This week on the LocalGrass Hotline: Kenny O’Quinn & David Adkins Of Republik Steele!

A few nights ago we picked up the phone at the LocalGrass World Headquarters & dialed up Kenny O’Quinn & David Adkins of Republik Steele. By now our regular listeners should be familiar with their music, but we thought it would be cool to have these guys join us on the show and tell our listeners all about this hot new band from Elkhorn City, Kentucky.

We pretty much just handed the hour over to these guys and they didn’t disappoint us! They told us how the band came to be, where the name Republik Steele came from and why Republik is spelled with a ‘K’ and why Steele has an ‘E’. We talked about a musical hero or two, musical influences, future show dates (they had 35 on the books for 2012 as of this taping) and an exciting recording project that’s currently in the works!

We’ve had the opportunity to see these guys perform (most recently in Surgoingsville, Tennessee at Bellamy Hardware) and we’re here to tell you they put on one whale of a show! If you see the name Republik Steele at a bluegrass festival or show near you, buy a ticket! It’s that simple. When they pick & sing, you’re listening to the real deal.

 If you love straight ahead traditional bluegrass that played with plenty of heart & soul, you definitely don’t want to miss this edition of LocalGrassRadio! If you’re in or around Emory, Virginia tune us in at 90.7 FM WEHC each & every Sunday night at 8, and as always, we’re streaming! You can catch the stream by clicking the “listen live” link at our very own www.localgrass.com!

LocalGrass Radio: Taking local Bluegrass off the porch & sending it around the world!

‘Pickin’ For Phil’ Takes Place April 1st in Bristol

Benefit for Bluegrass Dobroist Phil Leadbetter coming to Paramount Center for the Arts Sunday, April 1, 2012

A large cast of friends and fellow musicians will host a special Cancer Treatment Benefit Bluegrass Show for well-known Dobro artist, Phil Leadbetter, at The Paramount Center for the Arts on Sunday, April 1. The concert called “A Pickin’ for Phil” will include two great shows, one at 3:00 p.m., and another at 7:30 p.m. The all-star line up includes Tim Stafford (of Blue Highway), Dale Ann Bradley, Mike Bub, Michael Cleveland, Missy Raines, Kim Fox, Kenny & Amanda Smith, Jim Hurst, Julie & John Pennell, Gena Britt, Don Rigsby, Steve Gulley, Donna Ulisse, Rick Stanley, Justin Moses, Jason Burleson and Larry Cordle. Tickets are $20.00 per show, are on sale now, and are available by calling the Paramount Center at 423-274-8920 Tuesday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Tickets are also available online at www.etix.com. This concert is presented locally with support from Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion.

Phil Leadbetter has a long list of career accomplishments in the Bluegrass genre, including a Grammy nomination, and several International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) nominations for Dobro Player of the Year, and won this prestigious title in 2006. During his musical career, Leadbetter has performed at the White House and other special events across the U.S., and played with the late Grandpa Jones, and Vern Gosdin. Leadbetter was also a member of J.D. Crowe & The New South, Wildfire and the group, Grasstowne. Most recently, Leadbetter was performing with Grand Ole Opry stars, The Whites, an American country music group.

In 2011, Leadbetter was diagnosed with Classic Hodgkins Lymphoma, and has been undergoing treatment to date. All proceeds from this benefit will be donated to help with medical expenses. The Bristol concert is one of several events hosted by the Bluegrass community in different areas of the country. In addition to these concerts, the public may make a secure donation online at www.unclephilfund.com. Pinecastle Music has also offered to donate all proceeds from the sales of select titles to benefit Phil Leadbetter. Visit their website at pinecastlemusic.com to see a list of those titles.

The detailed press release for this event contributed by promoter and member of Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion, Larry Gorley, can be read in it’s entirety on our website at www.localgrass.com.

We hope you’ll all join us in Bristol on April 1 for this big event. And as always, we hope you’ll tune us in each & every Sunday night on 90.7 FM WEHC from Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia. This week we’re re-airing The Bluegrass Scholars, a fine traditional band we recorded last year when they performed at Bellamy Hardware in Surgoinsville, TN

LocalGrass Radio. Playing the best local bluegrass you’ve never heard!

From North Carolina to Mississippi… Clean into Canada, back through Ohio and finishing up back in North Carolina…. In ONE hour!

WHEW! That made us tired and we didn’t even get out of our chairs! We start the show off this week with a fairly new band from Madison, North Carolina called Blues Creek. This band was formed in 2005 and have a great project out on the market. If you’re in the vicinity of Madison, North Carolina and Blues Creek is playing, go by and have a listen and pick up their self titled CD! Don’t forget to mention that you heard them on LocalGrass Radio! In the meantime, head over to Facebook and look them up!

After enjoying a couple of tunes by Blues Creek, we’re heading into the deep south to hear some original music by a group of young guys from the great state of Mississippi. They are known as Breaking Grass. In the bio information we have here at the LocalGrass World Headquarters, we see that Breaking Grass won the 2011 Mississippi State Bluegrass Band Championship! We can certainly understand why. Their musicianship along with Cody Farrar’s original lyrics sound like the stuff that would come from seasoned entertainers, NOT folks this young! Check out their website at breakingrass.com!

Our next stop is north of the border, and we’re not talking about Gate City, Virginia! The Ducharme Family band have a sound that’s all their own. According to their website, they are “based in a little town called River Valley in Northern Ontario, a father Mike and his two sons form the band. Marc Rivet from Coniston Ontario adds the finishing touches with his fine banjo playing.” They have been nominated several times at the Central Canadian Bluegrass Music Awards and have a great CD out called, “Down On The River”. Check them out at their website and if you do see them in person, tell them Linda & Kenneth was playing the fire outta that CD!

Next stop, Ohio, USA! The Efaw family should be a name that our regular listeners are familiar with by now. Their great traditional band, The Bluegrass Mountaineers, stay true to the sounds made famous by Carter & Ralph Stanley in the mountains of Virginia. We’ve played the Mountaineers on the show a couple of times before, and will continue to do so as long as they’re cranking out this great traditional bluegrass, and with the fourth generation coming along, it looks like we’ll have plenty of material for future shows! Visit the Bluegrass Mountaineers at their website! If you love great traditional tunes performed the way they were meant to be, you’re gonna love them!

Our final stop on this bluegrass road trip brings us back to the state where we started, North Carolina. That is the home of Al Batten and the Bluegrass Reunion. Al was a guest on our show about a year ago. Al wasn’t just a guest, he was a GREAT guest! He’s been traveling around the world with his band for a lot of years and has the stories to prove it! Made up of some of the finest traditional bluegrass musicians central N.C. has to offer, Al Batten and the Bluegrass Reunion can’t be beat! To end the show we feature a snippet of one of those stories Al shared with us and a song that has been most popular to thousands of listeners down in North Carolina. Visit Al Batten and his band at the website, bluegrassreunion.com. You’ll be glad you did!

Can you believe we’ve packed all that into one show? It’s a show worth tuning in to hear, that’s for sure! Head over and visit us on our own little home on the ‘lectric interweb too! We’d love it if you’d click some of our links and follow us on Twitter and come over to Facebook and join us there! You can find all the links to that and more at localgrass.com. Tune us in each and every Sunday night on 90.7 FM WEHC where we’re taking local bluegrass off the porch and sending it around the world!

Moccasin Gap LIVE! (and a preview of the new Freeman & Williams project for good measure!)

Regular listeners of LocalGrass Radio and most of  you who are regular readers of this blog already know that our favorite venue for great bluegrass is the Bellamy Hardware down in Surgoinsville, Tennessee. On a Saturday night last December, just a week before Christmas, we loaded up the Mo-Bile command unit and took a ride down highway 11w to see Moccasin Gap. It was one of the coldest nights of the season, but on the inside the potato soup, the cornbread and the music was sizzlin’ hot! The Moccasin Gap bluegrass band consists of Eric McMurray on banjo & fiddle, his wife Luanne McMurray on bass, John Malayter on mandolin and Daniel Housewright on guitar. These guys and gal have just released their latest CD project called, At Studio One. The band was inspired to record this album at the studios of WETS radio on the campus of East Tennessee State University. After appearing on “Studio One” a popluar Saturday afternoon show hosted by Dave Carter, they decided the acoustics in that studio would be a perfect fit for the project they had in mind. Visit their website for more information and while you’re there check out At Studio One. Order 3 or 4 copies. One for yourself and a couple for your friends! Moccasin Gap can also be found on Facebook! If you see them at a festival, show or venue in your area, check them out! We think you’ll like what you hear!

Also on this, the 51st edition of LocalGrass Radio, we’re going to preview Freeman & Williams, the latest release from Mountain Roads Recordings. As the MRR website puts it, “A new fresh sound from award-winning veteran performers, Jeanette Williams, Johnny Williams and Scott Freeman.” These guys are no strangers to the bluegrass world. Scott Freeman plays mandolin & fiddle and is a regular member of Pathway, who also record for MRR. Johnny Williams has his own MRR project called “Last Day Of Galax” and can be heard on several other offerings by Mountain Roads Recordings, such as music by Big Country Bluegrass and  the collaborations, Close Kin and Born Into Bluegrass. Johnny’s wife Jeanette is a fine singer with several great project of her own including her work with The Daughters Of Bluegrass. Johnny, Jeanette & Scott are all great songwriters as well as fine musicians and singers. Visit the Mountain Roads Recordings website and check out Freeman & Williams as well as all of their other great artists such as The Snyder Family, The VW Boys, Jim Lloyd, Rich In Tradition and MORE!

Be sure to tune in each & every Sunday night on 90.7 FM WEHC or catch us on localgrass.com as we stream around the world!  We play the best local bluegrass you’ve never heard!

Paula Dellenback & Fox River – LIVE!

Join us for the 50th episode of The LocalGrass Radio Show! On this edition we’re featuring an artist who was one of the first guests to ever join us via telephone on the, then brand new, LocalGrass Hotline. That was episode three. We were only children! Well, not exactly children, but the show sure was a baby!  If you’d like to go back in time and read our blog entry for that show, you have a couple of choices. You could scroll & click and scroll & click for several minutes or we’ve made it easy for you. Just click  HERE! The guest we’re speaking of is Paula Dellenback. The first time Paula was on the show, we played several cuts from her newly released CD, The Crooked Road and chatted with her about lots of things pertaining to her life and music. Back when show 3 hit the airwaves, Paula was searching for band members. Now she has those band members and together they make up, Paula Dellenback & Fox River. Back in 2011 Paula and the band played in Dobson, North Carolina at Shelton’s Vineyard. They were able to make a live recording of that concert and we’re happy to get the opportunity to share it with our worldwide radio audience! Be sure and visit Paula & Fox River at their website and be sure to check them out on Facebook at their fan site, Red Fox.

To round out the hour we’re going to play a few tunes by Republik Steele, a band who is fairly new to the bluegrass world. If you’re a regular listener, you’ve probably heard Republik Steele on the show before. They come from Elkhorn City, Kentucky and are currently working on their first studio project. They have a lot of good things in the works for the near future.

If you see Paula Dellenback & Fox River or Republik Steele somewhere out on the road, be sure and tell them you heard ‘em right here on LocalGrass Radio! Be sure to visit our website at LocalGrass.com and listen to us on 90.7 FM WECH or streaming online. We’re playing the best local bluegrass you’ve never heard!

Have you heard the Hurds?

The Hurd Family, that is! These guys (and gal) do an awesome job of entertaining with their great family harmony and fine musical abilities. We caught them last January (2011) at the Bellamy Hardware in Surgoinsville, Tennessee, and decided then and there that the next time we had an opportunity, we were gonna record them for LocalGrass Radio! That opportunity came exactly 1 year later, but we held true to our word, and we’ve got ‘em for you on the show this week! Their song selections are great, too! They reach back and find some you probably haven’t heard in a while. We usually supply links to our featured band’s website or their Facebook page, but unfortunately, The Hurd Family are not on the ‘lectric interweb. You know who IS on it? That’s exactly right! The LocalGrass Radio Show and our good friends & media parters at the Bellamy Hardware! Don’t forget to check out our podcast as well. We try to keep our last 10 or so interview shows posted. If you’re a fan of Apple’s iTunes store, you can also find us there! LocalGrass Radio. We’re not only taking local bluegrass off the porch & sending it around the world… we’re playing the best local bluegrass you’ve never heard!

Willie P. Richardson is on the PHONE!

This weeks edition of the show is a tad different from all the rest. Instead of featuring a local band, we’re welcoming a man who is known by millions for his hilarious phone pranks. The one & only Willie P. Richardson recently paid us a visit on the LocalGrass Hotline! We can’t wait to share this one with our radio audience! Willie tells us some great stories! Have you heard the one about his first phone prank? What about how he spent the money from his first royalty check? That’s just the beginning! Join us for this great edition with one of the funniest people on the planet and one of the nicest guys we know! We’ve thrown in a little bit of local music as always. We’re spinning a new song by The Sons Of Bluegrass, a group of young folks who come to us from East Tennessee State University, and also a little bit of pickin by Marvin Ashby & High Octane.  Marv and the guys come from Berkley Springs, WV. Click those links and pay these bands a visit, but for the most part, this edition is all about the comedy of our very special guest. Visit Willie P on his website at www.worldwidewillie.com. While you’re there, order a few CD’s, get Willie’s chili recipe, find out how to get Willie to conduct your wedding…… hang on a second, maybe you should just wait and hear him tell it himself! Don’t forget us on 90.7 WEHC this and every Sunday night at 8pm for the best local bluegrass you’ve never heard! We can also be heard around the world on the WEHC stream! If you missed the show on the radio, check out the podcast!  Please visit us at our very own website at  LocalGrass.com and remember, we’re taking local bluegrass off the porch and sending it around the world!