"Just As Soon As You Can"- A Note from Mountain Stage

“Why don’t you go out and hear some live music, wherever you are, just as soon as you can.”

The words of Larry’s slogan might translate a little differently when you hear them this weekend on NPR stations across the country. He says it after the credits at the end of every episode.

Every. Episode.

Live music is important to us. In the last couple of weeks, a lot of us are realizing how we’ve taken it for granted.

“Just as soon as you can,” has an indefinite tone to it these days. The shows you’ll be hearing on radio in the next couple of weeks were recorded in February. We certainly aren’t encouraging anyone to defy CDC guidelines. Social distancing it is.

Here in West Virginia we’ve canceled at least six shows with uncertainty of when we might tape live episodes again.  Our broadcast schedule won’t be the shows we intended, but we’ll still be hearing some of our favorite performances. We’re fortunate to have a wealth of archive material that we can dip in to for the time being. We may even ask you folks, our listeners and friends, to help us chose which episodes hit the airwaves later this Spring. More on that later.

Credit Base Camp Printing Company

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However, there are plenty of artists and venues who aren’t having as much good fortune. Our broadcast schedule will go on, but our canceled shows are just one of an increasing number of gigs that our guest artists won’t get to do. Lots of them are planning live stream web concerts, some are offering deals on their merchandise, and many are already working to reschedule shows for later this year. Suffice it to say that artists, and the entire music business, will be affected deeply. We’re working to reschedule stuff too- fingers emphatically crossed.

We are happy to provide a little live music for you while we wait out this virus, and hope it offers you some peace, some familiarity, and we hope it resonates with you in new and familiar ways. Music and public radio can be a comforting companion, and I hope we never find ourselves taking either one, or each other, for granted again.

Here are all of the stations that carry Mountain Stage and when you can tune in. You don’t have to go out, but you can still hear some live music, wherever you are.

Thank you for listening.

• Mountain Stage Podcast
• Mountain Stage Channel at Live Sessions from NPR Music
• Mountain Stage at NPR Music