Black Mountain Undergound

S3:E10

2012-01-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

1) Morning’s Lament/Kris Kehr – Notes from the Crossroads Outtake/Woobie Cat

2) Harvest/Neil Young – 11/22/76 – Boston

3) The Way it Will Be/Gillian Welch – 11/14/11 – BBC/London

4) Don’t You Take it Too Hard/Townes Van Zandt – 11/20/93 – Godfrey Daniels

5) Gentle on My Mind/John Hartford – 4/17/93 – Godfreys

6) Ribbons & Bows/Richie Sterns & Tenzin Chopak – 10/11 – Tranquil Bar & Bistro/Binghamton, NY

7) Late in the Day/Hot Rize w Jerry Douglas – 6/11/88 – Chautauqua Auditorium/Boulder, CO

8) Tired of Bein’ Mistreated/Roy Bookbinder – 12/6/91

9) The Blue Divide/Richard Shindell – 10/7/92

10) I Blinked Once/Steve Forbert – 12/2/91

11) Visions of Johanna/Bob Dylan – 2/25/99 – Cumberland Civic Center/Portland, ME

12) End of the Land/Van Morrison – 3/15/08 – BBC/London

13) Wondering Where the Lions Are/Bruce Cockburn – 3/10/89 – TLA/Phila

Kris Kehr News/Info

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S3:E9

2012-01-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

1) Trouble/Jawbone – 7/1/00 – Café 210/State College, PA

2) IN

3) Down Along the Cove/Bob Dylan – 6/14/99 – Eugene, OR

4) Banana Pudding/Southern Culture on the Skids – 10/15/01 – Crowbar/State College

5) Gin Soaked Boy/John Hammond and Wicked Grin – 2/5/2 – Moments Club/Bremen

6) Jockey Full of Bourbon/Tom Waits – 10/17/99 – Vancouver

7) Oye Como Va-Soul Sacrifice/Los Lobos – 7/7/00 – King’s Fair/Hanford, CA

8) Willie and the Hand-Jive/The Band – 9/8/84 – Sullivan Stadium/Foxboro, MA

9) Honky Tonk Heroes/Shaver – 2/5/95 – Charleston, WV

10) Memphis in the Meantime/Little Village – 4/7/92 – Warfield/San Francisco, CA

11) East Bound Train/Dire Straits – 3/6/79 – Tower Theater/Philadelphia, PA

12) 6 Days on the Road/BR549 – 10/15/01 – Crowbar/State College, PA

13) OUT

Here's the first show of the new year, a little rockin' to get things goin'. We start things out with a Dylan cover from a short-lived State College-era band called Jawbone which featured myself and some of the guys from Stone Poets, plus the late great Jason Zarecky on guitar, a dear friend who passed March of '02. We're also hearing another track from the Southern Culture on the Skids show we've heard from here on the show before, as well as BR549, both shows from the now defunct Crowbar in State College that my band Stone Poets opened. The tracks featured here are from my personal recordings of the night. Another favorite of mine on this show is from John Hammond's Tom Waits project with a band called Wicked Grin. Mr. Hammond made a great album of Waits covers called Wicked Grin a few years back, produced by Waits himself who also played a lot of the guitar. Hammond continued the tradition with what looks like a Europe-only tour which was luckily broadcast live twice, with varying setlists. Waits has a new album out called Bad As Me, highly recommended, and hopefully we'll have a tour to hear sometime soon. Until then we'll haul out things from his ages deep back catalog of boot stuff in circulation, like today's track from his '99 tour in Vancouver.

As always, look for exclusive and back episodes of Black Mountain Underground on HomegrownRadioNJ.com every Monday at 10AM and on RadioScranton.com periodically and usually announced on Facebook. There are two more currently in production.

Kris Kehr News/Info

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RadioScranton.com Episodes 1 & 2

2011-12-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

Episode 1-
1) Dear Stephanie/Kris Kehr & Miz – 11/13/10 – River Street Jazz Café/Plains, PA

2) INTRO

3) Good To See You/Neil Young – 10/31/99 – Bridge Benefit/Mountainview, CA

4) Follow Through/Michael Hedges & Michael Manring – 10/29/94 – Johns Hopkins U/Baltimore, MD

5) Watermelon Man/Willis Alan Ramsey & Tommy Malone – 11/19/78 – Memphis, TN

6) You Don’t Miss Your Water/The Byrds – 5/7/68 – Piper Club/Rome, IT

7) I Don’t Want to Lose You Yet/Steve Earle & the Dukes – 7/18/00 – TLA/Phila, PA

8) SPOT

9) Southern Pacific/Kris Kehr & Stone Poets – 10/10/09 – Bullfrog Brewery/Williamsport, PA

10) I’m So Depressed/Farm Report – 1/9/93 – Godfrey Daniels/Bethlehem, PA

11) Wild & Blue/Lucinda Williams – 12/6/92 – Troubadour/West Hollywood, CA

12) Not Dark Yet/Bob Dylan – 6/14/99 – Eugene, OR

13) Watching the Wheels/John Lennon – Double Fantasy Demo

14) Homeward Bound/Simon & Garfunkel – 11/11/69 – Oxford, OH

15) The Last Thing On My Mind/Tom Paxton & Kris Kehr – 6/25/94 – Godfreys

16) OUTRO

Episode 2-

1) Sweet Georgia Brown/Pick of the Litter – 4/21/92 – Godfreys Daniels Coffeehouse/Bethlehem, PA

2) INTRO

3) Alabama Jubilee/Big Dogs– 1/90 – Godfreys

4) Troubled in Mind/Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band – 10/17/87 – Lunt-Fontainne Theater/NYC

5) I’m Troubled/Doc Watson Trio – 6/21/86 – Telluride, CO

6) The X-Drinking Song/John Gorka – early 90’s

7) Handsome Molly/Bill Morrissey – 7/30/94

8) Your Pretty Face/Pavlov’s Dawgs – 11/27/92

9) SPOT

10) Swamp Cat Rag/The Horseflies – 8/5/89 – Rooney/Deposit, NY

11) Whiskey Pickle/the Recipe w Fareed Haque – 9/21/2 – Recher Theater/Baltimore, MD

12) To the Sea/Kris & Julie Kehr, Len Mooney & the Shock-n-awe Mountain Boys – 5/6/6 – Denville Jam/Denville, NJ

13) Our Dreams Back Then/Kris Kehr & Miz – 11/13/10 – River Street Jazz Café/Plains, PA

14) OUTRO

-These shows were produced especially for broadcast at RadioScranton.com...

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3-8 - J.J. Cale V1

2011-11-23T16:39:00.000-08:00

1) INTRO...

2) Travelin’ Light – 3/17/02 – KFOG/San Francisco, CA

3) Old Man – 7/27/96 – Coach House/San Juan Capistrano, CA

4) Call the Doctor – 12/31/76 – Beach/Sausalito, CA

5) Deep Dark Dungeon – 11/2/83 – Eureka, CA

6) I’ll Make Love to You Anytime – 10/31/86 – Old Post Office/Hilton Head, SC

7) River Runs Deep – 4/18/90 – Guthrie Theater/Minneapolis, MN

8) Crazy Mama – 7/3/93 – High Sierra Fest

9) Ride Me High – 1993 – El Mocambo/Toronto

10) Hard Time – 7/2/94 – Telluride, CO

11) Doctor Told Me – 7/7/04 – Gothic Theater/Englewood, CA

12) Anyway the Wind Blows – 7/12/04 - Orpheum Theatre/Flagstaff, AZ

13) OUT

Kris Kehr News/Info

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3-7 Mix Show

2011-10-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

1) I Got a Gun/LOWdOGS – Acoustic Eclectic/Bethlehem, PA 2005

2) Intro

3) Lies/JJ Cale – 2/13/75 – Ebbets Field/Denver

4) Tijuana/David Lindley y Wally Ingram – 10/11/97 – Graffiti/Pittsburgh

5) Southbound Again/Dire Straits – 3/6/79 – Tower Theater

6) Down on the Farm/Little Feat – 1/15/98 – KLOS/LA

7) Long Tall Mama/Paul Geremia – 4/8/94

8) Freeborn Man/Bluegrass Album Band – 11/24/83 – Myrtle Beach

9) Road to Columbus/Bill Monroe & his Bluegrass Boys – 6/13/95 – Ryman

10) Scraps from Your Table/Hazel Dickens – 12/13/88 – Arlington, VA

11) Ballad of Casey Jones/Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band – 10/17/87 – Lunt-Fontanne/NYC

12) Fiddler’s Dram> Whiskey Before Breakfast/Norman & Nancy Blake – 11/16/89

13) Six White Horses/Gillian Welch – 7/31/11 – Newport Folk Festival

14) Love Sick Blues/Hank Williams – 7/1/52 – Sunset Park/West Grove, PA

15) Outro

Kris Kehr News/Info
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Mix Show #6

2011-10-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

1) I Want to Go Home/Kris Kehr – 8/20/05 – Town Pump/Black Mountain, NC

2) INTRO

3) Boots of Spanish Leather/Bob Dylan – 6/14/99 – Eugene, OR

4) Eldorado/Neil Young & Pancho Sampedro – 12/10/89 – Amsterdam

5) Go Where I Send Thee/the Fairfield Four – 4/8/93

6) Don’t Take Everyone to Be a Friend/Ry Cooder – 5/20/74

7) Thirsty in the Rain/Peter Rowan – 4/1/90

8) Last Train from Poor Valley/Norman Blake – 3/24/00 – Live Oak, FLA

9) Buckskin Stallion Blues/Townes Van Zandt – 3/12/95

10) Dark Turn of Mind/Gillian Welch – 7/31/11 – Newport Folk

11) Goodbye/Steve Earle & the Dukes – 7/18/00 – Theater of Living Arts

12) The Road/Emmylou Harris – 4/21/11 – BBC2

13) Hickory Wind/the Byrds – 5/7/68 – Piper Club/Rome

14) OUTRO

Kris Kehr News/Info
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3-5 Mix Show

2011-10-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

1) Wanted Man/LOWdOGS – 8/29/04
INTRODUCTION...

2) Dignity/Bob Dylan – 11/16/94 – Sony Music Studios/NYC

3) Mississippi/Sheryl Crow – 10/31/99 – Mountain View, CA/BB

4) Mingus Eyes/Richard Thompson & Danny Thompson – 8/4/94

5) Evening/Tim O’Brien Band – 1990 - Winterhawk

6) The Great Compromise/John Prine – 1971/BBC

7) Eminence Front/Michael Hedges – 5/26/90 – Strawberry/Yosemite

8) Lochs of Dread/Strength in Numbers – 10/10/89 – Birchmere/Alexandria, VA

9) Bells of Harlem/David Rawlings Machine – 2/14/10 – KEXP/Seattle

10) She Moved Through the Fair/Peter Rowan & Friends – 1990 – Winterhawk

11) Stuff That Works/Guy Clark – 3/12/95 – Godfreys

12) Old Chunk of Coal/Johnny Cash – 5/17/94 – American Outtakes/Rick Ruben’s Livingroom
OUTRO...

3-04 Mix Show

2011-09-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

1) Troubled in Mind/Kris & Julie Kehr w Todd Kopec - River Street Jazz Café/Plains, PA – 7/23/10

2) Intro

3) Roll ‘Em Easy/Paul & Fred – Wilmington Opera House/Wilmington, DE – 11/9/10

4) 4^th of July/Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men – Varese, IT - 5/2/97

5) I’m Troubled/JGAB – Lunt-Fontanne NYC – 10/17/87

6) Deep Elem Blues/Levon Helm Band – Merlefest/Wilkesboro, NC – 4/26/08

7) Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You/Bob Dylan – Wolf Trap/Vienna, VA – 8/24/97

8) Positively Fourth Street/Lucinda Williams – Troubadour/West Hollywood, CA – 12/6/92

9) Crescent City/Emmylou Harris – Merlefest/Wilkesboro, NC – 5/1/94

10) Jolie Louise/Daniel Lanois w Malcolm Burn – WBCN Studios/Boston, MA – 11/29/89

11) Do You Want My Job/Little Village – Warfield Theater/San Francisco, CA – 4/7/92

12) Spodie/David Lindley y Wally Ingram – Munich – 5/10/98

13) Outro
Kris Kehr News/Info

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Bill Morrissey - Volume 3

2011-09-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

1) Intro

2) The Man from Out of Town – 5/17/01 - Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

3) Casey, Illinois – 3/10/07 – Folkstage/Chicago, Ill

4) Birches – 7/30/94

5) Letters from Heaven – 7/30/94

6) So Many Things – 7/30/94

7) Different Currency – 4/8/00 – Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

8) ‘Edson’ Reading – 4/8/00 – Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

9) Just Before We Lost the War – 5/17/01 - Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

10) Buddy Bolden’s Blues – 5/17/01 - Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

11) St. Valentine’s Day – 5/17/01 - Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

12) Traveling By Cab – 5/17/01 - Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

13) Will You Be My Rose? – 5/17/01 - Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

14) Boston Eyes – 3/10/07 – Folkstage/Chicago, Ill

15) Holden’s Blues – 2/2/6 – La Pomme d’Eve/Paris

16) By the Grave of Baudelaire – 2/2/6 – La Pomme d’Eve/Paris

17) Victory at Sea – 3/10/07 – Folkstage/Chicago, Ill

18) OUTRO

Here is our last grouping of some of the original songs of Bill Morrissey. I talk about my feelings on Bill’s music a bit during the outro on this show so I won’t bore you here, just know that if you’re unfamiliar with this stuff, it is among the finest of any songwriter of any genre anywhere. Buy his albums, there is not a dud in the batch. Find his book Edson, a beautiful novel about finding your way as you grow older from the perspective of an aging New England singer-songwriter. If you like the imagery painted during his song ‘Small Town on the River’ then you’ll love a novel-length version with plot and characters, just a beautiful story. He was purportedly working on a second. Below you’ll find links to his two main websites and I’ll spare you the many links to some very good articles on his life and death, you can find a host of great links already up on his site. We’ll get to volume 4 in good time, it will feature some of the many great covers Bill has done in various settings over his career. Next time will be a mix show, thanks for listening!

Bill Morrissey

Bill Morrissey - Turn and Spin

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Bill Morrissey V2

2011-09-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

1) Intro...

2) Pantherville – 11/8/86

3) It’s Dangerous Out There – 1/16/87

4) A Married Man – 11/8/86

5) Ice Fishing – 4/8/00 – Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

6) Handsome Molly – 5/17/01 - Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

7) Up On the CP Line – 4/8/00 – Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH

8) Summer Night – 7/30/94

9) Girls of Santa Fe – 7/30/94

10) The Driver’s Song– 11/8/86

11) John Haber – 7/30/94

12) These Cold Fingers – 11/8/86

13) Petticoat Junction – 11/8/86

14) Inside – 7/30/94

15) Off White – 7/30/94

16) Long Gone – 8/1/92

17) OUTRO

Part 2 of our look at the late, great Bill Morrissey's songs and performances samples the songs of his 3rd, 4th & 5th albums called North, Standing Eight & Inside respectively, all exceptional works. Most are solo acoustic performances save for the Barnstormer Theater tracks which include some of the accompaniment from folks who would go on the form 'The Churchkeys' with Bill for covers shows up north a few years later (which we'll look at later in this series).

-Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH – 4/8/00

Bill Morrissey/guitar, vocals

Dave Henderson/bass

Peter Heimlich-guitar, vocals, banjo

-Barnstormer Theater/Tamworth, NH - 5/17/01

Bill Morrissey/guitar, vocals

Cormac McCarthy/harmonica

Dave Henderson/bass

Peter Heimlich-guitar, vocals, banjo

Kent Allen

Mark Elbaum

Tune in next time for Volume Three while we continue our trek through Bill Morrissey's songs to some of his most recent live recordings...thanks for listening!

Bill Morrissey

Bill Morrissey (record label website)

Some Nice Words...

Kris Kehr News/Info

S3 - 01 - Bill Morrissey V1

2011-09-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

1) intro

2) Barstow

3) Small Town on the River

4) Darlin’ Lisa

5) Oil Money

6) Morrissey Falls in Love at First Sight

7) Texas Blues

8) My Baby & Me/first album

9) The Packard Company

10) The Problem with Logic/first album

11) Run You Through the Mill/first album

12) The Grizzly Bear

13) Rosie

14) Amnesia

15) OUTRO

Here is the first of season Three, the first in a series in tribute to one of my favorite singer-songwriters Bill Morrissey. Bill passed July 23rd in a hotel room in Georgia on his way from a house concert. My first contact with his wit and craft was through a recording of an early 1986 concert of his and his first album on reckless Records, self-titled. I've read that he wrote a lot of those songs while on various jobs around the country and his stories reflect some of that but on a larger note both songs and stories illuminate a world that would set me dreaming while I lived in a farm house by myself in the snow-covered country above the Blue Mountain range in Pennsylvania. It got to the point were I actually took a winter vacation to new Hampshire not to ski but to drive on back roads. Bill rerecorded that first album after signing to Philo and the success of that third album Standing Eight and although perfect to the ear, I always preferred the pathos on that original vinyl version of the first album.

Today we hear my reconstruction of Bill's first album using cuts from that 1986 live show and filled in with tracks from the out-of-print album. Next time we'll start with his second album North and move on from there.

For more information on Bill Morrissey, check out these websites-
Bill Morrissey
Remembering Bill Morrissey - C. Hislop
From Garnet Rogers

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28

2011-05-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

1) Deep Elem Blues/Garcia Grass – 1/29/11 – River Street Jazz Café/Plains, PA
2) INTRO
3) Midnight on the Highway/Hot Rize – 7/17/86
4) Wild Bill Jones/Alison Krauss & Union Station – 4/7/90 – Fairfax, VA
5) Man of Constant Sorrow & Little Maggie/Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys – 6/18/98 – Grass Valley, CA
6) I’ve Lived a Lot in My Time/Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys – 2/6/82 – Smithsonian Institute/Washington, DC
7) The Last Whippoorwill/High Country w Jerry Garcia & David Nelson – 2/19/69 – Matrix/San Francisco, CA
8) I Don’t Care if Tomorrow Never Comes/Red Allen, Roland White & Lamar Grier – 6/67 – Nashville Tapes
9) Country Roads/Bluegrass Alliance – 9/5/71 – Camp Spring Campgrounds/Reidsville, NC
10) West Texas Wind/the Seldom Scene – 1990 Winterhawk
11) Highway of Sorrow/Del McCoury & His Dixie Pals w Frank Wakefield – 7/16/83 – Winterhawk
12) Black Mountain Rag/John Hartford - 1988 Winterhawk
13) Reuben’s Train/Peter Rowan & Friends – 7/18/92 - Winterhawk
14) OUTRO/Notes

Winterhawk was always such a great time, and I learned so much the years I visited the festival between 1989 and '94, saw so many great performances up close some of which I've talked about here before and some of which I've caught on video and posted to the new Black Mountain Underground Youtube Channel. I've included some of the more pertinent vids at the bottom of this blog. I snapped the photos below myself as well, Alison Krauss and the original Union Station and the Seldom Scene. There are a lot of real strong performances included on the show today, favorites to me such as Union Station's Wild Bill Jones and Seldom Scene's West Texas Wind, and I even started enjoying Country Roads unironically again after hearing Tony Rice and the Alliance playing it from way back in '71. I really like the Red Allen tune as well so sit back and enjoy some bluegrass today!
This will be the last BMU for a short time while I relocate my studio a few miles down the road. Don't forget to check into Homegrownradionj.net every Monday at 10AM to hear old shows, there are many...and as always, thanks for listening!

Kris Kehr News/Info
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Twenty - Seven

2011-04-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

1) The Farewell Blues/Pick of the Litter – 4/17/93 – Godfreys
2) INTRO
3) Gold Watch & Chain/Mother Maybelle Carter w Mike Seeger & Bill Monroe – 7/1/69 - Bean Blossom
4) Traveling on the Stormy Deep/Gillian Welch – 4/19/97 – Gunnerz/Iowa City, IO
5)   Wichita/Tim & Mollie O’Brien – 2/18/94 – Godfreys
6)   Walk On, Boy/Doc & Richard Watson w Jack Lawrence – 12/8/01 – Neighborhood Theater/Charlotte, NC
7)   The Old, Old House/Grateful Dead – 1/31/70 – the Warehouse/New Orleans
8)   All I Left Behind Me/Emmylou Harris – 10/31/99 - Bridge School Benefit/Shoreline Amphitheater/Mountain View, CA
9)   Early Morning/Barenberg, Douglas & Meyer – 12/8/96 – Godfreys
10) Simple Song/Lyle Lovett – ILoveEverybody Demos
11) You Got Gold/John Prine w Phil Pilapiano – 10/4/94 – Fat Fry Blues Festival/Aptos, CA
12) Boots of Spanish Leather/Bob Dylan – 6/14/99 – Eugene, OR
13) Face Yourself/Michael Hedges & Michael Manring – 10/29/94 – Johns Hopkins/Baltimore, MD
14) The Open Road/Tony Rice Unit w Bela Fleck – 4/25/92 – Merlefest Midnight Jam
15) The Wonder of You/Johnny Cash – 5/17/94 – Rick Rubin’s Livingroom
16) OUTRO NOTES

First I'd like to welcome some new international friends to Black Mountain Underground, from Germany, Italy, Argentina, Mexico and the United Kingdom; we are growing every week and that is muchly appreciated. Spread the word! and also remember new, old and unlisted episodes of Black Mountain Underground are broadcast weekly at Homegrownradionj Mondays at 10AM.


'Pick of the Litter' - 1993 - photo by Joanne Dinsmore

-Some pretty interesting things this week starting with a few duo bonds. Pick of the Litter is what Jesse Grim & I used to refer to as ourselves as outside of our 4-piece band Pavlov's Dawgs when we played as a duo. We'd usually do more guitar oriented country things, Doc & Merle Watson type of stuff and the like, I don't remember playing more than a handful of gigs tho those were plenty memorable. This particular cut was from the John Hartford show that we opened at Godfrey Daniels back in 1993.
-The Carter vibe looms large in my mind, something large and spread wide across the land. Mother Maybelle and her distinctive guitar cross-strum, the beauty of those old, old Carter Family melodies and of course, harmonies are the gold. There's a great version of Dr. Ralph Stanley performing Gold Watch & Chain with Gillian Welch on one of his albums and nobody did more with that torch after taking it then Gillian & David Rawlings, their harmonies sounding bent and far-out yet wholesomely Appalachian here on Traveling on the Stormy Deep. A Gillian Welch/David Rawlings series is in production for next season here on BMU. There's a more complete set out there of Mother Maybelle's comeback set in 1969 with Bill Monroe & the recently passed Mike Seeger.

John Prine & Phil Pilapiano/Aptos, CA

-I'm a gonna be doing some shows dedicated to John Prines' work as well next season, I've struck the mother load of recordings recently but I'll fill you in on all that later.
-I'm finding the Grateful Dead's entry in today's show completely fascinating, I had never heard this before finding it on Dime a few weeks back. It comes from their show at the infamous Warehouse in New Orleans back in 1970 and the notes state there had been technical issues for Phil and so they played an acoustic second set after an electric first. During that second acoustic set there was some weird stuff but none more than Bobby singing the old Bill Monroe bluegrass classic The Old, Old House as a jazzier ballad on acoustic with Jerry accompanying on his trusty strat. Leave it to Bobby to find some places for chords like that in spaces formerly so simple.

Merlefest 1990

-I've been finding some interesting bluegrass moments while looking for material for the recent Doc Watson series, especially some wonderful digi boards of those Merlefest Midnight jams we always hear so much about. A cross-pollination of American string artists has always been at that festivals' fore, albeit it a select portion of artists. Of course we always love when the Tony Rice joins Belas Fleck in some way, he originally appeared on Tonys' Cold on the Shoulder album and later Bela returned the favor with his massively influential Drive album which featured Rice's guitar throughout. Here we hear a cut from that album, one of the standouts called The Open Road as supported by the Unit and not the heaping on of stars permeating the album's original lineup. Much more from Merlefest in coming days, I guarantee...and another mix next time featuring more bluegrass, this time from the mighty Winterhawk in the 90's as well as some other stuff.

Below are a few videos from the Black Mountain Underground Channel on YouTube, Dr. Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys from Winterhawk in both 1989 & '94 - enjoy! and thank you for listening...
kris

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Doc Watson V3

2011-04-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

1) INTRO>
2) Salt Creek/Doc Watson & Tony Rice – 4/25/97 – Merlefest
3) 3x7/Doc & Merle Watson – 3/1/73 – Lisner Auditorium/Washington DC
4) Spikedriver’s Blues/Doc & Merle Watson w T. Michael Coleman & Marty Stuart – 9/21/79 – Oberlin College
5) Alberta/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 10/27/88 – OT Prices/Santa Cruz, CA
6) I Recall a Gypsy Woman/Doc Watson – 10/28/01 – NCSA Winston-Salem, NC
7) Workingman’s Blues/Doc & Richard Watson w Jack Lawrence – 12/08/01 – Neighborhood Theater/Charlotte, NC
8) Florida Blues/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 6/14/97 – CDA Bluegrass Fest/Grass Valley, CA
9) Long Journey Home/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence w David Grisman – 8/2/98 – Rockygrass/Lyons, CO
10) Ain’t Nobody’s Fault But Mine/Doc & Merle Watson w T. Michael Coleman – mystery filler
11) Wagoner’s Lad/Doc Watson & David Holt – 7/31/10 – Newport Folk Festival
12) House of the Rising Sun/Doc Watson & David Holt – 1/27/08 – Birchmere/Alexandria, VA
13) Train that Carried My Girl to Town/Doc Watson & David Holt w T. Michael Coleman – 8/15/10 – Bristol, TN
14) Bottle of Wine/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence w T. Michael Coleman – 8/8/87 – Chateau St Michelle Winery/Woodinville, WA
15) Tennessee Waltz/Doc Watson w Jeff Little & Randy Greer – 3/7/98 – Walker Center/Wilkesboro, NC
16) Farewell Blues/Doc Watson & Ralph Rinzer – 12/31/61 – Deep Gap Tapes
17) Got The Blues (Can’t Be Satisfied)/Doc Watson & Family – 7/10/04 – Doc Watson Fest/Sugar Grove, NC
18) Way Downtown/Doc & Merle Watson w the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – 4/28/74 – Marin County Bluegrass Festival
19) Down Yonder/Doc Watson, Jack Lawrence & T. Michael Coleman w Sam Bush, John McCuen & Jimmy Fadden – 6/21/86 – Telluride
20) Little Beggar Man> Salt Creek (reprise)/Doc Watson & Tony Rice – 4/25/97 - Merlefest
Hey Everybody-

Hope Y'all have been enjoying the Doc Watson, I know I've been having a good time finding all this stuff. I've transferred a few more of my Winterhawk videos to the Black Mountain Underground YouTube Channel that are worth checking out. Below are some new Doc transfers that are again unlisted, available only here for the first time. Please feel free to pass them around...thanks for Listening!

This is the old Jimmy rogers song Never No More Blues-

This is a medley of Big Sandy River and Salt Creek with a story from Jack on the origin of the title-

Here's the old Carter Family song Keep On The Sunny Side-

LINKS:

Doc's Guitar

Pete's Place

Mudcat Cafe Doc Watson Links

Doc Watson V2

2011-04-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

1) Intro>
2) My Creole Belle/Doc Watson & Taj Mahal – 8/9/86 – Prairie Theater/Minneapolis, MN
3) Summertime/Doc Watson w Jack Lawrence & T. Michael Coleman – 8/8/87 – Chateau St. Michelle Winery/Woodinville, WA
4) Greenville Trestle/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 10/27/88 – OT Prices’/Santa Cruz, CA
5) Sunny Tennessee/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence w David Grisman – 11/3/89 – 1st Methodist Church/Boulder, CO
6) Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 5/12/90 – the Hearth/Pipersville, PA
7) Sweet Georgia Brown/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence w T. Michael Coleman & Mike Auldridge – 6/26/93 – Dahlonega, GA
8) Make Me Down a Pallet on Your Floor/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 4/23/94 – Raleigh, NC
9) Don’t This Road Look Rough & Rocky/Doc Watson w Emmylou Harris & the Nash Ramblers – 5/1/94 – Merlefest/Wilksboro, NC
10) Shady Grove/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 5/25/96 – Florida Folk Festival/White Springs, FL
11) Ramshackle Shack/Doc Watson & Tony Rice – 4/25/97 – Merlefest/Wilksboro, NC
12) St. Anne’s Reel>Ragtime Annie/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 6/14/97 – California Bluegrass Association Bluegrass Festival/Grass Valley, CA
13) Ready for the Times to Get Better/Doc Watson w Jack Lawrence, David Grisman & Jerry Douglas – 8/2/98 – Rockygrass/Lyons, CO
14) Travelin’ Man/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 1/16/00 – St. Michaels Church/Wilton, CT
15) Deep Elem Blues/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence – 2/18/01 – Arcata Theater/Arcata, CA
16) I’m a Stranger Here/Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence w Tony Rice – 3/23/02 – Suwanee Spring Fest/Live Oak, FL
17) In the Pines /Doc & Richard Watson w T. Michael Coleman – 7/10/04 – Doc Watson Fest/Sugar Grove, NC

I'd like to thank all the folks who appreciate BMU, especially the bluegrass. I try to pick music that I can either emotionally or cerebrally connect with, or both, then find some context to hopefully enhance the power of that meaning. Of course my own personal feelings about the songs and artists pretty much set the stage although in the endI do try to make the appeal universal to the fan, hopefully i accomplished that to some degree. I love a few different kinds of music that I don't think they've figured out a category for, but to me it's just Black Mountain Underground. My personal collection of music includes a great deal of 'officially released' things that I avoid here on the show, because theoretically you can hear that anywhere...theoretically. I used to do terrestrial radio at several different stations around the Lehigh Valley mostly, playing this material regular on a show called Acoustic Wonders, mixing the official stuff with the kinds of things you hear now. But I moved away and that apparently cuts you off from the Valley forever, once you've done that. But I would love doing that again at some point, if the right programming director would see the value in this or a show like it comprised of official releases as well..

I'm happy to bring you another in our series on Doc Watson, and Volume 3 is shaping up nicely as well. Gillian Welch I believe to be next in line for a series on Black Mountain Underground. In the meantime, here are some exclusive videos I shot at Winterhawk in 1994, close to the stage with a tripod. There is a link below for Dr. Bubbas' YouTube Page where you can check out all the 'official' ones but please take note, I will be posting videos ongoing that are unlisted and only found here, such as these-

Doc Watson & Jack Lawrence at The Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival in 1994. This is the medley of the East Tennessee Rag & the Beaumont Rag.

Here's another tune from the team of Doc Watson, Jack Lawrence, T. Michael Coleman, Tim O'Brien, Pete Wernick & Jerry Douglas, the Wabash Cannonball.

In Volume Three we'll float around Doc's career between Tony Rice bookends, there is a wealth of live material out there for the Doc Watson fan, and below are some great links to check out...

Thanks for Listening, See ya next time!

LINKS:

Gonzo's Music Space

Doc & Merle Watson Folk Art Museum

Doc's Guitar

Doc Watson/Flat-Picking Legend

Folklore Biography

Biography/Discography

Doc Watson Day/Cy Crumley Scrapbook

Arizona Jones Doc Watson Downloads

Doc Watson's Last Tour (prose)

Field Trip South/Doc Watson

Phasinated/Doc Watson (wonderful listening page)

Doc Watson V1

2011-03-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

1) IN>

2) Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down/Doc Watson (guitar & vocals) – 12/31/61 – Deep Gap Tapes

3) Dream of the Miner’s Child/Doc Watson (guitar & vocals) – 5/17/63 – Ashegrove/LA, CA

4) Peach Pickin’ Time in Georgia/Doc Watson (guitar & vocals) – 6/21/69 – Bean Blossom Workshop

5) Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad/Doc & Merle Watson – 8/22/69 – Philly Folk Festival

6) Blackjack County Chain/Doc & Merle Watson – 3/1/73 – Lisner Auditorium/Washington, DC

7) Country Blues/Doc & Merle Watson – 4/27/74 – Marin County Bluegrass Festival

8) Deep River Blues/Doc Watson & Merle Travis – 1976/Walnut Valley Festival/Winfield, KS

9) Wild Bill Jones/Doc Watson (banjo & vocals) – 8/19/78 – Fiddler’s Convention/Mountain City, TN

10) Cyprus Grove/Doc & Merle Watson w T. Michael Coleman & Marty Stuart – 9/21/79 – Oberlin College/Oberlin, OH

11) The Cuckoo/Doc & Merle Watson w T. Michael Coleman – 7/4/80 – Freedom Park/Charlotte, NC

12) Tennessee Stud/Doc & Merle Watson w T. Michael Coleman – 8/7/80 – the Whitehouse/Washington, DC

13) Brown’s Ferry Blues/Doc & Merle Watson w T. Michael Coleman – 9/14/82 – PB Scotts Music Hall/Blowing Rock, NC

14) Southbound Passenger Train/Doc Watson w the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – 2/8/83 – Great American Road Show/Houston, TX

15) Smoke, Smoke, Smoke/Doc & Merle Watson w Mark O’Conner – 3/6/83 – Starry Night Club/Portland, OR

16) The Last Thing On My Mind/Doc & Merle Watson w T. Michael Coleman – the Downhome/Johnson City, TN – unknown date

17) Windy & Warm/Doc & Merle Watson w T. Michael Coleman – mystery filler

18) Black Mountain Rag/Doc Watson w Jack Lawrence, T. Michael Coleman & Sam Bush – 6/21/86 – Telluride Bluegrass Festival

Merle & Doc in 1971, with high-tech taper of the day.

I used to make tie-dye t-shirts for the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival, that's my initial tie-in, so to speak. Spent most of the years '88-94 or 5 working at the festival as well as delivering the shirts, although I liked showing up early and getting a good spot up on the hill back behind the big trees and I had a lot of good times there with friends old & new. As a volunteer complete backstage access was included, food and staging. And one dusky night a forlorned and drunken me was watching the end of Alison Krauss & Union Station's set from the dark side of the stage when I noticed Doc Watson by himself, traipsing guitar in hand into the din towards a few gathered folding chairs facing out to warm up for his impending set. I felt my steps drawn towards his and when caught up I folded my legs and dropped to the dirt directly in front of him as he poised his guitar on his lap and grunted some acknowledgment of my presence, quiet as I remained. He scurried up and down the neck of his guitar a foot and a half from my eyes and settled on the old English ballad Jack a Roe, a song I've never seen on any of his albums or concert set lists, so I perked up further to the incredible speciality of the moment. As Alison's stage grew quiet with set preparation, Doc's guitar rang out further into the surrounding summer dusk, turning some faces in our direction behind me. Around that time Alison's album I've Got That Old Time Feeling was gaining her and her band Union Station some wide spread attention and I was a big fan of her guitarist Jeff White's version of the traditional Wild Bill Jones, before I'd never heard Doc's banjo version that is included here today. As if by intuition, Doc launched into a gorgeous guitar version of the song so much closer to Jeff's recorded style and that of course just heard on stage, as Jeff himself quietly stepped forward from behind and crossed his arms standing, drawn to the moment in much the same way I was. There were tears streaming down my face by that point and I'm not sure if it was because of that realization or the shear beauty and power of his playing and presence at that moment in my life, I'd never felt anything like that before. Luckily it was dark and I quietly stepped away, in some kind of emotional bluegrass shock. I still remember the steel bands of concentration in his temples.

(l-r) Pres. Carter, Merle, T. Michael & Doc - Whitehouse 1980

When I returned to Winterhawk in later years I brought with me my trusty old video camera and a box of vhs tapes, because as a volunteer you have access to the area between the audience and the stage cut off with a snow-fence and a plug about 25 feet worth of electric cord away.. I brought my tri-pod too, and have been having a ball transferring this stuff to youtube recently. I kept coming back to the stage and grabbing different bands when I could break away from my volunteer duties that weekend (which included parking the late John Duffey and some of the other guys in the Seldom Scene on their way in for their set in a huge Lincoln Continental cracking jokes at me with the air conditioning blaring and drinks in their hands (with a driver, of course), awesome, awesome, we'll be seeing a bunch from those guys coming up on the show as well) and I'll be adding those videos to the blog here from time to time when I can. You can check out my YouTube channel to see what I already have up, I think they'll let you know when I add stuff if you sign up. The stuff here today is from Doc's three sets the last weekend of July, 1994.

Here's the introduction and Hold the Woodpile Down from the early set, as well as I'm Troubled.

These next songs are from the later set that night, a Friday where it started off as the duo but brought up a few guests as the set went along. These include T. Michael Coleman & Mike Auldridge on Solid Gone and Way Downtown.

Same thing the next night but with some different guests. Here we have T. Michael Coleman again (he had just left as Doc's long-time bassist earlier in the year for the Seldom Scene but still shares an incredible musical bond) as well as Jerry Douglas, Pete Wernick & Tim O'Brien on Greenville Trestle and the Farewell Blues.

Lots more Doc next time with Volume 2 and more vids from Winterhawk '94...
Thanks for Listening!

PERTINENT LINKS:

Jeff White

Doc's Guitar

Doc Watson/Flat-Picking Legend

Folklore Biography

Biography/Discography

Doc Watson Day/Cy Crumley Scrapbook

Arizona Jones Doc Watson Downloads

Doc Watson's Last Tour (prose)

Field Trip South/Doc Watson

Phasinated/Doc Watson (wonderful listening page)

23

2011-03-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

1) Dear Stephanie/MiZ – 11/13/10 – River Street Jazz Café/Plains, PA

2) INTRO>

3) Lazy River Road/Grateful Dead – 9/24/94 – Berkeley

4) Friend of the Devil/Bob Dylan – 2/19/99 – Broome County Arena/Binghamton, NY

5) Sin City/Steve Earle & Gillian Welch – 9/19/99 – Sony Studios/NYC

6) Wheels/Elvis Costello & Emmylou Harris w Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – 2/18/06 – First Methodist Church/Boulder, CO

7) Hickory Wind/Gram Parsons – 10/72 - outtake/GP Sessions

8) Living in the Country/Leo Kottke – 4/24/93 – Bottom Line/NYC

9) If I Needed You/Doc & Merle Watson – 3/1/73 – Lisner Auditorium/Washington, DC

10) Lost Highway/Townes Van Zandt – 11/20/93

11) The Weight/Gillian Welch & Old Crow Medicine Show – 8/2/4 – St. Lukes/London UK

12) Paradise/John Prine & Steve Goodman – 4/7/73 – Main Point/Bryn Mawr, PA

13) America/Simon & Garfunkel – 11/11/69 – Miami U/Oxford, OH

14) Attics of My Life/Grateful Dead – 9/24/94 – Berkeley, CA

As I've mentioned before here on the show, I am an unflinchingly unapologetic Dead Head and became that way mostly through their live 'acoustic' performances at the Warfield Theater and Radio City Music Hall in the early 80's culminating in their album Reckoning. Reckoning stands the test of time and I suppose if the Dead opened all of their shows with an acoustic set the album might not have the impact that it does, although we will never know. But in many ways it is their 'Basement Tapes', a brief period in their history where they covered lots of odd folk and country music as well as putting a different spin on some of their already existing songs. I had not been aware of the acoustic 'Dead' show that produces two of today's show tracks had even existed until recently. It is truly the little things in life, I'm still smiling about finding this recording (billed as Phil & Friends at the time), a 'new' acoustic performance representing the last musical era ion the life of the Dead. Their updated song list includes some things not done acoustically the first time around, like the two gems on today's show: Attics of my Life had been recently broken out from their early career setlists once again around this time, and Lazy River Road is (in my opinion) one of the better later-period Jerry tunes from the writing team of Hunter/Garcia, especially this reflective, lonesome reading.

A fair amount of preview going on today, next time on Black Mountain Underground we'll look at Doc Watson's music in Volume 1 in what will be an on-going series on the show, as well as the one after that which will be our first Gillian Welch collection since the show has moved to this blog. Since I got my huge external drive for Christmas I've had the luxury of being able to collect large piles of music on my hard drive, which makes it easier to piece together shows over time, and I've collected a lot of Gillians' and Doc's music. Doc has had a much longer career and so I've got a bigger pool to pull from there, so next time we can not only hear more from Doc & Merle Watson as we did today but also from much earlier and much later, there is a lot out there going around. Gillian has been a darling to also the taper world, leaving a small but mighty trail of soundboard recordings starting off around '96 when people were just starting to discover her and partner David Rawlings as they trekked through the south and eventually made it north; I find it telling, referring to an earlier discussion about the difference in musical consumption in the North & South and how it fits into everyday life, that there are only a few recordings of Gillian from north of the M/D line, and no soundboards until they made it across the pond. Either the soundmen didn't care, or are hoarding their tapes for some eventual power trip, that I've seen in spades, it is very unflattering. Or worse, there were no fans who cared enough to ask to get patched into the board, but I digress...

I've been reading Keith Richards rich autobiography Life lately, after finishing the Gram Parson biography and the story on recording the Stones' Exile on Main Street and have a healthy fascination with the music and influence of Gram Parson, an important figure in rock music both here and England. His masterpiece Hickory Wind was released on the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo in 1968 and that album made it's mark but today we heard an outtake version from Parsons' first solo album GP in the studio in October of '72, I like this sparse version. We've heard Emmylou perform Wheels on the show before but I had to include this star-packed version, my wife and I so enjoyed the Elvis Costello/Emmylou Harris tour a few years back and certainly would have loved it if Gillian and Dave were wheeled out during the Wolf Trap show we were attending.

The 'Americana' of acoustic Dead still bowls me over, a musical purity or honesty of some sort, and I see it reflected in music all the time, especially in today's' setlist. Dylan's cover of Friend of the Devil has always gone down well with me, even while I was at this Binghamton show back in '99 listening to people bitch about how his voice has changed. In 1999.

I hope you find something to enjoy today, next time Doc V1! see ya then..
Kris

22

2011-03-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

1) I Love the Life I Live/LOWdOGS4 – 1/29/05 – Plantation Club/Worcester, MA

2) INTRO>

3) Goodbye to Carolina/Lyle Lovett & his Large Band – 11/15/94 – Tower Theater/Phila., PA

4) High Heeled Sneakers/Pinetop Perkins – 11/29/90 – Toronto

5) Standing on the Corner/Tom Waits – 10/10/77 – My Fathers Place/Roslyn, NY

6) Baby Please Don’t Go/Muddy Waters – 5/65 – Olympia Theatre/Paris

7) Got My Mojo Workin’/James Cotton Trio – 2/14/93

8) Borrowed Time/J.J. Cale – 7/3/93 – High Sierra Fest
9) Not Dark Yet/Bob Dylan – 6/14/99 – Eugene, OR
10) In a Silent Way/Allman Brothers Band – 3/14/09 – Beacon Theater/NYC

Today we have a collection of some things on the bluesier side of electric music, with some minor exceptions and what I hope to be an enjoyable path tying together all of today's performances. There is a nice sampling of blues royalty represented as well as a particular era of jazz.

The Allman Brothers Bands' cover of Miles Davis' In a Silent Way includes Randy Brecker on trumpet and Lenny White on drums, both very involved in the early 70's jazz scene tied to the original Davis recording.

Pinetop Perkins was a member of Muddy's band but not during the time that today's track from Paris in 1965. Perkins replaced Muddy Waters Band pianist Otis Spann in 1969 and stayed with the band for about 10 years. Pinetop, who gained his nickname from his 1950's Sun Studios session covering Pinetop Smith's 'Pinetop's Boogie Woogie' so well, went on to win a 2005 Lifetime Achievement Grammy and record a series of acclaimed albums. Even after being hit by a train in 2004, the 97 year old Pinetop Perkins still performs & records from time to time.

James Cotton commands similar merit as the other legendary harmonica player playing on several of Muddy Waters' recordings, although not the original 'Mojo', that was Little Walter. We were all unaware but I could have guessed that Cotton was beginning to suffer from throat cancer at the time of this recording, but he didn't stop singing completely until a few years later. The local paper ripped the show a new one, but I found much to marvel at that evening both on stage and off. Backstage I had not ever seen such goings on before in my short life. I reflected upon this fact as I was riffling through Godfreys' upstairs' tenant's refrigerator for wine, as it was a Sunday in Pennsylvania and I had strict instructions to be successful in procurement. His private talk to me and the announcer at the break about how happy he was that we found wine , (at least I think that's what he said) was memorable if for no other reason than the style of delivery from the old-school hardened Chicago blues man. The whole scene still sticks clearly in my head. Also memorable was his accompaniment, two players: Luther Tucker, former Chess Records guitarist, and David Maxwell on piano. Both were interesting to work with behind the scenes, legendary players in their own right and sadly this was to be one of Luther's last shows, he died a few months later in June from a persisting heart condition crossed with misadventure.

Of course the great Muddy Waters is at the top of todays blues pile, a prince of Chicago blues, some would say king (although not Howlin' Wolf) and certainly a hugely influential artist in many more areas than just the blues. 1965 marked a time of acceptance by a larger white audience and paternal regard from the next generation of bluesmen; The Rolling Stones had just completed their first tour of America around this time as well, blues-rock was starting to take hold and Waters was the guy these bands listened to more than anybody. Although known for his brash in-you-face style of blues, this version of his famous Baby, Please Don't Go has a lilt of elegance to its jump, but perhaps that's just Paris...

I am eternally grateful to Scott Murawski for having me up as a guest with Max Creek the times that he has and also for driving down and playing this show at the Plantation Club in Worcester back in 2005. I talked about it before on BMU 18, we heard another track from the same show called The Little Things. Todays' Willie Dixon track seemed appropo to the rest of the show. Scott's out on tour with the Mike Gordon Band right now, check out their recent appearance on Jimmy Fallon below! Next time I want to play a recent recording of the band MiZ performing one of my songs and get all acoustic on the Dead in '94, so see ya next time!
LINKS:
The Blues and All That Jazz BLOG
Early Blues BLOG
Arizona Jones BLOG

21

2011-03-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

1) Nowhere to Go (Anymore)/Kris Kehr & Stone Poets – 7/28/01 – Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse/Bethlehem, PA

2) INTRO>
3) 50 Miles of Elbow Room/Iris Dement – 7/8/92 – Freight & Salvage/Berkeley, CA
4) Tired of Bein’ Mistreated/Roy Bookbinder – 12/6/91
5) Whippoorwill/BR549 – 10/15/01 – Crowbar/State College, PA
6) Waiting for a Train/Charlie Louvin – 2007 – SXSW/Austin Convention Center
7) I Just Don’t Like This Kind of Livin’/George Jones & the Jones Boys – 1963/United Artist Studios
8) Bartender/Rick Danko & Buddy Cage – 3/7/88 – Pauly’s Hotel/Albany, NY
9) Black Star/Gillian Welch w Chris Thile & Tim O’Brien – 5/9/05 – Belcourt Theater/Nashville, TN
10) What is a Home without Love/the Monroe Brothers – 1936/78 Vinyl Transfer
11) The Last Waltz Theme (Sketch)/The Band – 1976/Last Waltz Sessions/Shangri-La
12) Sights & Sounds of London Town/Richard & Danny Thompson – 5/14/00 – Odense/Denmark
13) Waltzing’s for Dreamers/Nashville Bluegrass Band – 4/8/93
14) Bow Wow/David Grisman Quintet w Mark O’Conner – 6/20/87 – Telluride Bluegrass Festival
15) City of New Orleans/the Seldom Scene - 4/27/84 – Blue Marsh Inn/Brownsville, PA

We started off the show today with an audience recording, something kinda rare here at BMU. I usually try to choose soundboard-sourced material, or matrix sources (a combination of the two) and unreleased studio recordings of some quality when available. But it was finely recorded by a nice young gentleman by the name of Mudbone at Godfrey Daniels where several cuts from today's show originate. The song Nowhere to Go (Anymore) is one of my first and by 2001 not a regular part of our set list but when club associate Ramona asked I was more than happy to oblige her request. I had just released my Long Year follow-up entitled Kris Kehr & Stone Poets, this time a self-produced studio-recorded whole band project on my Woobie Cat Records label. It is currently out of print and will most likely remain that way, at least in hard copy form, although there are plans afoot to re-release it digitally through bandcamp.com for it's 10th anniversary this year. Stay tuned for that...

Song Notes:

There’s a nice mix of country blues and folkie weirdness today, some higher-brow than others. The cut from BR549 comes from a digital soundboard recording I made myself at the Crowbar in State College on a night Stone Poets opened the show. I believe the bill was us, Drive-by Truckers and BR549: I only taped BR549 who had a coffee can placed on the edge of the stage for requests, all you had to do was toss a twenty in the kitty, which is why we heard Whippoorwill. It wasn’t long after this that Donnie Herron left the group to play with Dylan, a gig he still holds.

I also made the Roy Bookbinder recording that came before it, digitally transferred from the master cassette. I have a few of Roy’s shows and was always been impressed by this student of the Reverend Gary Davis whenever his motor home pulled up the curb. His voice, style, guitar playing and writing are all very good, he even cut a bumper for my old radio show Acoustic Wonders, he's a good guy too.

Buddy Cage is also a favorite of mine, I’ve opened for NRPS a few times since he’s been a member and have admired his work on various recordings as well, Blood on the Tracks among them. He will also be featured on the upcoming album from NEPA original band MiZ as well as my playing. We’ll hear something from that band next time on the show sans Cage. Rick Danko gets double exposure this week with this and the Band track, an outtake from the Last Waltz sessions not widely heard. Also of note, Sredni Vollmer plays the harp on Bartender with them other two.

Gillian Welch covers Radioheads' Black Star with only partner David Rawlings' vocal accompaniment, instrumentally benched due to injury and pinch-hit by acoustic virtuosi Chris Thile and Tim O’Brien for this one particular stellar show in 2005.

The Monroe Brothers’ cut was a left-over from Bill Monroe V6 although I still have a large pile of culled tunes that will most likely make up V7 at some point in the future, and perhaps more down the pike. That might take a little while tho, but I do have about a dozen themed- shows currently in production with Doc Watson V1 to be the first release, probably coming in around episode 24. The set list of today’s show actually started with the germ idea of that particular Monroe Brothers song, What is a Home without Love linking to the Last Waltz Theme on some ethereal level.

I’ve been away from the music of Richard Thompson for a little while now and that is just ridiculous. I love his playing and songwriting, went through a major worship period in the early 90’s and have seem him perform a few times in various contexts. His pairing with upright bassist Danny Thompson strikes the closest personally as I’ve derived much energy and focus from his work, putting it to good use with my duo with Bill in the past. I also made the Nashville Bluegrass Band master recording of their Richard Thompson cover Waltzing's for Dreamers. I copied the David Grisman Quintet ’87 Telluride Bluegrass Festival appearance onto cassette from a friend of the festival while I was out there attending, a low generation soundboard deal that I have recently digitally transferred. The Seldom Scene show was a kind gift from Jonesy, recorded off the board locally.

Thanks for Listening!
Kris Kehr News/Info

Listen to Kris Kehr on Bandcamp
Listen to Kris Kehr on Archives
Download Kris Kehr on itunes
Kris Kehr on Facebook
Kris Kehr on Youtube
Kris’s Music Blog/Podcast Black Mountain Underground
Julie’s Myspace page

Bill Monroe V6 - Duets & Sit-ins

2011-03-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

1) Introductions by Bill Monroe & President Carter> Watson’s Blues/Bill Monroe & Doc Watson – Whitehouse – 8/7/80

2) You Won’t Be Satisfied that Way/Bill Monroe & Doc Watson – Ashegrove/LA, CA – 5/17/63

3) This World is Not My Home/Bill & Charlie Monroe – New River Ranch/Rising Sun, MD - 5/8/55 (2^nd show)

4) The Banks of the Ohio/Bill Monroe & Doc Watson – Ashegrove/LA, CA – 5/17/63

5) The One I Love is Gone/Bill Monroe w Hazel & Alice – Tex Logan’s House/Madison, NJ – 6/20/66

6) The Dusty Miller/Bill Monroe & Tut Taylor – TT Reel #38/DJ Convention/Nashville, TN – 1965

7) Feast Here Tonight/Bill Monroe & Doc Watson – Sunset Park/West Grove, PA – 8/23/64

8) Get Up John/Bill Monroe & Peter Rowan – Carleton Haney Bluegrass Festival/Fincastle, VA– 9/3/65

9) Darlin’ Cory/Bill & Charlie Monroe – New River Ranch/Rising Sun, MD - 5/8/55

10) Bill’s intro>What Does the Deep Sea Say?/Bill Monroe & Doc Watson – Sunset Park/West Grove, PA – 8/23/64

11) Little Cabin Home on the Hill/Bill Monroe & the Seldom Scene – Smithsonian Institute/Washington, DC – 2/6/82

12) Paddy on the Turnpike/Bill Monroe & Doc Watson – Whitehouse – 8/7/80

13) Stoney Point/Bill Monroe & Tut Taylor – TT Reel #38/DJ Convention/Nashville, TN – 1965

14) Watermelon Hangin’ on the Vine/Bill & Charlie Monroe – 78 vinyl transfer

15) Blackberry Blossom/Bill Monroe & Peter Rowan – Carleton Haney Bluegrass Festival/Fincastle, VA – 9/3/65

16) Midnight on the Stormy Deep/Bill Monroe & Doc Watson – Bean Blossom - 6/21/69

17) Turkey in the Straw/Bill & Charlie Monroe – Town Hall Party/Compton, CA – 12/24/55

18) I Know You Rider/Bill Monroe & the Seldom Scene – Smithsonian Institute/Washington, DC – 2/6/82

Almost every young bluegrass guitarist I've played with since I moved back to Pennsylvania from North Carolina seems to place a great deal of importance on the 'lead' while completely ignoring what a guitarist like Doc Watson does while he's not playing lead, the 'rhythm'. They listen to the exact way someone like Doc performs say Salt Creek, learns every nuance of the way he first plays the melody and then his extrapolation of the melody into his second, more improvisational lead and when it's time for the next guy to take his lead he might launch into a tightly staccatoed rhythm stance that clubs what the mandolin is supposed to be doing to death, forcefully smacking the downbeat which reduces the power of the backbeat. What Doc does behind Bill Monroe while Bill takes his turn, you hear cross rhythms and bass runs tying together swaths of strummed color, creating an alternate rhythm that counters the mandolin's space, kind of creating a whole band's rhythms between the two. If the guitar hits nothing but the downbeat, the whole thing can 'wobble' with no back beat to counter the extreme downbeat. The guitar is in a unique position within the arrangement to actually make the rhythm swing one way or the other, if they are really listening and in control of themselves.

I've tried to figure out why this happens so much up here, I've run into it plenty since I moved back home and the only thing I can come up with is a) many bluegrass players come upon bluegrass music out of the bar scene anymore which is competitive and loud and b) it seems to me the big difference between southern players and yanks is in the south bluegrass/mountain music is a way of life, a family activity done in a way that everybody finds their place within the landscape of the arrangement, and if something is missing someone picks up that instrument and fills it in. In the north we are in a land of heroes and scholars with completely different reasons for picking up an instrument in the first place. Now none of this is absolute, there are all kinds of different folks everywhere playing things for a variety of reasons. The south has it's musical heroes and scholars as well (check out the books of Wayne Erbsen), but mostly southern musicians gather respect over time on a different level that usually includes how well they manage their own band, how they make best use of their players and capitalize on their strengths with less of a competitive edge, or the sheer originality of the music they produce. Yes, some bands I've seen, in the north, compete with each other on a personal level within the band. Not all, not all, just a trend I've noticed. I think that's because they make heroes out of the individual for his personal accomplishments, never noticing the care, thoughtfulness and control of ego it takes a band leader to run a happy and creatively productive roost.

But I have noticed a bigger emphasis on lessons from the big pros in the north and a competitiveness that can only come from band contests and a pervasive attitude that traditions are for breaking. Keep in mind that few were hankering to be a bluegrass guitar god before Tony Rice came along, giving the sport some personal rock star appeal. I personally love listening to Tonys' playing, not so much the myriad of folks who strive to sound just like him. Doc Watson was amongst the first to play fiddle tunes on the guitar, of the first to use the guitar as that kind of lead device, certainly the most widely known and so it's obvious why Bill played so often with Doc thoughout his career; he was once again traveling into unknown waters for his mandolin and music, this time carving out a performance stance of aggression, speed & accuracy within the context of bluegrass music in a totally new way. You'll notice the only guitar leads here today were by Doc, and there are none taken in the previous 5 installments of our Monroe series. Guitar was simply not a major part of leads taken in bluegrass, it was mostly an accompanying instrument save for these sporadic duo sets and the cross-pick style purported by Clinch Mountain guitarists Bill Napier and George Shuffler in the 50's.

Scales, speed and accuracy are immensely important to master but leave little room for emphasis on attributes of rhythm such as 'swing' and 'feel' and so makes that sole line of education fall immensely short. I've seen quite a few guys who can do nothing more than play fiddle tunes note for note and while that may be a incredibly great way to de-stress after work, for those of us who have to work as a 'band' in conjunction with others, it also falls short. These same guys have not once asked for or received one bit of information about accompanying someone else, which is telling. It is a language, a give and take between people.

Just because you decide to break with tradition doesn't mean all rules are to be broken, either. Some assemblage of the rules is necessary to give bluegrass it's face, tho its essence dots a lot of great original roots music going on today, I'm mostly speaking to the conversation that goes on about tradition vs. that break with tradition, and what it means for bluegrass. A good many folks who took to the Grateful Dead's landmark live 1980 acoustic album Reckoning found their way to Bill Monroe's music though some of the playlist, and remained with him long after the country music world discarded bluegrass as irrelevant. Steve Earle and Johnny Cash had some similar complaints about the country music industry for similar reasons but alas, those deadheads knew a great world to visit when they saw one and so the bluegrass world became a very real home to many Deadheads, myself among them. I just got into the music because it made me feel something and was a world unto itself, which is also why I could skip from Dead to Monroe without any theoretical misgivings, I wasn't looking for anything played perfectly, I was looking for something with a little soul and both are drenched in it.

If you listen closely to anything on the show today you'll hear nothing performed perfectly, there are missed notes and flubbed vocals and probably the most amazing thing about all that is you don't notice those things, you don't listen for them because in the end, they don't matter. It is the feel of the performance that lingers, unless you are purely a musical mathematician. Perfection should never be a goal in bluegrass, I find it to have a homogenizing effect on the musical landscape and a distraction from the better angels of music. Ideally a combination of the 2 sensibilities would be best, the north theorizing what is correct and the south going into the field with nothing but talent and gut, both making total sense but also contrasting, as much of the north/south rancor will dictate. I think it's great to know scales, necessary even...I think it's great to reduce vocal arrangements to strict 3rds and 5ths, it is probably the best way to strengthen your ears to hear such things. Pick-holding positions, where to take breaths, never having sung notes cross over each other, etc., all noble ideas but really only the beginning of the musical performance experience. Taking all that knowledge and muscle memory and using it through an open heart is the next step. Listening to everything going on around you and lifting it up is a righteous goal, for no ones' part is carved in granite and a band is organic whether you'd like to think so or not. It is a combination of things that makes a greater whole, not a group of individuals. Everyone's presence influences the other whether you are conscious of it or not, and the more conscious you can become of your own playing, that of the other musicians around you but also that of what is being consumed by the audience you can finally see the thing as a whole, and the fact that you can blow away the next guy is really an insult to the process. Some people like the showy parts of bluegrass, the perfection, Ricky Scaggs springs to mind. Like I've said before, music is good, period, and I applaud people for finding something personal to behold with whatever style you connect with. For ME, I like the feel of the whole thing, the vibe; it can transport me to another place and time, open a door to another world in much the same way Reggae or the Dead's music does, music with a completely formed world accompanying.

So Listen! Listen to the music, listen to your muse, listen to your stereo and your friends, even (sometimes) your head, practice scales and go to jams or just support your local players, I guarantee they are struggling with something. Listen to the melody, listen to the lyrics, try to understand the things you don't agree with and include them in you psyche, just listen before you tear into something and then listen with your heart. We are unfortunately currently living in a time of more of the same, there are no Bill Monroes blazing any kind of path, we are just trying to find new ways with the old stuff, and much of that has been done as well. So be it. And so it boils down to the personal and what you get out of it as an individual, sharing ideas and influencing the conversation. I've said before that playing bluegrass can be like knowing a language that is spoken in many dialects, and I guess today I'm talking more about sentence structure than pronunciation of the word 'all' or 'you'. It is a simple joy, a pleasant place to go where you don't feel all alone, and I hope listening to the father of bluegrass music speaking the language in different dialects has been illuminating or at the least entertaining. Next time we'll have a mix show which will include some Monroe brothers as well as some other great mandolin work, so come on back, and tell your friends!

LINKS:
Mando Island - Blog

Doc's Guitar

The Bluegrass Blog

The Mandolin Cafe

Flatpick.com
Kris Kehr News/Info
Listen to Kris Kehr on Bandcamp
Listen to Kris Kehr on Archives
Download Kris Kehr on itunes
Kris Kehr on Facebook
Kris Kehr on Youtube
Kris’s Music Blog/Podcast Black Mountain Underground
Julie’s Myspace page

Nineteen

2011-03-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

1)   Breakin’ Out/Porch Poets – 1/9/03 – the Brandyhouse/Atlanta, GA
2)   INTRO
3)   I & I/Bob Dylan – Infidels outtake
4)   For the Turnstiles/Neil Young, Poncho & Ben - 1/13/89 - Tulsa, OK
5)   Nothin’/Townes Van Zandt – 11/20/93
6) Airmail Special/Gillian Welch & David Rawlings w Peter Rowan - 4/48/02 - Merlefest

7)   ‘Bill Momboe story’ introduction.../Peter Rowan – 4/1/90
8)   The Walls of Time/Bill Monroe & Peter Rowan – 9/3/65 – Afternoon Workshop/Carlton Haney Bluegrass Festival/Roanoke, VA
9)   Jack Straw/Bob Weir – 1971 – Ace Demos
10) Last Train from Poor Valley/Legion of Mary – 5/21/75 – Keystone/Berkeley, CA
11) Into the Mystic/Allman Brothers Band – 3/13/09 – Beacon Theater/NYC
12) It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue/Van Morrison – 5/25/01 – Warsaw, PO

Song Notes: First things first, I've played that Peter Rowan story before on the show, it might have been one of the pulled theme shows but it's also been offered as a separate link within the text of a past shows still up, you have to find it if you haven't already. Big difference this time is the inclusion of the original, a live recording of the Walls of Time with Bill Monroe himself and young Bluegrass Boy guitarist Peter Rowan in Roanoke, VA in 1965 for an afternoon workshop at the Carlton Haney Bluegrass Festival. Its a new show for my collection, recently added while collecting material for my Bill Monroe Series. All along I've been promising a Volume 6 and I finally have it for you next time. It will include more of this '65 show as well as many other collaborations and sit-ins with various artists at various times in his career, so check back for that next time.

We also heard Peter Rowan sitting in with the great Gillian Welch & her partner David Rawlings from Merlefest in 2002, a beautifully sung Airmail Special. This is also a bit of a preview, I've been assembling a series on the unreleased material of Gillian that will start in a few weeks. We've been busy here at Woobie Cat Kitchens, there will also be series on such artists as David Grisman, Bill Morrissey, Hot Rize, JJ Cale, David Lindley, David Bromberg & the Band and many, many more so keep a sharp eye out here for more free, live, interesting (hopefully) music.

There's been a goodly amount of Bob Dylan's music featured on the show lately, deal with it. Or enjoy it even, that's up to you. When I called home on my break during the recent Grammy telecast my wife told me she thought Dylan was sounding old, 'not as good as he used to' or whatever that tired old stereotype is. I've been hearing those same words literally since the first time I saw him in concert in 1987, and it's been interesting listening to those arguments still going on as time rolls forward. My wife should know better but she's a gifted vocalist who enjoys music literally, ie you see what you get. She doesn't have that cringe gene that kicks in for me during American Idol, even if I'm in the next room paying no attention, bless her heart. But music is very important to her as well, in her own way, and I love that. I don't need to feel the same way as her, especially when it comes to music because as I've already stated, music like any good art is completely personal, it is one of those little moments when it's okay to have sole control. It's also why I laugh like a mental patient so often walking out of Dylan shows, people try to get it and that's probably what counts most.

It's how most of us hear music anymore, without context. I do not wish in anyway to bash this practice, listening to music in any way, shape or form is a good thing, I don't care who you are, it is as personal as the colors you see in a painting and emotions those colors conjure. It is really not completely our fault, it comes from the choices we are given on how to consume music in society as a whole. Live shows still flourish and it's how many artists derive income in this new age of album sales. But the days when I can walk into a record store and be recommended an album from an employee are over and now credibility has been handed over to any idiot with a blog.

ahem...

But do I really need to dig up the stats on album production, sales and how the industry has laid the album to waste? Just pick up any issue of Rolling Stone since 2002. Sure, focus is on the single again and I have no problem with that, but focus on the single used to be about leading the listener to the 'rest' of the music, the album, which had at it's zenith achieved status of high art. Albums even came to define eras, especially in Dylan's case, and he's one of the last ones to still be able to do that. Music just isn't as important to us anymore, it's taken on different roles and meanings for us as a whole. I mean, it's still consumed at a steady rate in day to day life and I do know plenty of people who still use it to gain perspective in their life, but as a people we just don't let it into our lives in the same ways. Can you imagine any 10 of your friends sitting still and listening to a whole album in a room then sitting and discussing it's importance afterward? Maybe I'm preaching to the choir here, folks who check in to Black Mountain Underground seem to place a high premium on music and go out of their way to come here and listen and let me tell you, it makes me feel personally better knowing you're there, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart AND soul. But a quick look at the industry and the Mexican restaurant that stands where Record Revolution used to and I can't help but have a moment of lament for the Great White Buffalo. Technological advance is supposed to do just that, so what has advanced now that we can finally look in the mirror and notice that the number 1 album on today's charts sold a mere fraction compared to the sales of albums on the charts in the past? Maybe the technology has advanced but not our appreciation of the data it directs toward us. After I graduated High School in Hamburg, PA I went to the Recording Workshop in Cillicothe, OH for a summer course on recording, which was the start of my musical career. This was 1982, and we had a guest speaker come down from Chicago to talk to us about the coming revolution of digital technology and how it would affect the music industry. He kept ranting about sine waves and how our ears would have to work harder to fill in the spaces left by sampling and how eventually the soul of music would get lost in these 'advances' and we would be more interested in HOW music was transferred and less about the actual content. hmm....

Well I'm planning on talking about music and presenting music that speaks to my heart and head while making best use of the technology, because it ain't all bad. First, look at me here with my blog. I produce these 58 minutes dealies and give them to you for free, and then they get broadcast on another website and even repeated. Plus I KNOW there are folks out there listening, you're signed up and you interact to some degree, something that you could never be sure of going on while sitting at the mic in a studio on a campus or downtown somewhere. I will also continue to laugh when I hear someone complain about Dylan's voice 'has finally going south' and see that the Grammy's timed Dylan's appearance to show his influence on a new generation of musicians, namely the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons backing him on Maggies Farm, putting things in perspective (or at least attempting to do so)

The Opening Song: Hey, that was a good day. It was my good friend and Recipe Road Manager/Merch Specialist Jeff Shirley's birthday and we were on our way to Atlanta from our home in North Carolina to play at the Brandyhouse. Not the Recipe, the band was on break at the time but we had a side project called Porch Poets (some combination of Stone Poets & the Porch) and a booking. Not much of a crowd that night either, but I remember having fun for for a number of reasons and besides the birthday we had percussionist Count Umbutu and banjoist Rev Jeff Mosier sitting in that night. Apart from founding and re-founding Blueground Undergrass and helping to create the Aquarium Rescue Unit with Col. Bruce Hampton, Rev. Jeff Mosier has quite often served as glue in the jam-band community, or at least a shot of B-12 (and the 'B' stands for 'bluegrass') especially for Phish, and when I met him (and he knew me not at all) he could not have been more nurturing and 'fair' to play with, a mensch. Anyway, he sat in with us for two shows on that January Porch Poets run, first at the Town Pump in Black Mountain, NC and a few days later in Atlanta for this show on 1/19/03. he brought Count Umbutu with him in Atlanta, a double shot of energy for the band that evening. The good Count is known for playing with Mosier in Blueground Undergrass and other bands and alsoa s part of Derek Trucks band. A DAT master recording of the soundboard surfaced in my office here a few weeks ago and I was surprised at the transfer, first time I've listened to it. There's two sets of various vocalists taking the lead, including Mosier for a few, but I've only included my song Breaking Out here today. The original studio version kicks off my first Woobie Cat album Long, Long Year. I will feature themost of the rest of the tracks here in an upcoming episode of Black Mountain Underground. By the way, the photo above is from said event, Jeff Shirley's birthday party on January 19th, 2003 at the Brandyhouse in Atlanta, GA. From left to Right its: Rus Reppert (guitar), Count Umbutu (percussion), Gregg Lowley (drums behind Mosier), Rev. Jeff Mosier (banjo), Joe Prichard (guitar), Chris Q (bass), Kris Kehr (mandolin) Jeff Shirley (not in photo)

As always, thanks for listening and see ya next time...
Kris

Additional Notes: If you'd like to catch up with some great underground check out Arizona Jones, a very cool music blog.

18

2011-02-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

1) The Little Things/LOWdOGS4 – 1/19/05 – Plantation Club/Worchester, MA
2) INTRO>
3) Gomorrah/Jerry Garcia Band – 8/29/87 – French’s Camp, CA
4) Water of Love/the Notting Hillbillies – 5/15/90 – the Maltings/Snape UK
5) Ice Fields Suite/Leo Kottke – 4/24/93 – the Bottom Line/NYC
6) Pacing the Cage/Bruce Cockburn – 3/98 – Vara Studios/Netherlands
7) Spanish Moon> Skin it Back/Little Feat - 11/4/00 – Stamford, CT
8) Tears of Rage/Bob Dylan – 2/22/99 – RP Fieldhouse/Troy, NY
9) Acadian Driftwood/the Band – 9/18/76 – the Palladium/NYC

Today’s show starts off with something special, a track from a band I like to call LOWdOGS4. I am part of that band, which technically is an offshoot of the duo I was in for a few years immediately following the Recipe, called LOWdOGS (which technically was an offshoot of the Recipe, although there are some people who would not like to see it that way). The LOWdOGS website still stands although I think the last entry in the forum is from 2006. It was designed and constructed by my good friend and all around mensch Otto Bost who still maintains it to show off his web design skills although I am especially thankful he keeps the SOUNDS page up, there is so much there to listen to for free. Check that out…

In LOWdOGS I played acoustic guitar and sung, my partner was bassist Chris Kew who remained in the Asheville area of North Carolina after I moved back north late in 2005. We started the duo to keep playing as the Recipe was crumbling before our eyes, and we managed to do a few pretty cool gigs in the short time we were together, also producing my only live album for Woobie Cat Records called ‘In the Tall Grass’, an ‘acoustic’ half recorded at Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse and an ‘electric’ half recorded at the Century Lounge in Providence, RI. The Rhode Island show included guests Greg Vasso on drums and Scott Murawski on electric guitar, both on leave from the mighty Max Creek. I talk about Scott’s playing in the recorded outro of the show a bit, Scott and I had bonded years before over a very tumultuous time when both our lives seemed to overlap very cosmically around a very negative situation, much like a flower growing in a heap of garbage, and we have remained friends ever since. Greg was a former band mate of Q’s in Jiggle and a current one of Scott’s in Max Creek, a jamband that seems to have been around almost as long as the Dead itself. Scott & Greg graciously drove down from Massachusetts and sat in that night and I ended up using three lengthy cuts to finish out our record from the October 28^th show. The album could easily be released on vinyl and divided into two sides: acoustic & electric but alas, was never to be. Pretty good live album tho, if I may say so.

We moved on, but not before playing together again but this time the whole show as a quartet, thus the name LOWdOGS4. Thanks to some help from Creeks awesome long-time manager Eric Freitis we secured the Plantation Club in Worcester, MA on January 19^th of 2005 to have a show. Of course there was a snowstorm right in time to slow everything down, little more than band and hardcores made it out. But it was a great night of music and I am so thankful to those who helped make it happened, namely Scott, Greg, Eric- really, really great people. And thanks to the soundman named T, I had two channels of some interesting recordings to mix together which makes up the source of the download version available for free on Archives.org, an upcoming episode of BMU as well as for my song The Little Things which opens today’s show. Since then I’ve jammed with the Creek and Scott from time to time in different situations, always an extreme honor but more, true artistic journey-camaraderie. I know this because I when look right towards Scott and he's looking back in a raging moment on stage, see his eyebrows dance up like a kid on a rollercoaster who is so happy to be experiencing it with a pal, that’s how I know. Go see him live in any of these incarnations:

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

interview with Scott

LOWdOGS

Otto Bost/Folk Dude Productions

LOWdOGS on MySpace

Scott Murawski’s Road Blog

Scott Murawski's MGB Blog

Scott Murawski's MySpace Page

LOWdOGS Album Art by Ron Plummer/Razor Pixels

BONUS RECORDINGS:

You're the Only One/Freeborn Man - Max Creek w guests Kris Kehr/(mandolin) & Mike Gordon (bass) - recorded at the Wormtown Music Festival/Russell, MA 9/7/2 by Mike Nichols

Download Plantation Club Show on Archives.org

Seventeen

2011-02-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

1) Whiskey Pickle/the Recipe w Fareed Haque – 9/21/2 – Recher Theater/Baltimore, MD
2) INTRO>
3) Rainy Day Women/Bob Dylan w Neil Young & Bruce Springsteen – 10/20/94 – Roseland Ballroom/NYC
4) Young-Hendrix Jam/Jimi Hendrix, Billy Cox & Mitch Mitchell w Larry Young – 5/14/69 – Record Plant/NYC
5) People Lie/J.J. Cale – 9/1/94 – Great American Music Hall/San Francisco, CA
6) Apolitical Blues/Little Feat w Al Kooper – 6/17/88 – Telluride, CO
7) Southbound/Allman Brothers Band w Buddy Guy, Paige McConnell & Trey Anastasio – 3/12/09 – Beacon Theater/NYC
8) Highway 61 Revisited/Bob Dylan w Neil Young & Bruce Springsteen – 10/20/94 – Roseland Ballroom/NYC

First things first, I wanted to thank the guys at the Mandolin Cafe, a wonderful bluegrass-oriented blog and great group of people who gets it, and I appreciate their patience and interest in what I'm doing here at Black Mountain Underground. Blogs like that have become the new musical watering holes in much the same way hanging out at the local record store was, where somewhat like-minded folks get together and talk about what they love...I miss the record stores of yore, but I'll take the Mando Cafe any time, thanks guys!

Of course their interest would be in the Bill Monroe series, understood, and we don't always feature strict bluegrass here, although I do love it and play it on the show often, so hopefully everyone can find something here to their liking. PLUS, episode 20 of this season seems to be shaping up to be the Bill Monroe 'Lost' episode featuring duets and sit-ins like I mentioned during the original series, so look for that one coming down the line. Be sure to check out the Mandolin Cafe for current news of the new Bill Monroe Biopic featuring actor Peter Saarsgard as Bill, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal as Bessie Lee Mauldin, and a soundtrack produced by T-Bone Burnett and featuring the playing of Ronnie McCoury and the singing of pop Del in Bill's place...sounding good!

An interesting show today for sure, if no other reason than I've included some of the Recipe in the show today, a first for me. It's no secret that was a difficult ride not just for me but all involved, I left the band in 2004 and have found it difficult to look back although there are many moments I'm very proud of, the track included on today's show being one of them. The song is an original for the band, written and sung by Joe Prichard, the founder and only remaining member today from the time period this song comes from. Soon after this recording lead guitarist Rus bolted in the middle of the night which was representational of the toxic atmosphere propelled by leadership and management going on at that time, so it was only inevitable that the situation would eventually completely combust. On top of it all, I was responsible for collecting the live tracks for our proposed live album to be released on Harmonized Records, an off-shoot of the Homegrown Catalog. All of the tracks I had collected up until that point had to be thrown out with the dishwater after the guitarists dash in the night, and what we were left with was a giant pile of songs edited but never used from a proposed live album that would have easily eclipsed what was eventually released, All You Can Eat....Although I have a few legitimate monetary complaints with Harmonized let's not wallow in the negative, let's celebrate some of the good stuff that went down, and Whiskey Pickle from the Recher with Fareed Haque is a great place to start, a really fun show and high energy performance, with nobody hating each other on stage that day!

I also wanted to play the two marvelous tracks from Bob Dylan and his guests Bruce Springsteen & Neil Young from the Roseland Ballroom run back in '94, an infamous show I described being at in today's closing show statements. For years I had my audience recording made by pal Mudbone to cherish but only recently has this wonderful soundboard source been making the circles and drawing heavy attention due to a RS article. We also heard another track from the Allmans' historic 2009 Beacon Theater run, we'll continue to roll out tracks from that here on the show, as well as things from my rather large collection of J.J. Cale's' music. There's been alot of hullabaloo around Jimi Hendrix lately again, it seems to come in waves and of course there has been 2 notable release lately, the album Valleys of Neptune and the box set West Coast Seattle Boy to fan the ever-burning flames, which also have made this great bootleg album of sessions 'Message from Nine to the Universe' turn up. We're also tying together the best parts of that time in the Recipe from the start of the show with the Young/Hendrix Jam, my good friend and former Recipe road-manager Jeff Shirley has been representing the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame (as well as Mountain Stage Stage Manager) during their recent induction of West Virginia native Billie Cox...congrats to the both of yins!

Little Feat w Al Kooper doing Apolitical Blues seemed to fit right in there. As always, I hoped you've enjoyed today's' show, next time we'll continue to explore the musical landscape from the underground with more great Dylan, Cockburn & Little Feat as well as Leo Kottke, Jerry and much more...Thanks for Listening!

Kris Kehr News/Info
Listen to Kris Kehr on Bandcamp
Listen to Kris Kehr on Archives
Download Kris Kehr on itunes
Kris Kehr on Facebook
Kris Kehr on Youtube
Kris’s Music Blog/Podcast Black Mountain Underground
Julie’s Myspace page

Number Sixteen

2011-02-08T21:49:00.001-08:00

1) Dark Hollow/Garcia Grass w Jeff Wisor – 2/4/11 – the Burning Barrel/Ansonia, PA
2) INTRO>
3) Dark as a Dungeon/David Bromberg Quartet – 10/18/86 – Chestnut Cabaret/Phila, PA
4) Must You Throw Dirt in my Face/Charley Louvin – 2007/SXSW/Austin, TX
5) No More/Neil Young – 12/11/89 – Paris
6) Watermelon Man/Michael Hedges – 5/26/90 – Strawberry/Yosemite, CA
7) Boy from Oklahoma/Willis Alan Ramsey – 11/19/78 – Memphis, TN
8) The Driver’s Song/Bill Morrissey – 11/8/86
9) Alberta/New Blue Velvet Band – 3/4/93
10) Omie Wise/Bob Dylan – 12/22/61 – Minnesota Hotel Tape
11) Mink Don’t Trickle Down/the Horseflies – 8/4/89 – Rooney/Deposit, NY
12) Do You Want My Job/David Lindley y Wally Ingram – 5/20/98 – Frankfurt, GER
13) Joy Will Find a Way/Bruce Cockburn – 8/30/79 – Hastings Lake Retreat/Alberta
14) Flag Decal/John Prine - 7/7/92 - High Sierra Fest/Leland Meadows, CA

Lotta good folkie-bent themes today, some fine guitar playing and a few tributes. We lost Charlie Louvin last month and I wanted to include something recent of his that would be nice, but in a way it's all a tribute to the music I love, and I do love this stuff. The Dylan track just kinda fell out of the sky via dime as a vinyl transfer of a lost bootleg album, as well as Willis Alan Ramsey and Neil Young in Paris, much of the rest is from my collection. The Michael Hedges piece, a Ramsey song itself, has been one of my favorites since I received it on cassette right around the time it happened. The Bill Morrissey track is kinda the same, I copied it from the master way back while I was still doing sound there, around 1990 as well. We've heard other tracks from this impressive early show by the reclusive New Englander and The Driver still haunts. I recorded that Horseflies track myself, part of a case of blank cassettes I spent at Rooney in 1989. The following 2 years I would end up performing there as part of Pavlov's Dawgs, tapes that will make up a future show here at Black Mountain Underground.

But the biggest tribute here today is for Jeff Wisor, the kind and generous fiddler who has been by David Bromberg's side for many years, now retired. We started off today's show with a track from a show by Bromberg's Quartet at the Chestnut Cabaret in Philly in October of '86, a show I was at the day I got out of the hospital for some serious heart stuff. The show was so over-crowded that people were ejected and Jeff and I had time to reminisce about that recently at a NEPA Bluegrass event where we met. He also later sat in with a group I am part of called Garcia Grass. Garcia Grass is made up of myself on mandolin and vocals, Mike Miz on guitar and vocals, Pappy Biondo & Dylan Skursky from Cabinet on banjo & vocals and bass respectively, and Anthony Hannigan from Hickory Project on fiddle. I left a little flummoxed because I didn't get a picture with him, let alone get to say bye. That changed the following week when the band reconvened at the Burning Barrel in north-central PA when he sat in with the band for close to half the show, this time being recorded and photographed. It was certainly a proud moment to perform Dark Hollow with him at our side, the version so often performed by Bromberg's Quartet, a recording of which topped today's show thanks to taper Jack Riley, who also snapped this photo- below you'll find some links to some single tracks edited from that evening's show- Thanks for Listening!!
Deep Elem Blues/Garcia Grass w Jeff Wisor - the Burning Barrel, Ansonia, PA 2/4/11
Long Journey Home/Garcia Grass w Jeff Wisor - the Burning Barrel, Ansonia, PA 2/4/11

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Bill Monroe - part 5

2010-12-31T21:43:00.000-08:00

1) Introductions by President Jimmy Carter & Bill Monroe - the White House/Washington DC – 8/7/80
2) Georgia Rose - the White House/Washington DC – 8/7/80
3) Rawhide - the White House/Washington DC – 8/7/80
4) My Last Days on Earth – Smithsonian Institute/Washington, DC – 2/6/82
5) Baltimore Breakdown – Artscape/Baltimore, MD – 7/21/85
6) Wolf Trap Blues – Artscape/Baltimore, MD – 7/21/85
7) Brown County Jamboree Barn – Berkshire Mountain Festival/Duanesburg, PA – 7/26/85
8) One Finger Blues – Great American Music Hall/San Francisco, CA – 8/21/89
9) Come Hither to Go Yonder – the Brickhouse/State College, PA – 2/2/90
10) Goodbye Old Pal – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/29/90
11) Sugarloaf Mountain – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/29/90
12) Dark as the Night, Blue as the Day – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/29/90
13) I’m On My Way Back to the Old Home – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/29/90
14) Northern White Clouds – Ziggy’s/Winston-Salem, NC – 12/31/93
15) Big Mon – Ziggy’s/Winston-Salem, NC – 12/31/93
16) In the Pines – Cherokee Bluegrass Festival/Cherokee, NC – 8/26/94
17) Southern Flavor - Cherokee Bluegrass Festival/Cherokee, NC – 8/26/94
18) You’re Causing Me Trouble – Cherokee Bluegrass Festival/Cherokee, NC – 8/26/94
19) Tombstone Junction – Fallgrass @ the Dunfey Hotel/San Mateo, CA – 11/12/94
20) Wayfaring Stranger – Fallgrass @ the Dunfey Hotel/San Mateo, CA – 11/12/94
21) I’d Love to Be Over Yonder – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/31/94

Bill Monroe - V5
The last installment of our look at the music of Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys swims around in the later world he created, a world where bluegrass had become a respectable art form and not just an out-of-date novelty of country music no longer prominent on the Country Charts, which sadly had become fact by the late 50's. The Great Folk Revival/Scare of the 60's helped re-establish Bill as the father figure within the sport and helped gain him a new, younger audience that would stick with him long after the healthy glow of the folk boom wore off. But it wasn't until the 80's when Bill gained the recognition and kudos he deserved, his legacy clearly present while playing for President Carter at the White House, the pride obvious in his speech. It was a different world than that when he first formed the Bluegrass Boys in the 40's and after some hard work and re-adjustment he had finally found his place in it.

Most of the songs written during this time were instrumentals, gems such as Jerusalem Ridge, Northern White Clouds and Southern Flavor all as distinct and picturesque as anything he'd ever written with lyrics, maybe more so...the prospect of the great beyond was obviously weighing heavy on his creative process and he was getting much more experimental with mandolin tunings, sometimes to ominous effects; just listen to My Last Days on Earth which is also the name of the box set released by the marvelous Bear Family Records that chronicles this same period in his career that we are today but with the official releases as well as some radio stuff. Actually Bear Family Records has done this with all points in Monroe's career, as well as other important country/roots artists and is the gold standard in box set collections. My Last Days on Earth is an ominous instrumental, not just flirting with the great beyond or questioning it but embracing it, using it as his muse, which was evident in this era. I'd Love to Be Over Yonder, Wayfaring Stranger, Tombstone Junction, I'm On My Way Back to the Old Home, Goodbye Old Pal, Come Hither to Go Yonder, My Last Days on Earth are just a sampling of the titles referring to looming darkness and the great hereafter, and what I think made his music at this time even more substantial and real, thus effective. It came from a wholly personal perspective and so set this period apart from the others.

Bill Monroe passed on September 9th, 1996 and left behind a substantial catalog of material, we have only scratched the surface here with our 5 part series. Be sure to check out material from all points in Bill's illustrious career, the Music of Bill Monroe is a great over-all sampling from his whole career. The Bear Family series can pinpoint different eras, separating his career into 4 parts with a comprehensive book to accompany, and the Columbia Box serves up his early career with the Bluegrass Boys ably. There's also a great new book about Bill's recording sessions called The Music of Bill Monroe (Music in American Life) by Neil Rosenberg and Charles K. Wolfe as well as a plethora of books written about or by various Bluegrass Boys, although I am beginning to question why Peter Rowan hasn't written one yet, his path is every bit as picturesque and twisted as Bill Monroe's, or even Warren Zevon (that's right, I said it).

I do hope you've enjoyed this series, but now it's time to get back to producing mix shows for a while, although some spotlight themes for the future here on Black Mountain Underground includes looks at the unreleased material of Gillian Welch, a collection from The Band post-Robbie, Bob Dylan's late 90's output and the coda for our Bill Monroe series, a look at Bill's many collaborations with various artists through his career which includes his brother Charles, the Seldom Scene, Peter Rowan, Hazel Dickens and of course the great Doc Watson.

As always, thank you for listening. Tell your friends about Black Mountain Underground, and see you next time!
Kris

Additional Links:
-Bill Monroe's 100th Birthday celebration-

Here's a link to an alternative version of Wayfaring Stranger, a free download provided by the Florida Folklife Program.
Recorded: 29 May 1993 by the Florida Folklife Program 1993/Florida Folk Festival (Old Marble Stage), White Springs, Florida (S 1576, tape D93-25)

Bill Monroe - part 4

2010-12-31T15:43:00.000-08:00

1) Roll On Buddy, Roll On – 1967/Bluegrass Time - Decca
2) It Makes No Difference Now – 1967/Bluegrass Time - Decca
3) Cold Rain & Snow – Univ. of WI/Madison, WI – 2/13/67
4) The Walls of Time – Univ. of WI/Madison, WI – 2/13/67
5) Heavy Traffic Ahead – Univ. of MI/Ann Arbor, MI – 3/25/67
6) Jimmy Brown the Newsboy – Univ. of MI/Ann Arbor, MI – 3/25/67
7) Used to Be – Univ. of MI/Ann Arbor, MI – 3/25/67
8) Crossin’ the Cumberland – UCSB/Santa Barbara, CA – 5/15/67
9) Cotton-Eyed Joe – Osaka, Japan – 12/13/74
10) Footprints in the Snow – Grand Opera House/Wilmington, DE – 3/6/75
11) Get Up, John – Grand Opera House/Wilmington, DE – 3/6/75
12) Mary Jane, Won’t You Be Mine – Nuggets Studio/Nashville, TN – 5/4/76
13) Jerusalem Ridge – Nuggets Studio/Nashville, TN – 5/4/76
14) You Won’t Be Satisfied that Way – Eugene, OR - 1977
15) Y’all Come! – Eugene, OR - 1977
16) The Road to Columbus – Jonathon Swift’s/Cambridge, MA – 3/23/77
17) Meet Me in the Moonlight Alone (the Prisoner’s Song) – Jonathon Swift’s/Cambridge, MA – 3/23/77
18) Sunset Trail – Great American Music Hall/San Francisco, CA – 10/78
19) Swing Low> I’ll Fly Away> I Saw the Light – Great American Music Hall/San Francisco, CA – 10/78

Bill Monroe - part 4
This is the last of the great 'Folk Boom' era in Bill Monroe's bands' history, churning out a class of Bluegrass Boys that went on to further the art of Bluegrass after Bill's time on earth had ended, and even while he was still here. Bill found himself with some financial problems towards the late 50's, country radio hits were less frequent as Nashville changed. It was around this time that audiences of young boomers starting taking great interest in all things folk, gaining Bill a steady audience that stayed with him until the end. Members of his band had been changing since very early on but now new members were very much connected to this new audience and Bill took to the college circuit for the first time in the early 60's, taking with him the young talents of Del McCoury, Peter Rowan, Bill Keith and fiddlers Kenny Baker, Richard Greene and Byron Berline (who later recorded with the Stones), amongst others, ushering in a new era for the bluegrass Boys. Representative of this era is the album 'Bluegrass Time' originally issued on Decca records in early 1967 but recorded with many of the different members since a few years before that. One of Del McCoury's first recording sessions with Bill on 1/28/64 resulted in the first song of today's show, Roll On Buddy, Roll On.

Today we also heard a healthy sampling of some dates from the college circuit as well as a visit to Osaka, Japan and the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, DE in the mid 70's. We also heard two cuts from an in-studio performance Bill and the Boys did in Nashville in 1976, broadcast later on the CBC in Canada and released on vinyl up north, now out-of-print: the new instrumental Jerusalem Ridge and Mary, Won't You Be Mine, otherwise known as My Little Sweetheart of the Mountains. Rounding out the 70's on today's show were a few different cuts from a show with little information, recorded in Eugene, OR sometime in 1977, and a visit to the infamous Jonathon Swift's in Cambridge Massachusetts also in 1977. We ended things today at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA in October of 1978 with Bill Monroe's famous spiritual medley that he often ended his show with. That’s one of the things I remember most about seeing Bill Monroe the handful of times that I did, the sing-along at the end. In a previous BMU episode I joked about a ‘trick’ that Bill did at a festival I saw where he raised his arms into the air and a parting of clouds left free a ray of sunlight at the end of this medley, the crowd ohhing and ahhing and rising to their feet, with even a few tears around me...this was actually not a joke, I’ve seen it first hand twice, once at Telluride and once at Winterhawk in the late 80’s, and the Winterhawk show was where I got his signature, the story posted on part one of this series. I talk a bit about how this influenced a Gillan Welch show in a review of said event I wrote for Jambands.com a few years back. Next time we'll finish out the chronological study of the bluegrass Boys material with visits to the White House, the Smithsonian Institute and Ziggy's (near Raleigh) amongst others...see ya!

LINKS:
Bill Monroe inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970.
Photos of Bean Blossom in 1978
Gene Lowinger's photography
Portrait of a Bluegrass Fiddler
Interview with Wayne Lewis
Kris Kehr News/Info
Listen to Kris Kehr on Bandcamp
Listen to Kris Kehr on Archives
Download Kris Kehr on itunes
Kris Kehr on Facebook
Kris Kehr on Youtube
Kris’s Music Blog/Podcast Black Mountain Underground
Julie’s Myspace page