Our Song of the Week comes from Kentucky’s renowned country artist Tyler Childers.
Childers first appeared on Mountain Stage in 2017 and has been one of the fastest rising stars in all of music. In September of 2020, Tyler surprised many by announcing the release of his fifth studio record, ‘Long Violent History’, which accompanied a 5-minute video calling for justice for Breonna Taylor while encouraging his fans to dig deep into the issues surrounding systemic racism. The album showcases Tyler’s newly acquired fiddle chops and the string band roots that have surrounded him in eastern Kentucky.
1 of 6 — Miss Tess & The Talkbacks
Miss Tess & The Talkbacks made their Mountain Stage debut in 2019 during the show’s 36th anniversary celebration.
Jimmy Downard
2 of 6 — Mary Gauthier
Mary Gauthier and Jaimee Harris perform on Mountain Stage.
Jimmy Downard
3 of 6 — Johnny Staats
West Virginia super-picker Johnny Staats and The Delivery Boys joined the 36th anniversary line-up in 2019.
Jimmy Downard
4 of 6 — Larry Groce
Larry Groce, artistic director, host and co-founder of Mountain Stage opening the show.
Jimmy Downard
5 of 6 — Bil Lepp
Storyteller Bil Lepp made a repeat appearance to commemorate 36 years of Mountain Stage.
Jimmy Downard
6 of 6 — Finale line-up
Finale song closes out the 36th anniversary episode recorded in December of 2019.
Jimmy Downard
On this week’s show we’ll also hear from songwriting great Mary Gauthier, mandolin super-picker Johnny Staats and the Delivery Boys, some jazzy-alt-country from Miss Tess & the Talkbacks, plus we’ll be visited by West Virginia Storyteller Bil Lepp. Click here for the playlist.
A DC-6 airplane, like this one, crashed after overshooting the runway at Kanawha Airport. The plane was filled with marijuana.
A little after midnight on June 6, 1979, a Douglas DC 6 cargo plane crashed in Charleston, West Virginia while attempting to land at the old Kanawha airport, what is now Yeager Airport.
The plane was carrying approximately 20,000 pounds of marijuana and the crew was made up of drug smugglers from South America. They had never flown into Charleston before, but decided to come to West Virginia believing security would be lighter, according to Stan Bumgardner, a West Virginia historian, and the editor of Goldenseal Magazine.
The plane was too big for the airport at that time and it was overloaded. Unable to stop in time, the plane crashed over the hillside at the end of the runway.
This story from a recent episode of Inside Appalachia includes a slightly different version of the story in the form of a tall tale from storyteller Bil Lepp. His telling is featured on his CD called “Fire Fire! Pants on Liar!” He told this tall tale back in 2008 at the public library in St. Albans, West Virginia.
Lepp is an award-winning storyteller and five-time winner of the West Virginia Liar’s contest. His brother Paul actually wrote the story.
Bumgardner said one of the biggest challenges for the authorities was what to do with the pot after the crash.
Credit Charleston Gazette-Mail file photo
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Charleston Gazette-Mail file photo
Kanawha County deputies unload bails of marijuana from the pot plane crash.
“With 20,000 pounds of marijuana, it was too much for an evidence room. The feds came in and decided they would burn it,” Bumgardner explained. “The newspaper interviewed Anna Marie Smith and she just talked about how there was an awful smell and it was just burning all the time. And then they asked her about how things had been on the street. And she just said, ‘Well, all of a sudden everybody’s really calm, and they were laughing and talking.’ And it said they started calling her road ‘happy holler.’”
Bumgardner says he’s also heard rumors that seeds from the pot grew up the hillside beside the airport. Authorities tried to kill the plants with diesel fuel, but some locals say the plants didn’t die off and some residents foraged the wild marijuana growing there.
The reason the smugglers were bringing the marijuana into the United States was another issue. Leon Gast was waiting on the ground in a rental truck to collect the goods. The story came out later that he was smuggling the pot to help finance a film about the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.
Gast was convicted on drug smuggling charges, but once he got out of prison, he did actually make the movie, called “When We Were Kings,” and it won an Academy Award in 1996.
We’re saying “Thanks” by offering a live stream to our sold out 36th Anniversary show, December 1.
Mountain Stage is about to celebrate 36 years of live performance radio, and to show our gratitude to the many people who support the show year-round, you’ll be able to join the celebration from wherever you are.
Thanks to the video production team at West Virginia Public Broadcasting, a live video stream of the 36th Anniversary Mountain Stage will be offered free on the new NPR Music Live Sessions this Sunday, December 1.
Appalachian country singer and recent Grammy nominee Tyler Childers will lead the bill, which already includes West Virginia’s mandolin super-picker Johnny Staats & The Delivery Boys. The line-up has been finalized with the addition of songwriting great Mary Gauthier, Nashville’s Miss Tess & the Talkbacks, and a special visit from champion liar Bil Lepp.
Point your browser to this post, MountainStage.org, or livesessions.npr.org, to watch live starting at 7p.m. EST on Sunday, December 1. This free stream is made possible thanks to the support of Mountain Stage Members and those who support West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Credit Laura Partain
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Rifles & Rosary Beads, the most recent record from Mary Gauthier (“Go-SHAY”), was named Best Album of the Year by the International Folk Music Awards and was a 2019 Grammy nominee for Best Folk Album. Rifles & Rosary Beads, her tenth album, contains eleven songs, all co-written with and for wounded veterans. Eleven of the nearly four hundred songs that highly accomplished songwriters have co-written as part of the five-year-old SongwritingWith:Soldiers program.
Credit Courtesy of the Artist
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Based in Nashville, rootsy blues modernist Miss Tess and her band The Talkbacks convened with veteran producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff) at his studio in East Nashville to create a new record, “The Moon is an Ashtray,” The record is getting its finishing touches and will be released Feb 7. Wide Open Country recently premiered the first single, True Flood, which features Rachel Price of Lake Street Dive.
Storyteller Bil Lepp is a WV treasure when it comes to the long-standing Appalachian tradition of tall tales. Since he first won the WV Liars Contest in 1992, Lepp has been entertaining audiences and listeners with his stories. Most recently he released his CD Book Report, and his latest book, The Princess and the Pickup Truck.
Hear one of music’s most distinct vocalists perform songs from her new album in this week’s encore episode of Mountain Stage, recorded at the Augusta Heritage Festival in Elkins, W.Va. in 2018.
Kathy Mattea returns to Mountain Stage with songs from her brand new album “Pretty Bird.” The collection finds the Grammy-winning singer interpreting some of her favorite songs by a variety of artists, including our Song of the Week- the iconic story-song “Ode to Billy Joe.”
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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This week’s episode features special guest-host Bil Lepp.
Hear more of Mattea’s performance, plus award winning bluegrass group Darin and Brooke Aldridge, West Virginia honky-tonk treasures Blue Yonder, and old-time musician Joe Newberry, when special guest-host Bil Lepp nagivates the latest episode of Mountain Stage recorded on the campus of Davis & Elkins College.
Mountain Stage is back at the Augusta Heritage Festival this weekend for a live show Saturday, July 27 at 7:30p.m. Find the details here.
Tupelo, Mississippi born songwriter Paul Thorn has appeared on Mountain Stage nine times since 1997, each time charming the audience with his trademark humor, wit and introspection. During his appearance in November 2017, he brought extra reinforcements as he presented his Mission Temple Fireworks Revival, featuring renowned family gospel singers The McCrary Sisters.
The band takes its name from this week’s Song of the Week, the outrageous Thorn and Billy Maddox composition “Mission Temple Fireworks Stand”- about a man of faith who sells “Cherry bombs for Jesus in a tent beside the road.”
Paul’s most recent release, “Don’t Let The Devil Ride,” was released this past March.
You’ll hear the entire set from Paul Thorn’s Mission Temple Fireworks Revival on this week’s encore broadcast across 240+ public radio stations, plus performances by North Mississippi Allstars, Bonnie Bishop, Ireland’s Declan O’Rourke as well as a special appearance by WV Storyteller Bil Lepp.
This week’s encore broadcast of Mountain Stage celebrates the program’s 900th episode. Our Song of the Week is the best-known hit by the hardest of hardcore troubadours, Steve Earle. Here’s Earle with his band The Dukes performing 1988’s “Copperhead Road.”
This week’s show also features performances from The Mastersons, soul-music survivor The Sherman Holmes Project, instrumental exceptionalism from Steelism, and a tale from WV’s champion liar, and upcoming guest-host, Bil Lepp.
New episdoes of Mountain Stage start back up September 7. In the meantime, find our recent broadcasts in the Podcast section of MountainStage.org or scroll back to Episode #900 in your podcast feed.
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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The Mastersons perform on Mountain Stage w/ Larry Groce.
