'Mountain Stage' Returning To Tri-Cities

Jun 17, 2009 (Bristol Herald Courier - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- XMSR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- The fifth Twin City taping of the "Mountain Stage" radio program will include its most eclectic lineup yet, organizers said Tuesday.

"Mountain Stage" is produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting and heard each week on National Public Radio, Voice of America and XM satellite radio. The Bristol show is scheduled Aug. 16 at the Paramount Center for the Arts and again will be hosted by the local Birthplace of Country Music Alliance.

Past Twin City shows have featured country musicians Carlene Carter and Dierks Bentley, along with bluegrass music legend Ralph Stanley. But this year's lineup includes Grammy Award-winning blues performer Robert Cray, bluegrass/folk musicians Robin and Linda Williams and traditional folksinger Mike Seeger, according to Bill Hartley, BCMA executive director.

"This is a very diverse lineup that shares a lot of the roots and branches with the music of this region," Hartley said. " 'Mountain Stage' helps us [BCMA] make that connection with the music recorded at the [1927] Bristol Sessions."

Known as the "big bang" of commercial country music, the 1927 Twin City recordings helped launch the careers of Country Music Hall of Fame performers Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. However, that original lineup also included blues, traditional mountain music and gospel recordings, Hartley said.

Cray is a five-time Grammy-Award winner and 30-year blues performer who also performed in the movie "Animal House."

Seeger, the 2009 recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, is a prominent old-time musician and scholar.

The award-winning husband and wife duo of Robin and Linda Williams have been performing together for more than three decades. In addition to their own recordings, they performed on Mary Chapin Carpenter's Grammy Award-winning "Stones in the Road" album and appear regularly on the "Prairie Home Companion" radio program.

The show also will include the Flatlanders, a country-rock trio from Lubbock, Texas, and comprised of former solo artists Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock.

On Tuesday, officials received confirmation that Australian country performers Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson also will perform.

" 'Mountain Stage' offers a big, broad spectrum of music," said Fred McClellan, past president of the BCMA board of directors. "And this gives us the opportunity to tell our story and deliver our message to a much larger audience."

Shows are carried by about 200 radio stations in more than 25 states and the District of Columbia. Locally, "Mountain Stage" airs on WETS-FM, 89.5, in Johnson City, Tenn., at 8 p.m. Saturdays, with a repeat the following Saturday at 3 a.m.

McClellan said the Bristol organization's successful collaboration with "Mountain Stage" reflects the "significance of Bristol's role in music."

BCMA officials continue to solicit sponsorship for a second taping in the Twin City.

"We've established this on the Sunday before our August [NASCAR] race, as a way to kick off that week. We would like to make this a semiannual event and have another taping the week before the spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway," McClellan said.

The taping, before a live audience, is set to begin at 7 p.m. Aug. 16.

dmcgee@bristolnews.com| (276) 645-2532

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