Lawmakers are getting a better understanding of the state’s capacity to respond to deadly floods. And an Appalachian poet explores nature and marriage in his latest book.
Pops Staples on Mountain Stage in the early 1990s.Mountain Stage Archive
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Our Song of the Week is the title song for this week’s special episode of Mountain Stage. Larry has curated a show in four parts, turning an ear to songs about the oppressed, the overlooked, and the experiences of those who are misunderstood.
Roebuck “Pops” Staples (December 28, 1914 – December 19, 2000) was the patriarch of the gospel-soul family band The Staples Singers. Pops performed twice on Mountain Stage, in 1992 and 1994, and both times he performed his song “Why Am I Treated So Bad?”
Staples performed the song while traveling with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he tells in his introduction, that King called it “My song.”
This episode is called “Why Am I Treated So Bad” and highlights songs about experiences of people of color, Native Americans, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, women, and those living on the economic edge.
Credit Mountain Stage Archive
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Mavis Staples, acclaimed singer and daughter of Pops, also appears on this week’s broadcast, singing one of her father’s songs.
We also hear from Mavis Staples, Arlo Guthrie, John Trudell, Odetta, Amy Ray, Rhiannon Giddens and others.
This month, the CPB will begin winding down its operations. The funding cuts will mostly affect NPR and PBS affiliates like our home station. Smaller stations are being hit especially hard. Like Allegheny Mountain Radio, on the Virginia-West Virginia border. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Scott Smith, Allegheny Mountain Radio’s general manager.
This week, the federal government has taken back millions of dollars set aside for public radio stations. Allegheny Mountain Radio is among those fighting to stay on the air. Also, a book by a West Virginia artist illustrates the tiny worlds of mountain critters, like a lizard that changes color. And, geocaching gets folks outside to play detective and find hidden treasures.
On this week's premiere broadcast of Mountain Stage, host Kathy Mattea welcomes Shemekia Copeland, Tab Benoit, Charlie Musselwhite, Harlem Gospel Travelers, and Abby Posner to the Culture Center Theater in Charleston, WV.
If you’ve ever been on TikTok or Instagram and seen short, quirky videos of English people talking about Marshall University football, or in this case, soccer, those are the brainchild of independent British filmmaker Daniel Johnson.