Music Story Archives - Page 53 of 54 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Mountain Stage at 30: A Radio Retrospective

For 30 years and with over 800 episodes, Mountain Stage has been a mainstay in public radio and American music.

Like anything that evolves into a lasting endeavor, Mountain Stage’s success is part happenstance mixed with years of dedication and hard work. Truly, though, it all comes down to the people who made the show possible coming together with a shared vision.

In this hour-long radio special, you’ll hear how the show came to be, its rise to a national program, and examine what it is that makes Mountain Stage mean so much to the artists who have performed on the show and the audience it reaches.

Lori McKenna – If I Could Buy This Town – Live on Mountain Stage

Lori McKenna has become one of Nashville’s most in-demand singer-songwriters, even though she didn’t begin making music of her own until she was in her mid-20’s. Here she performs “If I Could By This Town,” on an episode of Mountain Stage recorded on the north shore of Lake Superior in Grand Marais, Minnesota.

The Pines – "Rise Up and Be Lonely"

The lush, dark, and atmospheric sounds Twin Cities band The Pines evoke the steely autumn breeze coming off the shore of Lake Superior, where this week’s premiere episode of Mountain Stage was recorded.

Find your local affiliate and listen to the entire show this week.

Bottle Rockets – "Big Lotsa Love"

Roots rock heroes The Bottle Rockets return to Mountain Stage with a love song – and a story – inspired by a new guitar, and frontman Brian Henneman’s wife’s favorite discount shopping location.

Find your local affiliate and listen to the entire show this week.

Bill Monroe, "Uncle Pen"

This week’s special broadcast from the Mountain Stage archives looks back to 1989, when we were joined by the father of bluegrass music, Bill Monroe. Here he plays what many consider to be his signature tune, “Uncle Pen.”

Find your local affiliate and listen to the entire show this week.

New CD tells a mountain’s story before strip mining comes

Story telling is an old art form in Appalachia. One West Virginia story teller’s newest project, a CD of music and stories entitled The Mountain Came…

Story telling is an old art form in Appalachia. One West Virginia story teller’s newest project, a CD of music and stories entitled The Mountain Came Alive, attempts to modernize this tradition by addressing today’s concerns.

The CD combines Booth’s interest in music and storytelling with 20 tracks that follow the year in the life of a southern West Virginia mountain that is slated for strip mining.

Booth said he wanted to use traditional methods to tell a story to young people about Appalachia and events in the region that are happening now.

“I found that there were a lot of young folks who didn’t know quite know what Appalachia was or who they were and so I tried to put a lot of folk elements into this and also a lot of contemporary elements into it,” Booth said.

The mountain’s story starts in the winter and takes listeners through the seasons of life including the communities of people, animals, water and plants.

“As I have been telling stories around the country, particularly in Appalachia, one of the themes that comes up is mountain top mining and environmental issues,” he said.

“It tries show that all of these things are very closely related to a sense of place, which is what I believe is one of the strongest aspects of Appalachia, that we’re really related to a sense of place,” Booth said. “And forever and ever that place has been the mountains.”