderful guitar player.”

The laid-back Norman, Oklahoma native showed why he’s such a welcomed and frequent performer on the Grand Ole Opry, interacting early and often with the audience with gentle and self-effacing humor. He then flows into a soulful, stripped down acoustic version of his 1991 hit “Liza Jane,” with his veteran band of Nashville cats, David Hungate on bass, Pete Wasner on keyboards and Billy Thomas on drums.

As a guitarist, Gill is so good he was asked to join Dire Straits at their height, and he’s been pulling double duty singing and playing with The Eagles since 2017. But his superpower throughout his career- from the 1980 No. 1 smash “Let Me Love You Tonight” with Pure Prairie League, to several of his chart-topping solo hits- is his ballad slaying vocal abilities. No male country star can more powerfully drip that vulnerable love ballad vocal honey like Gill. Evidenced here through his beautifully simple and powerful song, “Whenever You Come Around.”

A highlight of this set is the full-on Opry-style comedy routine, with vocal impressions leading up to the sweet song about his father, “The Key to Life.’ Gill described the towering, gruff character as Gen. Patton, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood rolled into one. “One of the best things he ever said to me was – ‘I’ll knock you through a wall and make you fix it,’” Gill said in a gruff voice to a laughing audience.

Gill then paid tribute to his father and to Bristol playing the first song his dad taught him on guitar, The Carter Family’s “Wildwood Flower,” before solemnly paying his respects to his pops.

“I wouldn’t play a guitar or sing songs if it wasn’t for my dad,” said Gill, who as a teenager and young man was in a series of bluegrass bands and these days has a regular Nashville gig with the Time Jumpers. “He sat me down and showed me G, C and D. He said you’re on your own that is all I know. The first thing I learned was recorded right here in this town.”

Gill shared two new songs during this 2011 set, “Threaten Me With Heaven,” which he dedicated to one of the song’s co-writers Will Owsley, who passed away earlier that year, and “Red Words,” a faith-filled tribute to his wife that wouldn’t be released until 2019.

It was grab-the-tissues time when Gill turned in a searing rendition of “Go High Rest On That Mountain” – a 1995 song he started writing after Keith Whitley died in 1989, then finished when his brother Bob died in 1993. “Driving over here I heard a gospel group singing it on the radio on a Sunday morning, and that made me feel pretty good,” Gill said.

Gill closed thanking Mountain Stage for bringing folks together to share in the magic of live music. “I love it when you share a stage with so many different kinds of people and so many different kinds of musicians,” Gill said. “This was a real gift today to get to meet some new friends to hear some people play music that I had never gotten the opportunity to do that with. So as I leave here and go home, I am the one that got the blessing, so thank you.”

Gill’s latest release Okie is available now, and The Eagles “Hotel California” tour have been pushed to 2021.

Set List:

Liza Jane
Whenever You Come Around
Wildwood Flower
The Key to Life
Threaten Me with Heaven
Go Rest High on that Mountain
The Red Words

Recorded August 21, 2011 at the Paramount Bristol in Bristol, TN/VA.

Listen: Cake on Mountain Stage From 2010

In California, the land of endless sun, freeways and possibilities, there’s plenty of room in the musical test kitchen to birth a band that’s a little mariachi, a little bit hip hop, funk, folk country and rock and roll.

Known for such quirky genre-blurring radio hits as “The Distance,” and “Never There,” the artful band known as Cake, founded in California’s capital city of Sacramento back in 1991, made their first trip to Mountain Stage on Dec. 5, 2010 at the Culture Center Theater in Charleston.

“It is always something special when they release a CD because they don’t do that every year,” host Larry Groce said of the band’s Showroom of Compassion, released in January, 2011.

After a thunderous welcome from the sold out crowd, the band dug straight back into their own roots – sharing first a gem, “Daria,” from their second album – the 1996-released platinum album, Fashion Nugget, that also featured their breakout hit, “The Distance.”

With their engines fully pumping and thumping in time, they lit up four new songs from Showroom, starting with “Long Time.” The hypnotic, Talking Heads-esque world beat funk jam featured on the first season of the TV show, “Shameless,” is fueled by Cake’s not-so-secret essential ingredients – the guitar of Xan McCurdy and tasty trumpet lines of Vince DiFiore.

As if foreseeing concerts full of audience’s faces buried in cellphones, lead singer John McCrea calls out a few fans in the audience. “Such excellent clapping and audience participation, we thank you, and your timing and tempo, – steady, except for a few people so involved in capturing the moment with their cameras, they can’t even join us here, now in the only moment you have. Here’s a song from the new album. You don’t even have to buy it. You can just be here. Right now. And listen to it.”

Introducing “Sick of You,” (the band’s first single from Showroom of Compassion), McCrea taps into the times which aren’t a changing … “I have noticed too that things have become very polarized in The United States of America…This song is about freaking out and about how furious people are. Some people can’t handle it and there is steam coming out their ears. There is an opportunity in this song for steam to come out of your ears and music to come out of your mouth.”

McCrea was not kidding. In the first of two raucous sing-a-long’s, McCrea dials the music down to bass guitar and cowbell and divides the audience up into “the people who can’t handle things and who want to escape into vampire stories,” and the other side into the “realists who are uncontrollable, unconstrained and unreasonable” to sing “I’m so sick of you sick of me/I don’t want to be with you/I want to fly away/I just want to fly away/.” As Groce stated later, “You not only heard the new single, you sang along with it.”

Watch Larry’s backstage interview with singer John McCrae to hear more about their solar-powered recording studio, how they convinced their label to release the video for “Short Skirt, Long Jacket,” and more.
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After “Bound Away,” a fresh, modern-folk gospel take of tour life colored in with DiFiore’s trumpet and four-part harmony, Cake left the crowd with an interactive version of “Jolene,” not the Dolly Parton song, of course, but “Jolene,” the novelesque garage rocker McCrea and former guitarist Greg Brown wrote for their debut album.

“Somebody coming to the show requested it. You just ask for whatever you want in this life and it will happen,” McCrea joked getting a roar of audience laughter.

You can find follow Cake online, and purchase their music through their online store.

Set List

“Daria”
“Long Time”
“Mustache Man (Wasted)”
“Sick of You”
“Bound Away”
“Jolene”