88.5 WFDD - Across the Blue Ridge
Summary: Across the Blue Ridge focuses on the southern Blue Ridge area known through generations and still today as a hotbed of old-time, bluegrass, blues, and country music. And the program reaches far beyond, exploring southern music as the music most people around the world understand as distinctively American. Across the Blue Ridge is smart, irreverent, fun, serious, and entertaining all at once. Host Paul Brown is a former NPR journalist who also happens to be a prize-winning banjo picker, fiddle player, singer, and storyteller.
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- Artist: 88.5 WFDD - Public Radio For The Piedmont
Podcasts:
Mike “Lightnin’” Wells brings traditions together in his entertaining, informative and down-home one-man shows. His latest album, titled “O Lightnin’ Where Art Thou?”, displays his range as never before, as he plays and sings his way through songs from early country and bluegrass to blues, gospel and old time mountain music. Born in West Virginia and largely raised in North Carolina, Lightnin’ was smitten early by the famed WWVA Jamboree radio show out of Wheeling, West Virginia.
This week we take a moment at Merlefest – not for the main stage acts, but with the community of jammers at festivals. Beyond that, we hear a fine selection of bluegrass and old time music with a blues tilt. Hear how the sounds of the blues infuse traditional songs, bluegrass classics, and even gospel music. Listen to recordings of great musicians including Hobart Smith, Mance Lipscomb, Hazel & Alice and many more. Playlist
New recordings, a preview of roots music from a public TV series, and some classic fiddle tunes and bluegrass cuts share the spotlight this week.
A festival that started small at Wilkes Community College in North Carolina has become one of the most enthusiastically supported roots music events in the U.S. Merlefest began in 1988 as an event to support the college and memorialize Eddy Merle Watson, the son of Doc Watson, who had died in a tractor accident on the family farm. As Doc put it at the time, “When Merle and I started out we called our music ‘traditional plus’, meaning the traditional music of the Appalachian region plus whatever other styles we were in the mood to play.
One outcome of the folk music boom of the 1950s and ‘60s was an increased interest in the music from which much pop and folk had sprung: old-time and bluegrass. While The Weavers, The Kingston Trio and other groups developed a slick, commercialized sound for largely elite northern urban audiences of the time, The New Lost City Ramblers dug into 78 RPM recordings and paid visits to old time musicians. Dressing the part of early country musicians in white shirts and vests, they interpreted the music they’d encountered when they performed on the college and urban folk club circuits, spreadin
This week we profile Buddy Pendleton (1935-2017), a remarkably talented and fluid Patrick County, Virginia fiddle player whose repertoire spanned old time, bluegrass, folk, swing and jazz.
This week we hear some classic Blue Ridge mountain music, piedmont blues, and even some swing from the Quebe Sisters of Texas, who will perform at the Blue Ridge Music Center this season. Plus, what’s it like to present southern roots music in its home territory these days? Richard Emmett, who directs programming for the Blue Ridge Music Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway in southwestern Virginia, joins host Paul Brown for a conversation about that. They discuss how the scene has changed over the years, where it’s going, and the decisions Emmett makes to simultaneously keep BRMC programmin
This week we dig into the riches of early country music recordings to hear classics of old time mountain, white and African-American gospel, blues, classic country and bluegrass. Host Paul Brown guides us through the fascinating stories of artists, the unique sounds they produced, and the evolution of southern American traditional music from the days of the first major commercial recordings in the 1920s to the bluegrass era. Hear from greats including Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys, The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Hazel & Alice and many more.
This week we hear a tremendously varied selection of solid bluegrass music; old time fiddling from field recordings; classic piedmont blues, and new recordings from Kentucky’s Brett Ratliff and North Carolina’s Bruce Greene. The old English ballad Barbara Allen takes on new life through a capella vocal renditions and blues harmonica from a Kentucky mountaineer! Host Paul Brown will provide you with just the information you need to think about the music, traditions, and the varied cultures of the American south and their intersections. Episode 64 Playlist
This week we take a detour from the old dirt roads and head for the 2017 Grammy Awards. Listen to selections from the five bluegrass albums nominated for the award. The rest of the show is crammed with great old time love songs, fiddle tunes, a little blues from North Carolina’s Algia Mae Hinton, and the information you need to get the most enjoyment out of the music you’ve come to love on Across the Blue Ridge. Episode 63 Playlist
Southern roots music is much more than today’s typical bluegrass combination of banjo, fiddle, guitar, bass and mandolin. Piano is among the many instruments represented in the evolution of the region’s music. On this week’s show, host Paul Brown shares some historic recordings of string bands with piano.
Rex McGee of Stokes County, North Carolina displays a restless intelligence from the moment you encounter him.
Mac Wiseman is one of the last of the original generation of bluegrass players. And he’s much more than that. He’s a farm boy-turned-musician, a polio victim who learned guitar while recovering from the childhood operation that let him walk correctly, an ambitious figure who could hold his own as a solo act in the bluegrass world when others needed full band backup. He also has been one of the most effective music producers in bluegrass, country and pop, and helped found two organizations promoting bluegrass and country music. At 91, he sings as well as ever, and has just released an al
This week we hear a fabulous bluegrass fiddle tune from Corinna Logsdon of High Fidelity… plus a gritty country song from Becky Hobbs… and the Alabama hit cover of another of Hobbs’ songs, Angels Around Us. Hear how much country music, bluegrass, old time and gospel have in common as we continue with The Bluegrass Album Band and The Pine Ridge Boys and Patsy. That’s just the beginning of this music-packed show including a moment with Mac Wiseman, a humorous topical song of Tennessee’ past from the Double Decker String Band, the voices of the Red Clay Ramblers and much more.
