The Daily News reports that Columbia University’s WKCR (89.9 FM) will kick off their annual Country Music Festival today and it will last over the weekend for 50 hours total. The festival features vintage country as well as live tunes from city bands. Maybe this is the first step for getting Gothem a full time country radio station. Of course commercial radio doesn’t come close to being this good!
The schedule:
FRIDAY
Noon-3 p.m.: Great country songwriters, like Billy Joe Shaver
3-6 p.m.: Modern country storytellers, like Robert Earl Keen and Guy Clark
6-7:30 p.m.: Live music, with New York bands in the studio
7:30-10:30 p.m.: Gram Parsons
10:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m.: 40 Years in Folsom Prison. The anniversary of Johnny Cash’s famous live album
SATURDAY
1:30 -4:30 a.m.: Uncle Tupelo and its family tree
4:30-7 a.m.: Murder ballads and disaster songs, 1913-1938. Based on recent box set of the same name
7-10 a.m: Zydeco
10 a.m.-1 p.m.: Norman Blake and Tony Rice
1-7 p.m.: Tribute to the late Porter Wagoner
7 p.m.-midnight: Tribute to the late Hank Thompson
SUNDAY
Midnight-3 a.m.: Johnny Cash and June Carter. Their duets
3-8 a.m.: Country rock
8-10 a.m.: Country gospel
10 a.m.-noon: Black string bands
Noon-2 p.m.: Hank Williams
Hey Baron.
It was great meeting you at the National tonight. There is a lot of great music in this town, a lot of it country-flavored, which doesn’t sound so contradictory when you think of the folk scene in the thirties through the sixties, the blue grass scene fer chrissakes in the fifties and sixties, and other down home currents that have traveled and continue to travel through this great city.
I hope you can make it to our show at the National on 4/11 from 7 to 10. I’ll be playing fiddle with Patrick Walsh, a wonderful singer songwriter, and Andy the stand-up bass player. Patrick has a gift, he’s a poet and truth seeker, and one of a kind.
See you soon1
What was that joint on Allen St. you were telling me about? Maybe the whiskey fumes fogged my brain…
Greg
Hey Greg, great meeting you as well. Hope to catch your show at the National on the 11th. The name of the other joint of Rockwood Music Hall. Also great local talent and within crawling distance of the Nations and the Living Room.