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written by members of WTJU Charlottesville's folk department with stuff maybe of interest to listeners to the station. This blog is not an official WTJU or UVA website. Want to leave a message about any of our programs (or us in general) that we can broadcast over the air? Call 434-218-3655, and leave a voice mail.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Ross Sisters

On Sunset Road, during the live appearance by ACME Swing Mfg Co yesterday (7/22/11), the band played and sang a song called 'Solid Potato Salad'. Here's the amazing video that they learned the song from:



Posted by Pete, WTJU Folk

Friday, July 22, 2011

Jimbo & Kim Cary, Pete & Ellen Vigour on Sunset Road fri 7/29/11


On Friday July 29th, Kim and Jimbo Cary and Pete & Ellen Vigour will be performing live on WTJU on Sunset Road at 5pm (EST), in anticipation of their upcoming appearance at the 6th Annual Blue Ridge Mountain Music Festival at Wintergreen, VA on 8/13/11.
Also performing at the festival are Robin and Linda Williams, The Dry Branch Fire Squad and  The Virginia Ramblers.

As always, you can listen live online at WTJU or, for two weeks following original airtime, at the WTJU tape vault.

Posted by Pete, WTJU Folk

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Rob Ickes to be interviewed on Sunset Road Fri 7/22/11

Rob Ickes , the most awarded instrumentalist in the history of the International Bluegrass Music Association, will be interviewed on Sunset Road on friday 7/22/11 just after 5pm, prior to his appearance with multi-award winning guitarist  Jim Hurst at Mockingbird in Staunton VA that evening.

Listen to the interview live on WTJU as the show airs, or on the WTJU tape vault for two weeks following original airtime.



A Northern California native, Rob moved to Nashville in 1992 and joined Blue Highway, the highly esteemed bluegrass band, as a founding member in 1994. He is recognized as one of the most innovative Dobro players on the scene today, contributing signature technique and greatly expanding the boundaries of the instrument's sonic and stylistic territory. He won the International Bluegrass Music Association's Dobro Player of the Year award for a record-setting eleventh time in 2009.
As an active session player and touring musician, he has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including Charlie Haden, Merle Haggard, Earl Scruggs, Tony Rice, David Grisman, Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, David Lee Roth, Dolly Parton, Patty Loveless, Peter Rowan, Claire Lynch, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. 
The youngest dobro player on The Great Dobro Sessions (Jerry Douglas & Tut Taylor, producers), which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, he was also on the Alison Krauss & The Cox Family album, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Southern Gospel. His most recent release is a dobro-piano jazz album, Road Song (ResoRevolution 2009); he has also released four acclaimed solo albums on Rounder, eight albums with Blue Highway (Rounder, Ceili, Rebel) and a self-titled CD with Three Ring Circle, comprising Rob, Andy Leftwich and Dave Pomeroy (Earwave).
Posted by Pete, WTJU Folk

ACME Swing Mfg Co appearing on Sunset Road fri 7/22/11


ACME Swing Mfg Co to appear on Sunset Road Fri 7/22/11



Members of Charlottesville's hot swing combo, ACME SWING MFG CO, will be appearing on WTJU's Sunset Road on Fri 7/22 at around 5:30pm, prior to their appearance at C'ville Coffee on 7/23.

If Wile E. Coyote and Cab Calloway had a love child, it would be ACME Swing Mfg. Co.  Clarinet and sax lines, searing violin solos, girl-girl harmonies, accordion and uke combine to give you the best hot jazz combo experience this side of The Cotton Club.

Reproducing the spirit of the speakeasy but not stuck in that “retro-novelty” niche, ACME slays you with originals, sprinkles in Blues, Bop, Latin and Cool, as well as giving their own spin on vintage tunes. You have only to hear their version of “Caravan” (which includes a little “Hava-Nagila”) or that famous mechanized Warner-Brothers cartoon themed “Powerhouse” by Raymond Scot (accompanied by Slinkys) to realize how their collective personality is set on the Coyote’s dial: “Seriously Ridiculous.”

Tune in to hear the band live, or access the show for two weeks after on the WTJU Tape Vault


Posted by Pete, WTJU Folk

Monday, July 11, 2011

Jackass Flats on The Cosmic American Jamboree

 Thursday, July 14 Noon-2 pm (edt)
WTJU 91.1 FM/Streaming at WTJU.net

Tune in during the first hour of The Cosmic American Jamboree this Thursday, when Jackass Flats stops by for a raucous visit with Lonesome George.  The band will be playing at The Southern this coming Saturday night, and later in the month at both the Mockingbird and Floyd Fest.


Fueled by original songwriting, award winning musicianship, and exhilarating americana instrumentation, Jackass Flats epitomizes the new generation of cross-genre bands who combine creativity and tradition to produce something all together unique. Since taking home Virginia State Champion Bluegrass Band honors in 2002, the boys have been crowd favorites on the bluegrass, americana, and world music scenes. In 2003 Jackass Flats took their local music scene by storm and were awarded Best Bluegrass/Country Band by internet magazine Richmond.com, who called the band "masters of backwoods symphonies". In 2004 the band was presented with a Virginia Music Award for The Best Americana Jamband. The band has performed at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN and shared billing with groups as diverse as The Wailers, Del McCoury Band, Ani Difranco, Victor Wooten Band, Railroad Earth, Keller Williams, Sam Bush Band, Xavier Rudd, Tony Rice, Drive By Truckers, and J.D Crowe and the New South.


Jackass Flats plays hard hitting original music with gritty rock influences and hitches the whole thing to a fast and furious bluegrass engine. The band grew out of the musical partnership of Stephen Kuester and Travis Rinehart, who began playing and singing together since before they could drive. The two crafted a vocal harmony attack that landed them in the east coast's premier clubs, music halls, and festival stages. The typical show has Jackass Flats picking their way through original material, fresh arrangements of bluegrass standands, and non-traditional tunes from genres as varied as rock, reggae, and jazz.


Submitted by Peter Jones, WTJU Folk

Monday, July 4, 2011

Sahara Smith Stops By Folk & Beyond

Thursday, July 7, 2011 5-7 pm (edt)
WTJU 91.1 FM/Streaming at WTJU.net

Tune in this Thursday, when singer/songwriter Sahara Smith, in town for a performance at Cville Coffee, pays a visit to Aer Stephen on Folk & Beyond.  Below is a recent performance on The Late Show with David Letterman.


"Texas singer-songwriter Sahara Smith creates Cinemascope-like wide-screen portraits of romantic passion, loneliness and unrequited love in her richly impressive, intensely soulful debut album." - LOS ANGELES TIMES

"Now 21, her "Myth of the Heart" is getting a royal send-off, shepherded by producer T-Bone Burnett and fed by years of critical rapture." - WALL STREET JOURNAL

"A hybrid of folk, Americana, country and bluegrass, "Myth of the Heart" makes good on Smith's promise. Melodic and often heartbreaking, it's an assured debut, an elaborately painted canvas anchored by Smith's poetic songwriting and otherworldly voice. And all from a 21-year-old" - AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN



Submitted by Peter Jones, WTJU Folk

Friday, July 1, 2011

Leftover Biscuits Serves Up Mike Seeger Tribute

Remembering Mike Seeger, Part I
Saturday, July 2, 20116:30-8 am (edt)
WTJU 91.1 FM/Streaming at WTJU.net
Miss the show?  Listen at the WTJU Tape Vault.

In honor of the Mike Seeger Tribute Concert at Lime Kiln Theater (Lexington, VA) later that same day, Peter Jones will air the first half of a very special three hour program he did with Mike's widow, Alexia Smith, back in April of 2010.  The second half will air in August, a little closer to what would have been Mike's seventy-eighth birthday (born August 15, 1933).  There might even be a giveaway or two from our friends at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, a label Mike not only recorded for over the decades, but also for which he produced other artists and projects.

Peter supplied archived recordings from Mike's myriad Prism Coffeehouse appearances, while Alexia shared some of her favorite Mike recordings in between a few personal memories.  Virginia State Folklorist Jon Lohman, ballad singer Molly Andrews, and musician and historian Joe Ayers also contributed some memories, with Molly even doing a Carter Family ballad she recorded specifically for this program.

Mike of course helped "rediscover" artists such as Elizabeth Cotten and Dock Boggs, and influenced so many of today's musicians, including Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan), and 2011 Fulbright Scholar Seth Swingle.  Seth was actually Mike's apprentice as part of the Virginia Folklife's Master & Apprentice Program.  So tune in for a very special tribute to the great Mike Seeger this Saturday morning, July 2, starting at 6:30.

Mike Seeger and Apprentice Seth Swingle
Submitted by Peter Jones, WTJU Folk, Leftover Biscuits