On this West Virginia Morning, the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival in Pineville, Kentucky has staged a formal dance for nearly a century that has remained the same for generations. Folkways Reporter Will Warren takes us for a visit.
Award-winning bluegrass group Balsam Range made their first appearance on Mountain Stage last March with songs from their newly released album Aeonic. Our Song of the Week, “If I Needed Someone,” finds the band blending bluegrass with The Beatles, which helps explain why the band was awarded the prestigious “Entertainers of the Year” at the 2018 International Bluegrass Music Association’s awards and honors.
You can hear the entire set from Balsam Range, as well as sets from jam-grass innovators Yonder Mountain String Band, Australian roots-pop group Oh Pep!, plus Quebec’s Les Poules à Colin (now known as Rosier) and alt-folk luminary Peter Case, on this week’s encore episode of Mountain Stage.
On this week's premiere broadcast of Mountain Stage, you'll hear performances from Bettye LaVette, Kim Richey, Keller Williams, The Langan Band, and Megan Jean’s Secret Family. This episode was recorded live at the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium in Athens, Ohio.
This week the U.S. Department of Education is launching a multimillion-dollar program to help boost the completion of FAFSA nationwide. We’ll also learn more about the state’s largest methamphetamine seizure in history. And we’ll hear about a rupture in the Mountain Valley Pipeline during a pressure test.
On this West Virginia Morning, Curtis Tate tells us about problems with the Mountain Valley Pipeline as it nears completion, Emily Rice discusses children’s mental health with state expert and Mountain Stage brings us the Song of the Week with Watchhouse performing “The Wolves.”
On this week's broadcast of Mountain Stage, we revisit an episode from 2019 featuring Gregory Alan Isakov, Elysian Fields, Mandolin Orange, The Brother Brothers and Hush Kids. Recorded in Morgantown, West Virginia at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center with host Larry Groce.