Host Larry Groce and the Mountain Stage team culled together this episode of songs by some of music’s greatest songwriters, performed by various artists over the years on Mountain Stage.
We touch on the songs of Bob Dylan, with performances by The Band, Chris Smither, Jimmy LaFave, and The Derek Trucks Band. Songs of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter are done by Joan Osborne, Catherine Russell, and Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams. Brandi Carlile does Leonard Cohen and Mary Black covers Joni Mitchell.
You’ll hear a touching Bruce Springsteen deep-cut interpreted by David Lindley, who also does Warren Zevon’s ”Vast Indifference of Heaven.”And we couldn’t have an episode like this without some songs of the Beatles, done by the likes of John Pizzarelli, Judith Owen, Curtis Stigers, and The Mutual Admiration Society.
Revisiting an episode from 2013 featuring Billy Bragg, The Flatlanders, Amy Speace, Joe Pug, and Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche. Support for this podcast is provided by Digital Relativity. https://digitalrelativity.com/
Looking back to our 30th year for performances from Calexico, Camper Van Beethoven, Bahamas, Bonnie Prince Billy and Piney Gir. Recorded January 27, 2013 in Charleston, W.Va.
Iconic musician, songwriter and producer Nick Lowe returned to Mountain Stage flanked by surf-rock legends Los Straitjackets last Fall. They performed a legendary set, including tunes from their latest EP “Love Starvation/Trombone,” and Lowe’s most timeless song, “(What’s So Funny About) Peace Love and Understanding.”
Lowe was producer on the early works of Elvis Costello, who popularized Lowe’s song “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding.” Here the song is reprised by Lowe and the Straitjackets as the set-closer of the group’s appearance on this week’s episode of Mountain Stage.
Listeners will also be treated to a set of beautiful new songs from Patty Griffin, an amped up performance from alt-rock poet Craig Finn & Uptown Controllers, and the fresh sound of Shook Twins. Find a station that carries Mountain Stage here and be sure to tune in to this ‘can’t miss’ episode.
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Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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Patty Griffin appears on this week’s episode of Mountain Stage hitting the airwaves nationwide starting November 8.
Do you remember the 18th of September, 2016? If you were at Mountain Stage you sure do. It was a ladies’ night and the feeling was oh so right.
Recorded at Mountain’s Stage home-base, the Culture Center Theater at the West Virginia Capitol Grounds, the show featured iconic folk heroes the Indigo Girls, up-and-coming alt-country roots rocker Lydia Loveless, songwriting and guitar goddess Patty Larkin, and the one and only wild-eyed Kentucky soul of Wynonna Judd.
Wynonna made her first trip to Mountain Stage, emerging that night with songs from her 2016 album Wynonna & The Big Noise, her first album in 13 years. Host and artistic director Larry Groce immediately made her feel at home framing her career in a hallowed light. “She is an American music icon, a country music superstar. She has won over 60 awards in country music. She has also won five Grammy Awards,” Groce said as the crowd erupted for Judd, who has sold more than 30 million records, including more than 20 million with her mom Naomi as The Judds – the most successful duo in country music history.
Groce said perhaps the most incredible gift of Judd’s is a voice so good she could sing any genre. “If you had never heard this woman before – and you know what she was in country music – she could have been the same thing in rock music and the same thing in blues music and the same thing in jazz music.”
Throwing down the kickstand and revving up her band, Wynonna, who has notched up six No. 1 singles of her own as a solo artist, threw back her hair and let the crowd know they were in for a ride. “How many of you have never seen me in concert before? Well, it’s about frickin’ time!” The sold out audience had bought their tickets before the country icon had even been announced as part of the bill, and by the time this set wrapped up, they were all converts to her rock-infused style of country and soul.
Wynonna let loose a call of the wild growl and the band slid straight and hard into the good ‘n’ greasy blues belter, “Ain’t No Thing,” co-written by fellow country soul singer and Eastern Kentucky native Chris Stapleton with John Scott Sherrill.
Staying right in pocket in that slide-guitar blues rivulet carved through hearts by Bonnie Raitt, Wynonna burned up “Staying in Love,” by Raphael Saadiq, famed R&B and neo soul producer and founder of Tony! Toni! Tone!
Wynonna gave a sweet confessional intro to “You Are So Beautiful” co-written by Ashley Warren with her husband and drummer Cactus Moser. “So, let’s talk about me. I am in love with a concept. At my age, there is hope girls… Everything just looks different, it tastes different, and it looks like that, ” Wynonna told the crowd pointing at her husband Cactus, formerly of Highway 101, on the drums.
Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage
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Wynonna, who would share a total of seven songs from Wynonna & the Big Noise (Curb, 2016), was at her best viewing her visit through the lens of home.
"My people.” Wynonna cried out to the audience introducing the haunting song, "Keeps Me Alive." "My hometown is an hour from here, I have been thinking all day about the years we spent here in Appalachia. My mama raised me and my sister with nothing, but our hopes and dreams. I had my guitar and I would stand out on the back porch and sing to the heavens and beg God to take me off of that mountain and he did. But as life would have it, I have to return to the well. It reminds me of who I am – that 18 year old singing from my toenails and playing my guitar like it was on fire. That is where my dreams began. A girl that had nothing and that wanted everything and that is what this song is all about."
Then slowly, surgically and soulfully, she peeled back the emotional layers of Sarah Siskind’s “Keeps Me Alive,” which featured Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi on the recorded version. With a hushed acoustic burn and Charlie White’s searing slide guitar, Wynonna cried out for all the lonely dreamers like her. “This is my story, this is my glory/this is what keeps me alive/This is me flying, this is me trying/This is what keeps me alive.”
Ain’t No Thing (John Scott Sherrill/Chris Stapleton) Staying in Love (Raphael Saadiq) Keeps Me Alive (Sarah Siskind) You are So Beautiful (Ashley Warren/Cactus Moser) Cool Ya (Lisa Carver/Andrew Ripp) Things That I Lean On (Travis Meadows/Mark Daniel Sanders) You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast (Julie Miller)
When country superstar Chris Stapleton stopped by a special FestivALL Charleston edition of Mountain Stage on June 28, 2015, he brought songs from arguably one of country music’s greatest debut albums in recent memory. His performance – full of polish, genius and passion – foreshadowed the fame and fortune that would soon come for the workhorse Nashville songwriter who had only just begun to build a reputation for his own crowd-pleasing performances as an opening act and at bars, clubs and bluegrass festivals.
Hidden in plain view in Nashville, the well-established songwriter, Stapleton, had by then already written six No.1 hits for other artists like George Strait and Kenny Chesney. He had recently released his game-changing solo album Traveller the previous month. That album on Mercury Records would go to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts, win three CMA Awards for “Album of the Year,” “New Artist of the Year,” and “Male Vocalist of the Year” and two Grammys for “Best Country Album” and “Best Country Solo Performance.”
Stapleton came barreling out of the gates like a thoroughbred, with his well-rehearsed studio and touring band that includes his wife Morgane, on her trademark harmony vocals, Robby Turner on steel guitar Derek Mixon, drums, and childhood friend and bandleader, J.T. Cure on bass.
In his introduction, Mountain Stage host and artistic director Larry Groce prophesied exactly what was to happen later that year for Stapleton, who grew up across the Big Sandy River near Paintsville, Kentucky, a day-trip from the show’s hometown of Charleston, W.Va. As a proud son of the region, located along the famed Country Music Highway known for such country stars as Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gayle, Ricky Skaggs, and now Tyler Childers, Stapleton donated money for new band uniforms for his high-school about a year after this performance.
“We’ve had him on once before singing with The SteelDrivers,” Groce said, “The last 15 years he has been one of the most successful songwriters in Nashville, and now he is about to become one of the most successful singers in Nashville.”
Credit Josh Saul / Mountain Stage
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Mountain Stage
Chris Stapleton met audience members after Mountain Stage, June 28, 2015 at the Clay Center in Charleston, W.VA.
Well aware of Stapleton’s long-list of barn burners he wrote and sang with The SteelDrivers, this sold-out and rowdy regional crowd was simply electric with waves of whistles, claps and love hollers as Chris and Morgane poured out some hurtin’ on the honky-tonk ballad “Nobody to Blame.”
“I can tell that a few of you might have bought the record we have out and we appreciate it,” said Stapleton, of the album that would go triple platinum and secure him his first musical appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”
One of the set highlights comes from one of the best road songs written in recent times – the title cut “Traveller,” that Stapleton penned on a cross country trip from Phoenix to Nashville in 2013 after his father passed away.
“I couldn't tell you honey, I don't know/Where I'm going but I've got to go/'Cause every turn reveals some other road/And I'm a traveler, oh, I'm a traveler.”
Stapleton sets up two back-to-back 100 proof musical shots with “Tennessee Whiskey,” and “Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey.” The former, “Tennessee Whiskey,” is the David Allan Coe cover that he would sing later in 2015 on the CMAs with Justin Timberlake, forging a musical friendship that saw the two collaborating on three songs from Timberlake’s last album, including the Top 10 hit “Say Something.”
Stapleton’s hidden secret though is that- while he may look the part – he is far from being just whiskey-bent and lonesome, ornery and mean. Stapleton showcases his lyrical versatility and vulnerability, which make him simply one of the best. No wonder he received the Academy of Country Music’s first ever ACM Artist-Songwriter of the Decade Award in 2019. His talents are at their clearest on the teary-eyed set closer, “Sometimes I Cry.” Shedding his burly biker exterior, Stapleton shows there is no shame in the crying game and that everybody needs to let it go.
“There are days that I can walk around like I'm alright/And I pretend to wear a smile on my face And I could keep the pain from comin' out of my eyes/But sometimes, sometimes/ Sometimes I cry.”
In today’s world, as strange and troubled as it ever was, that’s a message and song worth repeating.
