The Shift List – Restaurant Workers Relief Program

This week on The Shift List, a replay of our conversation with Chef Edward Lee, recorded back in 2018.

Chef Lee is helping to lead the way in bringing restaurant workers relief with his Restaurant Workers Relief Program through The Lee Initiative. Due to the closure of so many restaurants and bars across America in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of workers have an urgent need for assistance, and they need our help now more than ever.

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In partnership with Maker’s Mark Bourbon, Chef Lee is transforming restaurants across the country into relief centers for any restaurant worker who has been laid off or has had a significant reduction in hours and/or pay. The Lee Initiative, in conjunction with local chefs in every majorly affected community across the country, is offering help for those in need of food and supplies, and each night, they’re packing hundreds of to-go meals.

Restaurateurs like Nancy Silverton in Los Angeles, Jose Salazar in Cincinnati, and Lee’s own Succotash and 610 Magnolia teams in D.C. and Louisville are doing so much good right now, along with so many others across the country. The BGS Podcast Network team wants to do what we can to spread the word and shine a spotlight on this important work.

For more information and to donate, visit leeinitiative.org, and in the meantime, while we’re all trapped indoors, continue to support your local community by ordering takeout and pickup (if your local guidelines and recommendations permit it).

The Breakdown – The Seldom Scene, ‘Live at The Cellar Door’

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On our latest episode of The Breakdown, the Seldom Scene’s classic 1975 release, Live at the Cellar Door, is featured, and if ever there was a party of a bluegrass album, this is it.

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Hosts Patrick M’Gonigle and Emma John interview original Seldom Scene band members Tom Gray and Ben Eldridge to find out what was really going down on that mad and marvelous night in 1975.

Season 2 of The Breakdown is sponsored by The Soundtrack of America: Made In Tennessee. Visit TNvacation.com to start planning your trip.

The Show On The Road – The Wood Brothers

Right before the whole world as we know it shut down and they shortened their West Coast tour due to COVID-19, host Z. Lupetin spoke to Oliver and Chris Wood — Americana pioneers The Wood Brothers — about their renewed musical bond, how they grew up in Colorado jamming with their biology professor dad, and how they just barely missed the great East Nashville tornado earlier this month. When it rains it does pour, it seems.


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The Wood Brothers’ brand new record, Kingdom in My Mind, is a sweetly funky, ballsy, bluesy, booty-shaking, and romantic improvisational masterwork. Do yourself a favor and turn it up loud and proud — it will help you groove through the lockdown. If there is anything that’s clear in this deeply strange and unsettling time, it’s that we need music more than ever.

The String – Ron Pope

Ron Pope is a case study in good indie art and commerce. He’s an admired songwriter with an avid following for his cathartic, detail-laden songs and his wide-ranging command of roots and rock and roll genres.


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Over more than a dozen albums, Pope has steered his own ship in a business partnership with his wife/manager, Blair, and their label, Brooklyn Basement Records. The newest project is the sweeping album Bone Structure. A Georgia native, he got his career moving in New York and then moved to Nashville, where he’s raising a daughter and keeping the songs flowing. Also in the hour, a radio field trip to Nashville’s shrine of analog recording, Welcome To 1979.

Ricky Skaggs – Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass

Bluegrass legend and Country Music Hall of Famer Ricky Skaggs talks to TOY HEART host Tom Power about what it was like to grow up as a child prodigy, the real story of how he got pulled on stage by Bill Monroe, how meeting Keith Whitley changed his life forever — and the last time they ever spoke. Plus, a never before told story of how Bill Monroe thought Ricky would make a “fine Blue Grass Boy.”

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It’s the story of Ricky Skaggs… but the one that you may not expect. Skaggs is a notable entry point to bluegrass for many listeners and fans — like our first guest, Del McCoury is as well. Though his story is familiar: From playing the Grand Ole Opry as a tot, joining Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys, and going on to perform and record with J.D. Crowe and the New South, to his own smashing success in mainstream country and eventual return to his now dynastic bluegrass career. Still, Tom Power displays Skaggs in a fresh light, with stories from and impressions of the icon that even veteran fans will find refreshing and illuminating.

Subscribe to TOY HEART: A Podcast About Bluegrass wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every other Thursday through May.

The String – Nora Jane Struthers and The Mastersons

Nora Jane Struthers just released her fifth album, celebrating her full life, Bright Lights, Long Drives, First Words, and says it includes “Good Thing,” the best song she’s ever written.

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Living the road life makes for tight musical couples. And in this split episode, Craig speaks with a new mom who tours and duets with her husband and a couple that’s been touring for a decade on their own and as side musicians. Then it’s The Mastersons, both of them, as Chris and Elanor talk about meeting, becoming part of Steve Earle’s band and maintaining an identity as an Americana duo. Their new project is No Time For Love Songs.

The Breakdown – ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’

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This week, hosts Patrick M’Gonigle and Emma John dissect the bluegrass-centered soundtrack to the Coen Brothers’ film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, with a little help from their friends Chris Thomas King and Dan Tyminski.

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O Brother, Where Art Thou? was the movie that brought bluegrass to a new generation, and sent dozens of musical careers into the stratosphere. Fake beards not required.

Season 2 of The Breakdown is sponsored by The Soundtrack of America: Made In Tennessee. Visit TNvacation.com to start planning your trip.

The String – Music City Postcard: Asheville, NC

Episode 121 of The String is a field trip to Asheville, NC, which Rolling Stone last year touted as one of the best music scenes in the country.


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Those of us who visit Western North Carolina regularly already knew that fact, and this week’s show surveys the talent and the institutions making the region important in roots music and beyond. Features: Amanda Anne Platt of the Honeycutters, Echo Mountain Studio, WNCW radio, Crossroads Music, Sarah Siskind, Morgan Geer and more.


Photo credit: @CarShowShooter on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Del McCoury – Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass

In an interview backstage at the Grand Ole Opry host Tom Power talks to Bluegrass Hall of Famer and Grammy award-winner Del McCoury about how he started playing banjo, his (interesting) time in the military, joining Bill Monroe’s band, being replaced by Bill Keith, starting over, playing music with his sons, and how he found his way to becoming a legend of bluegrass music — and to some, defining the whole thing.


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Subscribe to TOY HEART: A Podcast About Bluegrass wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every other Thursday through May.

 

The Breakdown – Alison Krauss & Union Station, ‘So Long, So Wrong’

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Episode 3 of The Breakdown’s second season explores Alison Krauss & Union Station’s 1997 album So Long, So Wrong.

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It was the album that nearly broke them – but instead, it made them. If you weren’t in love with Alison Krauss and Union Station by the end of their third album, So Long, So Wrong, you needed to check your pulse. Patrick and Emma find out the stressful story behind the second best creation of the ’90s (after Pop Tarts, of course).

Season 2 of The Breakdown is sponsored by The Soundtrack of America: Made In Tennessee. Visit TNvacation.com to start planning your trip.