Live In The Library

This week from the studio in the Chattanooga Public Library we have a session featuring Parker Millsap playing songs from his most recent album, Wilderness Within You

Parker grew up in the Pentecostal church in Purcell Oklahoma. The influence of his upbringing is apparent in both his singing and in his writing (especially in the song that closes the session). These days he lives in Nashville. He released his fifth album Wilderness Within You this past May almost thirteen years to the day after he released his debut album in April of 2012. One of his albums caught Elton John’s ear and he’s become a fan and a friend.

Listening to him sing songs from his new album by himself with just his guitar for company, put the spotlight on his voice and his carefully considered songs. From the library, this is Parker Millsap.

From the studio in the Chattanooga Public Library, our guest this week is singer and songwriter Paul Edelman.

According to his bio, Paul Edelman was “almost born on the airplane from Columbus, OH to Philly. He grew up in South Philadelphia before moving to Asheville in 2008, but he still wears a Philadelphia Eagles t-shirt.

On his website, he’s quoted as saying: “Listening to Bob Dylan, as a teenager, … just codified my fascination and passion for music.”

That passion never faded. “I’ve always had a sense of passion and earnestness about whether I was failing or succeeding and a drive to get better at it. If you have a passion for what you’re doing, you process failure like that, you process when you’re not doing it correctly. You get better. I’ll go home and pick it apart and figure out why.”

“I would write songs and bring them to my friends in the dorms and they would laugh at me,” he said. “I’d be like, ‘OK, back to the drawing board.’”

Given that passion and determination, it’s surprising that it took him so long to completely commit to singing and songwriting. For more than a decade after leaving school, he worked in construction. It wasn’t until he was in his 30s that he finally decided to give up construction work and make music full-time.

This week from the studio in the Chattanooga Public library we have a session featuring Sherman Lee Dillon. Sherman grew up on a 200-acre farm “way back in the country,” as he put it, in Mississippi in the 1950s and early 1960s. Growing up he listened to radio stations playing rhythm ‘n’ blues, blues, and country music. All of the classic songs he heard are now infused with the music he has been making for several decades with his guitar, banjo, and harmonica.

This week on Live in the Library our guests are a recently formed band from Nashville called Big 50. The core of the band is electric guitarist Andrew Gaultier and acoustic guitarist and singer Jake Gunter. The two friends moved from Louisiana to Nashville with the same dream - keeping honky-tonk country alive. The music they make with the band they formed in 2020 is an attempt to mix Merle Haggard with Metallica—who knew that would sound like this?

Richard Winham speaks with the headliners for this Friday's show at the Nightfall Concert Series in downtown Chattanooga: Call Me Spinster and Drew Sterchi.

Richard Winham shares a session by the North Carolina band Misfits of Ugly Hollywood, recorded live downtown at The Chattanooga Public Library. (aired Fri 7/08/22)

Richard Winham shares a session by Chattanooga vocalist Neshawn Calloway, recorded live downtown at The Chattanooga Public Library.

Richard Winham shares a session by singer-songwriter Louis Rubino of Columbia, South Carolina - who makes music as Bear Ley - recorded live downtown at The Chattanooga Public Library.

Richard Winham shares a session by Constant Boty, a guitarist from Ivory Coast in West Africa - along with Chattanooga musicians Stevie Bruno, Taylor Freeman and Donte Massengill - recorded live downtown at The Chattanooga Public Library.

Richard Winham and Mal O’Connell shares a session by The Sam Burchfield Band, recorded live downtown at The Chattanooga Public Library.