Tickets are still available for this Sunday’s Mountain Stage with Larry Groce featuring Bottle Rockets, Amy Helm, Alela Diane, John R. Miller & the Engine Lights and Hubby Jenkins. Now, thanks to our colleagues at VuHaus and West Virginia Public Broadcasting you can watch along wherever you are.
This Sunday Mountain Stage will be celebrating the fall with live-performances from some returning favorites and a few new faces. We’ll record episode #933 at the Culture Center Theater. Doors open at 6:30pm and showtime is 7pm. Come back to this post or point your browser to MountainStage.org or VuHaus.com to watch live from anywhere with a web connection.
Be sure to send us a Tweet or post on Instagram to let us know where you’re watching from.
Road-tested, listener-approved rock and rollers Bottle Rockets, return for their eighth appearance on Mountain Stage since 1995. The band’s brand-new album Bit Logic was released Oct. 12, and Wide Open Country recently called the title track “a roots rocker made for anyone who finds their head spinning over our society’s obsession with social media and technology’s advance into do-it-all virtual assistants. (Or all-knowing, all-seeing surveillance overlords, depending on how you may feel.)”
Read the full review and listen to “Bit Logic” here.
Amy Helm’s most recent release This Too Shall Light uses what the singer calls a “circular sound.” You can hear wisps of genres ranging from Americana to blues throughout the album which was produced by Grammy Award winner, Joe Henry. This will be Helm’s second appearance on Mountain Stage, the first being in December of 2015, after appearing three times as a member of the modern folk group Ollabelle.
Previously of the Grammy Award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, Hubby Jenkins will pull you into a trance with his ability to pick like the legends. He has also been a regular member of Rhiannon Giddens’ band, and he will join us as for a solo performance this weekend. Have a listen below.
“This music is about motherhood,” says singer, songwriter and vocalist Alela Diane, of her highly anticipated fifth album Cusp. “Even just by saying that, it feels like people will write you off. It’s like you’ve suddenly lost the charm of being youthful and even attainable––you’ve been commoditized as available. There is not a big place in the music industry for 30-something women with kids making music.” She laughs as she pauses, then adds, “Maybe we can create that space.”
A founding member of West Virginia bands Prison Book Club and The Fox Hunt- and a professed favorite of Appalachian luminaries Tyler Childers and William Matheny- John R. Miller & The Engine Lights carries along his own torch of country blues & folk with his new full-length album, The Trouble You Follow.
You can get tickets online or head over to Taylor Books in downtown Charleston, W.Va. More details here.
This episode is scheduled for distribution by NPR Music starting November 9. Find a station where you can listen to Mountain Stage each week here.