News

Monday night we revisit one of the premier bluegrass bands for your Spindale Cycle, especially so we can celebrate the birthdays of members Pat Enright (Monday) and Roland White (Tuesday).  This 1990 release features their takes on Stephen Foster, Johnny Cash, and Hank Sr. standards, alongside more traditional bluegrass numbers.  Stuart Duncan, Alan O'Bryant, and Gene Libbea round out the lineup. 

The Knoxville band featuring the formidable songwriting of Cruz Contreras, singer Trisha Gene Brady, multi-instrumentalist Tom Pryor, bass player Robert Richards and drummer Jamie Cook is back with its third strong release.  Dynamic, lyrical, multi-dimensional...no doubt one of the strongest regional albums this year, and well worth featuring throughout our Thursday night mix! 

Last week I spoke with Chris McGill, an energy supply expert and vice-president Policy Analysis for the American Gas Association, about a two-year report on natural gas. This report said that the supply of natural gas is at an all time high and that's a great thing for the consumers and for the country.

However, that's only one side of the energy story, so to speak. Yesterday I spoke with Katie Hicks, who is with the non-profit, state-wide organization, Clean Water for North Carolina.

Jeremy Kittel is not your average fiddler.  His collaborations have included acts as diverse as My Morning Jacket, Abigail Washburn, and The Turtle Island String Quartet, and whether working with those projects or leading his own band, he is one of the leading Scottish/Irish fiddlers today.  He brings his band into Studio B before performing Thursday night in Tryon. 

Charles Bradley's life story is a compelling one (the subject of a recent documentary film Soul of America).  He takes the sounds of Stax, Muscle Shoals, and James Brown in particular, and moves it forward with a level of passion and genuineness not surpassed by anyone.  We love his latest Daptone release "Victim of Love", and we welcome him and his band to Studio B before they perform in Asheville Tuesday night. 

It's our 2nd week in a row to feature an  '80's Athens, GA favorite for our Spindale Cycle.  This time it's the premier Southern rock/jamband, with their debut full-length.  Revered as their best -- or at least an essential collection -- by many fellow Spreadheads, Space Wrangler was released in 1988 on the tiny Landslide Record label, before graduating to Capricorn.  Celebrate John Bell's 4/14 birthday with an hour of Panic this Monday! 

This week, JJ Grey & Mofro release their 7th album, and they're tighter than ever.  Call it southern rock, swamp funk, Memphis soul, North Florida blues....or maybe they've coined a new one here, the Florabama sound.  As for the stories in the songs, Grey says: “Many of the new songs are about being your own worst enemy, and about normal folks pushing themselves over the edge.”  We'll spin each of the tunes over the course of Thursday night. 

April 18-20, 2013: Listen for your opportunity to win a pair of tickets to the Mac Arnold and Plate Full O’ Blues 7th Annual Cornbread & Collard Greens Festival on Saturday, April 27 at The Handlebar in Greenville, SC.