Tag: BGS Podcast Network

The String – Will Kimbrough and Steve Earle

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Will Kimbrough, 30-year veteran of Nashville TN is up to so many musical projects, it took a whole segment to cover them all. He’s in three bands and an acoustic duo. He writes with and for Jimmy Buffett. He’s been on the road over recent years with Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris, two of his heroes. He produces great records. And, lest we forget, he’s a dynamic performing songwriter and guitarist, steaming ahead with a busy year of touring and a new album, the grooving and highly thought provoking I Like It Down Here.

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Also in the hour, an excerpt from a recent catch up with the mighty Steve Earle, who’s just released his long awaited tribute to his late great friend Guy Clark. Full conversation is at WMOT.org.

The Show On The Road – Dom Flemons

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on the show,  Z’s two-part conversation with Dom Flemons, the Grammy award-winning American songster who has made it his mission to reclaim and rejuvenate the lost acoustic music of the past and bring it whistling brightly into the future.

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Born in Phoenix, Arizona to parents of African American and Mexican heritage, the ever-curious young Dominique Flemons went from playing drums in his school band and busking on the streets of Flagstaff with his fingerpicked guitar and neck rack harmonica to taking a chance that would change his life completely. He scrounged enough money to make it to the Black Banjo gathering in North Carolina, where he would meet Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson and begin a seven year run with their groundbreaking African American string band, The Carolina Chocolate Drops. They would go on win a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album, headline festivals and theaters around the world, open for Bob Dylan, play the Grand Ole Opry, and burst into the collective consciousness of young acoustic music hopefuls all around the world who were tired of the same stoic, hillbilly bluegrass and white-washed old-time songs played over and over around the festival campfire.

The String – Music City Postcard: Tulsa, OK

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This special field trip edition of The String tours the exciting music scene in Tulsa with visits to Cain’s Ballroom, Russell’s Church Studio, currently under renovation, the Woody Guthrie Center, the Bob Dylan Archive and iconic honky tonk The Colony.

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Tulsa, OK has an important musical past but also a dynamic present built on the legacies and impact of Bob Wills, Leon Russell, J.J. Cale, Woody Guthrie and more. We meet locals who are championing the next wave of Tulsa music, including singer/songwriter and producer Jared Tyler. See WMOT.org for photos, a playlist and more resources.

The Show On The Road – Gaby Moreno

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week, a folk-pop shapeshifter who effervescently sings in four languages and has rocked stages on four continents, Gaby Moreno.

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Born María Gabriela Moreno Bonilla in Guatemala City, she knew she wanted more as a teenager and journeyed to the USA with that big voice and an even bigger dream. She has since lived several lives inside the dark heart of the LA music business, getting signed to Warner Brothers at 18 and then dropped and signed by Epic Records, only to be dropped again by age 20.

Why didn’t she give up and go home? Because the dream was a bit bigger than that. Over the last decade and a half, Gaby has put out a series of sonically adventurous and politically fearless English and Spanish language albums that have created an international fanbase which takes her around the world each year. Hopscotching from early jazz to introspective folk to Dap-King-assisted soul, Gaby has been filling concert halls from Berlin to Sydney, winning her a Latin Grammy in the process, setting up a dream collaboration on a new album with Van Dyke Parks, and getting her weekly appearances on NPR’s Live From Here as Chris Thile’s secret weapon. She even helped write the theme song to the beloved NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation!

While she may be multi-talented, she is also among the kindest, sweetest souls to be featured on The Show On The Road. Make sure you stick around for a new song she plays at the end and a short story she wrote on the spot about UFO’s and time travel.

The Show On The Road – Rayland Baxter

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on the show, Z. meets up with songwriter and rock ‘n’ roller Rayland Baxter on the road in Las Vegas.


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Beyond Rayland Baxter’s mellow, easy going demeanor lies a deeply perceptive and sharp-as-a-knife craftsman who takes his songwriting deadly serious. His newest record, Wide Awake, deepens his focus and finds him questioning the very existence of the American dream being bought and sold all around us. 

The Show On The Road – Rachel Baiman

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Fiddler and banjo picker Rachel Baiman calls her mom on this week’s episode of The Show On The Road with Z. Lupetin.

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A Chicago native, Rachel became an Illinois state fiddling champion as a teenager and later went on to form 10 String Symphony with fellow fiddler Christian Sedelmyer.

Z talks with her about the gift and sacrifice of making music your life, and how her organization Folk Fights Back has given her and her fellow Nashville songwriters a way to directly challenge the policies of the current Presidential administration.

The String – The Managers Episode

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

In this special hour, a roundtable talk with two outstanding artist managers from the world of roots and Americana music.

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Denise Stiff went from college event booking to working for agencies and through that world took on management – first of Irish singer Maura O’Connell and then Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, and Sarah Jarosz – among others. It’s a kind of defining list of magnificent talent to emerge from bluegrass and roots. Michelle Concesion came from advertising, but eventually her love of music drew her to helping artists and it seemed destiny that she’d take them on as clients and start her own firm, Nashville-based Market Monkeys. She has worked with the multi-dimensional songwriter Susan Werner and Canadian folk star Rose Cousins. Her current roster includes prog-bluegrass band Della Mae, NC songwriter Sarah Siskind, and English folk singer John Smith.

The String – Seth Walker and Steve Conn

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Two gentlemen of Americana who share a soulful feel and a chill vibe while writing songs that cut to the bone.

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Seth Walker talks about his years in Austin, New Orleans and Nashville and some of the new approaches to recording that made his new album Are You Open so special. Louisiana native Steve Conn shares his story as a keyboardist, accordion player and songwriter, culminating in the candid, funky and wonderful Flesh And Bone, out now.

The Show On The Road – Bobby Rush

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

At 85 years old, Bobby Rush has been playing his brand of lovably raunchy, acoustically crunchy, and soulfully rowdy blues for over six decades.

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Starting from his days as part of the Southern migration from his hometown of Homer, Louisiana, to the South Side of Chicago — where he used to have Muddy Waters himself sub for him when he couldn’t do a gig — Bobby Rush, who won his first Grammy at the humble age of 83, has no plans of slowing down.

The String – Michael Cleveland and Nefesh Mountain

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Michael Cleveland is the record-setting, 11-time winner of the IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year award. He’s a traditionally grounded player who’s reaching into new terrain as a 38-year-old phenomenon.

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He’s also been blind since birth and he’s overcome a lot, a story told in the new documentary Flamekeeper. Rounding out the hour, the married duo bandleaders Eric and Doni of Nefesh Mountain, a New York-based band that boldly and brilliantly fuses bluegrass and Jewish music. They sing in Hebrew and English. The melodies are beguiling and ancient-feeling. The musicianship is excellent. They talk about their four-year adventure together as the first band of their kind.