The Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour Podcast

BILLY BURNETTE is a songwriter for superstars, acclaimed sideman, member of Fleetwood Mac and enjoying a resurgence of success for his own solo career. Born in Memphis, Billy was recently inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He has penned hit songs for everyone from Ray Charles, Cher, Roy Orbison to Alan Jackson and Faith Hill. He's also known as an acclaimed guitarist touring with Bob Dylan John Fogerty among others, as well a member of Fleetwood Mac. His recent release of 'Rock & Roll With It' is his 1st studio album in a decade. LYDIA LOVELESS is blessed with a commanding, strong voice. The 21-year-old Lydia Loveless was raised on a family farm in the small rural town of Coshocton, Ohio. Her dad owned a country music bar and she often woke up with a house full of touring musicians scattered on couches and floors. When she got older, in the time-honored traditions of teenage rebellion, she moved to the big city (Columbus, OH) and immersed herself in the punk scene. These two worlds now collide on her debut CD on Bloodshot Records 'Indestructible Machine.' The album combines Lydia's country roots with punk rock candor -- sometimes within the same song.

NOAM PIKELNY returns to the WoodSongs Stage to celebrate his long awaited second album "Beat The Devil and Carry A Rail" on Compass Records. Pikelny is undeniably the next big thing to happen to the 5-string banjo, a player of unparalleled technique, he confounds and inspires listeners with his mastery of the instrument. As a member of Punch Brothers, he has helped to broaden the awareness of the banjo in the mainstream, earning the first annual Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass Music and a coveted appearance on Late Night with David Letterman with Martin. Noam will be joined on the show with a few of his friends: fellow Punch Brothers Gabe Witcher (fiddle) and Chris Eldridge (guitar), Aoife O'Donovan from Crooked Still (vocals), Jesse Cobb (mandolin) and Mark Schatz (bass). VICTOR FURTADO is an amazing 11 year old banjo player from Front Royal, VA. He has won numerous awards for his Old Time banjo playing, quite often competing in the adult categories. Some of the contests he has placed in are: Deer Creek Festival, Maryland 1st Place Adult Old Time Banjo, Maury River Fiddlers Convention, Virginia, 1st Place Adult Old Time Banjo and best in show, Grayson County Fiddlers Convention, Virginia, 1st Place Adult Old Time Banjo, Virginia State Fair, 1st Place Adult Banjo, National Old Time Banjo Championship, Uncle Dave Macon Days Festival, Tennessee, and 2nd Place Adult Old Time Banjo. Victor recorded his first cd in 2011 titled "Sounds from the Openback."

THE McCRARY SISTERS are the daughters of the late Rev. Samuel McCrary, who was one of the original members of the legendary gospel quartet, The Fairfield Four. Ann, Deborah, Regina, and Alfreda were raised in harmony, singing at home and at their father's church. The McCrary's home was filled with music, whether it was the Fairfield Four or frequent guests that included a pantheon of gospel greats, including Shirley Caesar and James Cleveland. Collectively the sisters have performed or recorded with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Stevie Wonder, Ray Stevens, and others. The sister's new CD "Our Journey," includes stunning covers of Dylan's "Blowing In The Wind" and Julie Miller's "Broken Pieces" as well as six McCrary Sister originals (including one co-written by Regina and Bob Dylan). DANNY FLOWERS is an awe-inspiring guitar guru, soulful singer and hit songwriter. His hits included "Tulsa Time" for Don Williams and Eric Clapton; "Back In My Younger Days" for Don Williams; "Gulf Coast Highway" for Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Nanci Griffith (co-written with Griffith and James Hooker); and "Before Believing" from Harris' Pieces of the Sky. In addition he has been a session musician for Williams, Griffith, Vince Gill, Marshall Chapman, and Dobie Gray. Flowers has also enjoyed a solo recording career including the 2007 album, Tools For The Soul.

MURIEL ANDERSON is widely respected as one of the world's foremost fingerstyle guitarists and harp-guitarists. Muriel is the first woman to have won the National Fingerpicking Guitar Championship. She is host of the renowned Muriel Anderson's All Star Guitar Night and founder of the Music for Life Alliance charity. Her music can be heard in Woody Allen's film "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." JACK PEARSON is a former guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band and has been playing professionally since the age of 15. Although best known as a blues & jazz guitarist, he's also a singer, songwriter & producer. Jack has worked live or in the studio with a long list of artists including Vince Gill, Jimmy Buffett, Earl Scruggs, Chris LeDoux, Delbert McClinton, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and Chuck Leavell to name a few. VICKI GENFAN is a virtuoso guitarist, singer and composer. Guitar player magazine crowned her a new "Guitar Superstar" in 2008 Drawing from folk, jazz, pop, soul and world music, Vicki is redefining 'singer/songwriter culture.' With a mastery of the acoustic guitar that borders on pure alchemy, audiences are mesmerized by the waves of sound Vicki creates with just two hands and her voice. Using 29 alternate tunings and the percussive technique she calls 'slap-tap', you'll find the addition of her pure, expressive vocals that dig deep and stir the heart to be the perfect accompaniment on many of her songs. Website for Vicki Genfan.

ERIC BRACE & PETER COOPER have a created a body of work that reflects their literate sensibilities as songwriters, a love of harmony and wry humor, and their deep respect for the masters they're lucky enough to play with. When Brace and Cooper play together, it's something special. The pair's last album, 'Master Sessions,' is a tour de force that made its way onto numerous critics' Best of 2010 lists.Their most recent project, 'I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow,' was featured on NPR's All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. It's a tribute to country music's greatest storytelling songwriter and Kentucky native Tom T. Hall. THE RICHTER UZUR DUO are each classical musicians of the highest caliber with successful international solo careers and intensive training from two of the world's most lauded musical institutions: The Moscow Conservatory and The Royal College of Music respectively. Their musical interests and abilities, however, are far from limited to classical music. In their teens and twenties, while developing into classical virtuosi, they cut their teeth in rock bands and delved into folk and world music. The duo's uniqueness is how they combine classical, rock and folk music and themes into truly original new compositions. The duo's latest recording is 'String Theory' and it was named best new release by Classical Guitar Alive in 2010.

JAKE SCHEPPS has made a name for himself as a banjo renaissance man, an artist with not only an adroit touch on his instrument but an intrepid, imaginative vision for contemporary stringband music. Although a student of traditional and progressive bluegrass styles as a player, Schepps has stretched beyond those genres to take his place alongside the Punch Brothers, Matt Flinner and other notables in a field the Colorado-based banjoist likes to call simply "new acoustic music." His venturesome new album, 'An Evening in the Village: The Music of Béla Bartók,' finds common ground between the piquant beauty of the great Hungarian composer's take on Eastern European folk melodies and the big-sky vibrancy of new American acoustic music. HARPETH RISING is a group of four young classically trained musicians exploring the Americana genre. With a banjo and fiddle, you might think they're traditional bluegrass, but think again: cello and hand drums round out the group, creating a truly new sound. A little bit bluegrass, a little bit folk, a little bit classical and whole lot of original, Harpeth Rising is a band to watch. The band just released their second album, with Grammy-award winning producer Bil VornDick, entitled 'Dead Man's Hand'.

MICHAEL MARTIN MURPHEY's song "Wildfire" was one of the biggest pop hits of the 70's. He returns to the WoodSongs stage with a brand new bluegrass CD called 'Tall Grass & Cool Water.' It's his third album in this Grammy nominated series that explores the similarities between Bluegrass and American Cowboy Music. This "singing cowboy poet", is not only the number one, best-selling singer/ songwriter of American Cowboy Music, he's one of the world's most respected singer/ songwriters in the Pop and Country-Western field. HORSE CRAZY COWGIRL BAND is an award winning western trio featuring beautiful harmony, excellent musicianship, and heart-hugging hilarious stage presence. Performing all over the United States and Canada, this wonderful group brings the audience along the trail of the American Western experience with traditional cowboy music and original compositions about love of place and land. This rural Washington State Trio are winners of the 2010 Western Music Association's Harmony Trio Award and were nominated for Cowboy/Western Swing Group of the Year and Album of the Year 2008 and 2009. The trio's latest recording is 'My Horse Knows The Way.'

KEITH MEDLEY is a Kentucky native and plays one of the most unusual instruments that we've ever come across. It's a one-of-a-kind 27-string guitar that Steve designed himself. In the late 70's his band opened for up-and-comers like George Strait, Johnny Paycheck, Ed Bruce, Rita Coolidge, Neil Young and many more from that era. When Keith got off the road in the late 80s he focused on another passion, building and repairing guitars. He eventually went to work for one of the largest guitar companies in the country building custom guitars, and for a few years also ran his own company, Medley Guitars and with it performs his own compositions. DONNA ULISSE (pronounced "you-liss-ee") was born in Hampton Virginia and surrounded by a musical family. Donna made her first appearance singing at the tender age of three when she wandered onto the stage with a bluegrass band. Since then, bluegrass fans are getting to know Ulisse for her songwriter-driven brand of bluegrass, often called "bluegrass without borders." As a writer she has recently had songs recorded by Claire Lynch, Darin & Brooke Aldridge and also had the title cut to Louise Mosrie's "Home" which was the #1 Folk album in the nation in January 2010. In June of 2011 Hadley Music Group released a fourth CD on Ulisse; another collection of original tunes by this gifted singer songwriter titled "An Easy Climb". Also, she just completed a tour of Russia. The invitation to perform was sent from the U.S. Embassy in Russia where Donna performed with several Russian bluegrass bands.

JOHN GORKA AND ELIZA GILKYSON are considered two of the best contemporary Singer/songwriters touring today. These longtime friends recently teamed up with Lucy Kaplansky to form the super folk group Red Horse. The trio's self titled debut CD was released last year and it became an instant folk classic and a big hit with fans. JOHN GORKA is a world-renowned singer-songwriter who was raised in New Jersey and came out of New York City's Greenwich Village folk scene that produced such songwriters as Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin. His award-winning songs have been recorded and performed by such notable artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith and Mary Black. John has recorded eleven solo albums, six on Red House Records. His latest is So Dark You See. ELIZA GILKYSON is a politically minded, poetically gifted singer-songwriter, who has become one of the most respected musicians in roots, folk and Americana circles. The Grammy-nominated artist was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2006, she was recognized with 3 Austin Music Awards and 4 Folk Alliance Music Awards, one of which was for "Song of the Year" for her tune "Man of God." Her latest solo CD is Roses at the End of Time on Red House Records. BLITZ THE AMBASSADOR may seem like an unusual booking for WoodSongs at first glance. The Ghanaian-born, New York-based composer, and producer unleashes psychedelic Afrobeat colors and triple-time rhymes with a lightning-fast mind, the political boldness of Chuck D, and the sixth groove sense of Fela Kuti. All set to swirls of brass, distorted guitars, and the crackle and pop of old amplifiers. However, for his WoodSongs performance, Blitz will be performing a more intimate, stripped down set. Check out his video for "Remembering The Future" to see this talented artist in action as Michael welcomes the show's first hip hop artist and explores the genre's connection to folk music.

TIME FOR THREE returns to the WoodSongs stage with their groundbreaking, category-shattering music that rises beyond traditional classification, with elements of classical, country western, gypsy and jazz idioms forming a blend all its own. This young, dynamic trio of classically trained string musicians transcends traditional performance genres. In concert, a bluegrass standard like Orange Blossom Special may be followed by a gypsy-tinged Csardas. The band is equally comfortable offering their own arrangements of shorter classical works and popular hits, whether Brahms or the Beatles. They have begun a major commissioning program to expand their unique repertoire for both symphony orchestras. TANGLETOWN TRIO is an innovative new music group with classical and opera backgrounds. They celebrate new music and new composers with passionate elegance. The trio includes mezzo-soprano and composer Sarah Mattox, master violinist Jo Nardolillo, and pianist Judith Cohen, who is an official Steinway artist. All three of these very accomplished musicians are masters of their respective instrument and are considered some of the finest artists in the country. The TangleTown Trio has a mission to perform beautiful, powerful, evocative living music with a vibrant energy that claims the audience as a vital, active participant. Their brand new CD is called "Song Nouveau."

OLLABELLE is a multi-talented, democratic collective whose participants share vocal and songwriting duties. This New York quintet draws from a deep well of gospel, blues, bluegrass, and country influences to create timelessly resonant music that honors the integrity of its sources while remaining effortlessly contemporary. Emmylou Harris said of the band, "Every time I hear something on the radio I truly love, it's Ollabelle." The band has emerged from a five year period of great artistic and personal change - including marriages, births, tours and other projects - to deliver their most assured, deeply felt album to date, "Neon Blue Bird." The CD was produced by Ollabelle and recorded in Athens, NY and at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock. GOITSE (pronounced gwi-cha) is a five member Irish Trad band which specializes in their unique rhythmic arrangements of well known tunes and own compositions. Goitse is a Donegal Irish word meaning 'come here'. The band, now in it's third year, are all students of Traditional Music and Dance at the University of Limerick and have captured several prominent awards including Colm Phelan becoming the first World Bodhrán Champion. This is the band's first tour in the states.

WOODY PINES transports you to the Mississippi Delta when AM radio was king with his energetic brand of Roots Music, Ragtime, Country Blues, and Viper Jazz. The band; comprised of Woody on guitar, banjo, harmonica and lead vocals, Zack Pozebanchuk on upright bass, Nathan Taylor on drums, and Darin Gentry on fiddle; epitomizes the Dixieland sound and embraces a simpler time. If Pines' elegantly-disheveled fedora and vintage resonator guitar don't set the mood (both are strongly suggestive of the musician's mix of ragtime, country blues and lightning-speed folk), the backing band does the trick. Crackerjack musicianship goes a long way toward a band's greatness, but showmanship seals the deal. Pines, on stage, is an old soul and natural performer, storied and steeped in the best of Americana. As honky tonk hero, Billy Joe Shaver puts it, "Woody Pines is the best band I ever heard in my life I swear.... I'm their biggest fan now!" COLIN O'BRIEN is a prolific nationally touring performer, recording artist and master multi-musician known for his John Hartford Tribute show. Colin plays the daylights out of the banjo, fiddle and guitar, and his feet stay mighty busy as well dancing rhythms on his magic hardwood "Clogginator." Colin didn't start out as a folkie. He studied classical guitar at the Cornish College of the Arts, before moving to Milwaukee in 1993 to study guitar at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. He's on the faculty there now teaching Banjo, Guitar and Fiddle, has been since 2000. Colin has published two banjo instructional books and a DVD and most recently he's released an all instrumental guitar record, "Inside These Guitars."

THE HILLBENDERS are undeniably the hottest young band on the acoustic scene. Claiming the championship title at the 2009 Telluride Bluegrass Band Competition helped put The HillBenders on the map, and their recent victory at the 2010 National Single Microphone Championships prove that they continue to be a force to be reckoned with. These buzz-worthy bluegrass whiz-kids are quickly rising above many of their peers and gaining international recognition for their aggressive combination of contemporary influences with traditional inspiration and instrumentation, as well as their infectiously energetic stage performances. The HillBenders released their debut album Down To My Last Dollar in spring 2010 and are currently working on their follow-up CD. AL PETTEWAY & AMY WHITE are an award winning duo that performs contemporary Celtic- & Appalachian-Influenced Acoustic Groove. Their music was featured throughout the soundtrack of the 2009 Ken Burns EMMY-winning documentary, The National Parks: America's Best Idea. And in 2010, their album, "Caledon Wood" (which includes the main theme of the National Parks documentary) was names one of the essential albums of the past 20 years in Acoustic Guitar Magazine. Their recent album "High in the Blue Ridge" released early this year.

NU BLU is a great bluegrass band fronted by husband and wife team Daniel and Carolyn Routh and are creating quite a stir in the bluegrass community. In 2011, Nu-Blu was again nominated by the Carolina Music Awards and geared up for their new album, THE BLU-DISC on Pinecastle Records. The label has released the first single, "Other Woman's Blues" written by Kira Small and providing a unique twist on Dolly Parton's hit song "Jolene." DARIN AND BROOKE ALDRIDGE is a rising bluegrass duo, newlyweds singing and playing a rich combination of bluegrass and country duets. Their rich harmonies, supported by a first rate band, showcase two fine individual voices with a superb blend. Darin played with Acoustic Syndicate and worked several years in the legendary band The County Gentlemen. Brooke Justice Aldridge grew up on the mountains of Avery County, NC. Her voice carries the lilt of the mountains along with the sophisticated sounds of a singer with experience way beyond her 25 years.

HOT TUNA is founding members of the legacy rock band Jefferson Airplane, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. They have just released their first studio record in 20 years "Steady As She Goes" on Red House Records and will be performing on WoodSongs in a special acoustic performance to celebrate the album. From their days playing together as teenagers to their current acoustic and electric blues, probably no one has more consistently led American music for the last 50 years. The pair began playing together while growing up in the Washington D.C. area. While in The Jefferson Airplane, putting together the soundtrack of the 60s, the pair remained loyal to the blues, jazz, bluegrass, and folk influences of the small clubs and larger venues they had learned from years before. While in San Francisco and even in hotel rooms on the road, they would play together and worked up a set of songs that they would often play at clubs in the Bay Area and while on the road, often after having played a set with the Airplane. This led to a record contract; in fact, they had an album recorded before they decided to name their band Hot Tuna. With it they launched on an odyssey which has itself continued for more than 35 years, always finding new and interesting turns in its path forward. MOUNTAIN HEART is bluegrass super group that has been fearlessly revolutionizing the way acoustic music can be presented and played. The band's name has been synonymous with cutting-edge excellence in acoustic music circles since the group's creation in 1999. Widely known throughout the music industry for continually redefining the boundaries of acoustic music, the band is one of the most highly awarded ensembles ever assembled. Mountain Heart, or members of the band, have either won or been nominated for Grammy's, ACM, CMA, and multiple IBMA Awards. The band is out touring in support of their 7'th album, "That Just Happened", which was released in late 2010 on their own imprint, MH Music Group.