Chris Smither “taps his foot to keep the rhythm, much like the late blues legend John Lee Hooker. His finger-picked guitar lines are sleek, unhurried and insistent. And then there’s the voice – equal parts gravel and molasses.” (NPR). “Cast your mind back to the first time you heard Hank Williams, Big Bill Broonzy or JJ Cale and remember how good it felt. Think of the opening encounter with Leon Redbone or Leo Kottke. They say newcomers to Chris Smither’s brand of country blues-tinged southern folk experience those same emotions. It’s true.” (Maverick) These are just some of deserved descriptions of the man whom we’ve loved hosting for decades now, and he’s got a wonderful new album – his 20th – as he approaches his 80th birthday. He plays the Grey Eagle in Asheville Wednesday evening.
New Releases Featured this week
-
-
-
-
-
Peak of the Week
Recent Podcasts on WNCW
Earl Scruggs Music Festival will return to Mill Spring, NC August 30 - September 1 with headliners Tanya Tucker, Old Crow Medicine Show, Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, Yonder Mountain String Band and The Steeldrivers! Click through for the complete lineup.
NPR Song of the Day
Studio B Videos on YouTube
NPR News
-
A federal judge sentenced Joanna Smith to 60 days in prison for smearing paint on the case surrounding Edgar Degas' Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen at the National Gallery of Art.
-
The Los Angeles-bound flight was forced to make an emergency return to New York's JFK airport after an emergency slide came apart from the Boeing 767, the airline said.
-
Three superb actors — Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor — star in this sweaty, sexy, entertaining drama about tennis stars with a very complicated past.
-
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken following his talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and top Chinese officials in Beijing.
-
Trees communicate. They migrate. They protect. They heal. We climbed into the NPR archives to find some of our favorite arboreal fiction, nonfiction, and kids' lit — get ready to branch out.
-
Five of the six conservatives spent much of their lives in the Beltway, working in the White House and Justice Department, seeing their administrations as targets of unfair harassment by Democrats.