Percussive dance blends with old-time instruments for a fresh take on traditional music by the trio called T-Mart Rounders, who have our Song of the Week.
Dancer Becky Hill, fiddler/vocalist Jesse Milnes and banjoist Kevin Chesser comprise the T-Mart Rounders, who began playing together in Elkins, W.Va. Their debut album features updated versions of traditional numbers along with a song written by Milnes. Their performance of Milnes’ original “Margaret’s Song” is our Song of the Week.
Milnes said he wrote the song based on a story he was told at a laundromat in Beverly, W.VA.
“I was waiting for my clothes to come out of the dryer, playing fiddle as you do. This woman walked in and looked at me and said, ‘My husband loved that fiddle music.’”
The result is this heartbreaking story-song of love lost to illness, and the sacrifice the husband makes for his true love.
This week’s encore episode was recorded in partnership with the Augusta Heritage Festival on the campus of Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, W.Va. Hear the entire show starting Friday July 24, with performances from past Old Crow Medicine Show member Chance McCoy (below), award winning traditional group the Big Possum String Band, folk-blues guitarist Jody Carroll, and the trio of Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer and Sam Gleaves.
Read more about the Augusta Heritage Summer Workshops and their upcoming virtual offerings for this Summer on the Augusta Heritage website.
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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Chance McCoy, a West Virginia native, recently took hiatus from Old Crow Medicine Show to work on his solo material. You can hear his performance on Mountain Stage starting Friday, July 24.
Larry Groce will be leading the Mountain Stage band, staff and crew north to Elkins, W.Va. for the sixth time to help close out the Augusta Heritage Festival. A rare Saturday show for Mountain Stage will take place at the Myles Center For The Arts- Harper-McNeely Auditorium on campus of Davis & Elkins College with a 7:30p.m. show time.
Tickets can be found at the Augusta Heritage office on campus, or online. All tickets are general admission, $25.
Appearing on Saturday is a line-up of all-stars in the roots and old-time music genres. Old Crowe Medicine Show member Chance McCoy is prepared to release his solo debut later this year. We’ll get a preview of the material when he joins us Saturday in Elkins. McCoy caught up with the Charleston Gazette-Mail in advance of Saturday’s appearance.
Big Possum Stringband will join us in Elkins, WV Saturday July 27 as we close out the Augusta Heritage Festival.
The Big Possum Stringband are also set to release their debut album soon. They carry on the tradition of the original Big Possum string band, who were on Mountain Stage back in 1988, believe it or not, with fiddler Harvey Sampson. Comprised of contest winners Tessa Dillon (fiddle) and Seth Swingle (banjo) and multi-instrumentalist Evan Collins, this group is keeping Applachian Stringband music alive and well. They’ve been winning awards left and right, including 1st place in the 2018 old-time stringband contest at the Appalachian Stringband Festival, a.ka. “Clifftop.” The band join us before heading to the 2019 activities at Clifftop, then they’re headed off to Australia.
Another group expanding on the traditions of old-time music is the T-Mart Rounders. Featuring Jesse Milnes on guitar, fiddle and vocals, Kevin Chesser on banjo, and the percussive dance of Becky Hill, T-Mart Rounders are re-envisioning Appalachian clogging and flatfooting as its own instrument within the band. They were founded in 2012 in Elkins, and in 2017 released their debut recording.
Two-time Grammy winning duo Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer have been making traditional and contemporary music together for several decades now, and they’ve recently brought in young banjo player Sam Gleaves for an album called “Shout and Shine”. Sam was on Mountain Stage in Elkins back in 2015, and Fink & Marxer joined us most recently in 2017.
We’ll also hear from Portland, Oregon based acoustic roots luminary Jody Carroll, whose blend of progressive and traditional acoustic blues is beloved in folk and blues music circles alike. He wowed at MerleFest in 2018 and has shared the stage with many blues greats. His latest labum is called Back to the Country.
Jody Carroll – Aces & Eights
Tickets for Mountain Stage this Saturday are available online and at the Augusta Heritage office on the Davis & Elkins campus. Show time is 7:30p.m. and you can RSVP on Facebook to let us know you’re coming.
More updates on our September live shows below.
Credit Mat_Dunlap
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In other news: On Sunday September 15 we’re excited to welcome back our guest host Kathy Mattea for performances by Shawn Colvin, Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis, Lucy Kaplansky, and Rebecca Loebe.
Just announced, we’ll be joined by Canadian duo Kacy & Clayton, whose latest for New West Records was produced by Jeff Tweedy. The pair will be showcasing at the Americana Music Association Festival this year, and will be heading out to support Ray Lamontagne later this fall. They join us September 15 here in Charleston. Tickets are available here, and locally at Taylor Books.
On Sunday September 29 Larry Groce will be back with us as The Steel Wheels return for their fourth appearance on the show. Last week we told you that songwriter Amy Speace had been added, as well as the duo of Kieran Kane and Rayna Gellert. This week we’re happy to announce the return of revered songwriter, and recent author, Radney Foster to the bill on September 29. Tickets are available online and at Taylor Books.
Foster has released For You To See The Stars, his first book of fiction, as a companion piece to his 11th album of the same name. Journalist Peter Cooper puts it best, “Radney Foster writes with uncommon depth of emotion, humor, empathy, and clarity. I’m going to ask him how he does it, and if he tells me I’ll let you in on his secret. Until then, it’s best that we read, wonder, and revel.”
Foster has written eight number one hit singles, including his own “Nobody Wins,” and “Crazy Over You” with duo Foster & Lloyd. His discography contains countless cuts by artists ranging anywhere from country (Keith Urban, The Dixie Chicks, Luke Bryan, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) to contemporary (Marc Broussard, https://youtu.be/vjOgyVETIVk”>Hootie & The Blowfish, Kenny Loggins, Los Lonely Boys).
Politician and industrialist Henry Gassaway Davis died on March 11, 1916, at age 92. As a young man, he’d been a brakeman on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He invested his savings and his wife’s inheritance in cheap, undeveloped land in what is now West Virginia. The timber and coal resources on that land eventually made Davis one of the state’s richest men.
Realizing that political power could lead to even more wealth, he ran successfully for the legislature, serving first in the House of Delegates and then in the state senate. In 1870, he helped lead the Democratic Party to power in West Virginia. Legislators repaid the favor by electing him to the U.S. Senate, where he served two terms, occasionally backing legislation that benefitted him financially.
In 1904, he was named the Democratic candidate for vice president. But, Davis and his running mate lost the election badly. At age 80, he was the oldest presidential or vice presidential candidate ever nominated by a major party. He is also remembered for his philanthropy—in particular, giving money and land to establish Davis and Elkins College.
Grammy winning performing artist and West Virginia native Kathy Mattea will release her new album “Pretty Bird” in September and will appear on Mountain Stage Saturday August 11, 2018 as part of the Augusta Heritage Festival on the campus of Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, W.Va. Tickets are available now.
On September 7th, CMA Award-winning vocalist Kathy Mattea will release Pretty Bird, her first new album in six years. A sublime acoustic collection including a number of smartly chosen and heartfelt covers, the record marks something of a new era in Mattea’s 30-plus-year career. Over the past several years her deep, rich singing voice has experienced significant changes that could have put a permanent end to her performing, but after extensive vocal training she has emerged from what she refers to as her “dark night of the soul” with a duskier instrument. That newly trained but still memorable voice, which gave country fans such hits as “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses” and “Love at the Five and Dime,” is at the very heart of one of the year’s most affecting LPs.
“This album has led me, slowly and unexpectedly, into new nooks and crannies of singing,” Mattea tells Rolling Stone Country. “Songs showed up in random ways… and became part of our musical landscape during regular Thursday jam sessions in my living room. It’s a very eclectic collection, and for me, each song has a very specific reason for being here, showing me some new point of view about singing along the way.”
One of country music’s most successful artists of the past several decades, Mattea, a two-time Grammy winner, has always approached her material, even the most mainstream country, with an eclecticism and sense of deeper meaning. Those elements are vibrantly evident on “I Can’t Stand Up Alone,” the first track to premiere from the upcoming collection, which was produced by Mattea’s longtime friend and frequent collaborator Tim O’Brien. Written by country-gospel legend Martha Carson in the Fifties, Mattea’s soulful version is a sparkling mélange of those genres, with touches of blues and Appalachian mountain music. The uplifting tune serves as a fitting tribute to singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester, who died in 2014, and whose version inspired this one.
Mattea and her longtime accompaniest, guitarist Bill Cooley, will preview material from the upcoming release when the duo performs on Mountain Stage as part of the closing concert of the 2018 Augusta Heritage Festival. Tickets are availble online. Click here for details.
Bil Lepp will guest-host Mountain Stage on Saturday August 11 in Elkins, WV.
The August 11 episode will feature another guest-host, when storyteller and humorist Bil Lepp steps to the host’s microphone. Also appearing on the line-up in Elkins are award-winning bluegrass group Darin & Brooke Aldridge and traditional music expert and frequent Augusta Heritage instructor Joe Newberry, West Virginia honky tonk and country group Blue Yonder. The show will be broadcast nationally later this fall via NPR Music.
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On this week’s episode of Mountain Stage, acclaimed singer Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops performs her haunting original song “At the Purchaser’s Option,” which was inspired by a 19th-century advertisement she found for a 22-year-old female slave whose baby was also available for sale.
The broadcast also features performances by Dori Freeman, Flatt Lonesome, Blue Highway, and the Davis & Elkins Appalachian Ensemble.
Like what you hear? Download the entire show right now on the Mountain Stage podcast (just look for Ep. 876). While you’re at it, make sure to subscribe, leave us a rating/review and send us a tweet with your favorite song: we’re @mountainstage.
“Mountain Stage with Larry Groce” returns to Elkins, WV this Saturday, August 12 as the closing concert of the Augusta Heritage Festival.
The show will take place at 7:30pm at the Harper-McNeeley Auditorium in the Myles Center for the Arts on the campus of Davis & Elkins College. Scheduled to appear are folk-music icon Tom Paxton featuring The DonJuans– the duo of Don Henry and Jon Vezner, both accomplished songwriters and performers. Also on the bill is bluegrass mainstay and Augusta instructor Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands, guitar-hero Bill Kirchen, also a past Augusta instructor, plus folk duo Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer and an emerging roots group with ties to Elkins and the Augusta Workshops, The Early Mays.
Tickets are $25, general admission, and are available online, by phone at 304.637.1255, and at the Augusta Heritage office.
Guitarist Laurie Lewis has instructed at the Augusta Workshops many times. Now she returns to showcase her band when Mountain Stage closes the Augusta Heritage Festival this Saturday.
Tom Paxton is one of the most prolific songwriter/performers in recorded music history, with songs covered by artists including Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, The Weavers, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, Willie Nelson, John Denver, Sandy Denny and The Move, among many others. A four-time Grammy nominee and recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy in 2009 and an ASCAP Lifetime Achievement Award (for Folk) in 2002, Paxton has made six appearances on “Mountain Stage” since 1986.
Paxton’s new album, “Boat in the Water,” is produced by Grammy winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, who are also scheduled to be a part of the “Mountain Stage” program in Elkins. “Boat in the Water” is a fitting addition to a career that first took off in the fertile turf of New York’s Greenwich Village in the ‘60s, where his contemporaries included Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk and Joan Baez.
With movies like the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis (in which Paxton is portrayed as a soldier in uniform singing “The Last Thing on My Mind”) and the recent induction of Joan Baez into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the ‘60s Village folk scene has been the focus of renewed attention. Tom will be celebrating his 80th at The Birchmere on October 28th and in NYC at Pace Univeristy October 29th.
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