Acoustic Music Talk with Brad Apple

On this episode of Acoustic Music Talk, Brad interviews musician, singer, songwriter, Anna Brinker.

Anna was born in Illinois, but moved around often as a kid until her family found roots in Arkansas in 2002. She has loved singing since she was a little girl and vividly remembers her parents smiling and singing Bobby McGee in the living room while her daddy played guitar.

She is a 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021 Arkansas Country Music Award Nominee. She won Duo of the Year with Adam Cunningham at the 2020 ACMA's for their duet "Thinkin Bout You" and is nominated for 2021 Album of the Year for her album "Rain and Whiskey", released in January of 2020.

On this episode of Acoustic Music Talk, Brad Apple talks with amazing acoustic bassist, Missy Raines.  GRAMMY® nominated Missy Raines was named 2020 International Bluegrass Music Association Bass Player of the Year, for the 9th time, more than any other bass player in the history of the organization.  Missy Raines has proven herself without doubt as an iconic bluegrass instrumentalist. But with her newest release, Royal Traveller, Raines has stepped into the spotlight as a songwriter for the first time. The album digs deep into Raines' family life and her upbringing in West Virginia. Featuring previous and current members of her live band, as well as cameos from other bluegrass greats such as Stuart Duncan and Tim O'Brien, the album is a gorgeous look into the perspective, history, and musical influences of one of Nashville’s most beloved musicians, Missy Raines.

Royal Traveller was nominated for a GRAMMY® for “Best Bluegrass Album” and is Raines' third album for Compass Records.  It’s the first produced by Compass' owner and founder, and renowned banjo player Alison Brown. "I went into this project with Alison with the mindset that I wanted to stretch myself and see what I could do. I think we achieved what I was looking for, which is something further reaching and bigger than what I would have accomplished on my own," says Raines.

In 1998, Raines became the first woman to win IBMA's Bass Player of the Year award and she went on to win the title repeatedly for the next several years. Royal Traveller highlights this particular piece of Raines' history with the stand out track “Swept Away”, which features the 5 first women to win IBMA instrumentalist awards, Raines, Brown, Sierra Hull, Becky Buller, and Molly Tuttle. “Swept Away” was named 2018 IBMA Recorded Event of the Year.

Missy’s version of the iconic Flatt & Scruggs “Darlin Pal(s) of Mine” (from Royal Traveller), was named 2019 Instrumental Recording of the Year by the IBMA.  The tune features Alison Brown on banjo, Todd Phillips on bass and Mike Bub on bass.

In 2020, Missy shared IBMA’s Song of the Year award along with co-writers, Becky Buller and Alison Brown for “Chicago Barn Dance”,  a song written specifically for the Chicago-based band, Special Concensus, and their latest album of the same name.

With her new album, Raines tells her story with a vulnerability and bold honesty that rings clear, spoken through beautiful arrangements and well chosen musical collaborations. With nods to many of the varied and challenging chapters of her life, the songs speak volumes of Raines tenacity and musicianship, and her ability to rise to bluegrass fame despite the various confinements of the times. The listener is presented with a striking window into the up and down ride of a very royal traveller, the one and only Missy Raines.

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 https://www.missyraines.com/

In this episode, Brad talks with Greg Cahill of the band Special Consensus.  Greg plays the banjo and has been at the helm of Special C for 46 years as of 2021.  

Chicago born and bred, Greg Cahill has been playing bluegrass banjo since the early 1970s. He co-founded The Special Consensus in Chicago in 1975 and has continued to tour nationally and internationally with the band ever since. In 1984, he created the Traditional American Music (TAM) Program to introduce students of all ages to bluegrass music. He has appeared on all 20 of The Special Consensus recordings, on numerous recordings by other artists and on many national television and radio commercial jingles. Greg has also released three recordings: Lone Star (1980, with guests Jethro Burns and Byron Berline); Blue Skies (1992, with Chicago mandolinist Don Stiernberg); and Night Skies (1998, with Don Stiernberg and guests Sam Bush, Glen Duncan and Tom Boyd). He has also recorded and toured European countries with the ChowDogs (Greg and Slavek Hanzlik, Dallas Wayne and Ollie O’Shea). Greg has released four banjo instructional DVDs and three banjo tablature books and he teaches banjo at festival workshops and music camps nationally and internationally. He is a banjo instructor at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and has been an adjunct faculty member of the music department (teaching banjo) at Columbia College in Chicago. He served on the Nashville-based International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Board of Directors from 1998-2010 (Board Chair/President 2006-2010), became a Kentucky Colonel in 2010 and was awarded the prestigious IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2011. Greg was also appointed to the Board of Directors of the Nashville-based Foundation for Bluegrass Music in 2007, elected President of the organization in 2011 and rotated off that board in 2012. The 2012 Compass Records band recording Scratch Gravel Road was GRAMMY-nominated for Best Bluegrass Album; the 2014 Compass Records band release Country Boy: A Bluegrass Tribute To John Denver received two IBMA awards; the 2016 Compass Records band recording Long I Ride received an IBMA award and the 2018 Compass Records recording Rivers And Roads received two IBMA awards (one for Album of the Year) and a GRAMMY nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. Greg served on the Recording Academy Chicago Chapter Board of Directors as a Governor 2018-2020 and he was inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA) Hall of Greats in Nashville, TN in 2020. Greg appears on the 2020 Special C Compass Records release Chicago Barn Dance, the 20th band recording that received the 2020 IBMA Song of the Year Award.

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On this episode of Acoustic Music Talk we talk to bass player extraordinaire, Ronnie Simpkins.  Ronnie has been on the bluegrass trail playing bass with some of the best in the business including the Bluegrass Cardinals, Virginia Squires, The Tony Rice Unit, and currently works with the Seldom Scene.  Ronnie talks about his career in bluegrass music, bands, basses, and much more!

In this episode, Brad talks with flatpicking guitar legend, Dan Crary.  Dan is one of the early innovators of flatpicking acoustic guitar and has influenced generations of flatpickers since.  

As a child Dan was impressed by a local Kansas guitar player, Don Sullivan and that twangy, stringy sound stayed with him.  He also cites hearing Hank Snow take leads on acoustic guitar as an influence.

When going to school in Kentucky, he joined the Bluegrass Alliance and Lonnie Pearce insisted that Dan needed to learn to take lead guitar breaks on some of the fiddle tunes they were doing.  So he did, and the rest is history.

Dan also shares a stories about a couple of his favorite guitarists, Doc Watson and Sabicas, and remembers the flatpick guitar legend, Tony Rice.

This week we interview Jeff Midkiff, a mandolinist, clarinetist, and composer from Roanoke, Virginia.  Jeff first probably came to the attention of the masses when he played the mandolin with the Lonesome River Band.  He recorded two albums with the LRB, "I Guess Heartaches Are In Style This Year," and their self-titled Rebel Records debut.  Jeff stayed with the Lonesome River Band for their first few years, then left to pursue a career as a clarinet player.  

The last many years, he has been a music educator, teaching for Roanoke City Schools.  Jeff has also composed a lot in the last several years, including concertos for the mandolin which has taken him to the stages of Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center among many others.

Jeff talks about his multi-faceted career with host, Brad Apple.