The WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour Podcast

MERLE MONROE is a band created by musicians Tim Raybon and Daniel Grindstaff. Using their collective experiences as professionals in the music business - Merle Monroe's sound is vocally driven and has a mix of hard-driving Bill Monroe - style Bluegrass proficiency all the way to a tear at your heartstrings Merle Haggard style ballad. Songs of a Simple Life is the band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album and pays homage to the band's heroes while bringing a fresh original American Country / Bluegrass IBMA-nominated signature style.

GRACE PETTIS is an award-winning singer-songwriter from Austin via Alabama. She is the winner of many of the nation’s most prestigious songwriting contests, including NPR's Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, and has received grants from the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation. Grace’s songs have been recorded by other esteemed artists, including Sara Hickman and Ruthie Foster and she added to her songwriting accomplishments in 2019 by signing a publishing deal with BMG. Her debut album Working Woman for MPress Records includes guest contributions from Indigo Girls, Ruthie Foster, Dar Williams, The Watson Twins, Gina Chavez, and Mary Bragg.

WoodSongs Kid: Ruby Leigh is a fourteen year award winning vocalist from Foley, Missouri.

The incredible Queen of Bluegrass, member of the Grand Ole Opry RHONDA VINCENT and the RAGE returns to the WoodSongs Stage Lyric performing songs from her new album, MUSIC IS WHAT I SEE. Special guest is young Dillon Massengale and his family band (The Melody Hart Family) from Branson, Missouri as he and Rhonda perform their Merle Haggard single and tell his musical story overcoming autism.

THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA first rose to fame in the segregated south with their thrilling vocal harmonies and roof-raising live show. Their 70-year recording career would see them rack up five GRAMMY Awards (plus one for Lifetime Achievement), enter the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, collaborate with everyone from Mavis Staples and Stevie Wonder to Prince and Lou Reed, and perform on the world's most prestigious stages. From the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind, where the original members met as children, all the way to The White House - where they've performed for three different presidents - the band's story is, in many ways, America's story, and that story is at the heart of their emotional new album, 'Almost Home.

'WoodSongs Kid: Makayla is a 15-year-old powerhouse vocalist from Lexington, Kentucky.

MICHAEL MARTIN MURPHEY has left an indelible mark on the American Music. In the early 1970s, Rolling Stone Magazine called Michael Martin Murphey “one of the best songwriters in America.” Since that time, Murphey has left an indelible mark on the American Music Landscape crafting and recording such iconic hits as “Wildfire,” “Carolina In The Pines”, “Geronimo’s Cadillac”, “Cowboy Logic,” “Cherokee Fiddle”, “Boy From The Country” and more.  In the process, he has topped the Pop, Country, Bluegrass and Western Music charts, earned six gold albums and multiple Grammy nominations. His latest release is 'High Stakes'.

THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS are known as “Southern Rock Royalty” and the “great American rock ‘n’ roll band.” With a GRAMMY Award, CMA Album of the Year Award, two CMA Vocal Group of the Year Awards, two Top 10 charting albums, and four consecutive Top 40 hits, the “Heads” are credited for creating a unique blend of honky-tonk, blues, and southern rock that appeals to the toughest music critics and listeners of all kinds. Their newest album, 'Meet Me In Bluesland', is a collaboration between the band and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame pianist Johnnie Johnson.

WoodSongs Kid: Jonathan Wilson Rader is a 10-year-old Elvis tribute artist from Wilmore, Kentucky. He is known as Little E and has released a tribute CDs to the King.

MOLLY TUTTLE is a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and award winning songwriter with a distinctive voice. She is the first woman in the 27-year history of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards to be nominated for Guitar Player of the Year and win. She’s appeared on A Prairie Home Companion and at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, was featured on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, and won first place in the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Competition at Merlefest. She’s signed on to the Compass Records roster.

MIKE BARNETT has been building a career as a premier fiddler in bluegrass music. His current gig is a member of Kentucky Thunder, the traveling band of bluegrass legend, Ricky Skaggs as well as the Bryan Sutton Band. This Nashville native became a professional player at a young age as part of Jesse McReynolds’ band and soon became another breakout talent from the Boston roots music scene. In 2009, Mike joined the David Grisman Quintet. On his second solo effort, ‘Portraits in Fiddles,’ released on Compass Records, he takes a moment to reflect on the extraordinary blessings to celebrate his heroes, collaborators, and contemporaries.

WoodSongs Kid: Christiana Joneikis is a seventeen-year-old clawhammer banjo player and songwriter from Sherve, Ohio. She’s playing the title cut of her debut CD with her Dad.

ELLE KING is a phenomenal performer, songwriter, with an incredible voice and massive personality. Her single “Ex’s & Oh’s” is a hit. It was certified gold by the RIAA, nominated for a Grammy and has over 6.5 million views on YouTube. She received raves at all the summer festivals including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and more. Her debut album 'Love Stuff' on RCA Records marks the true arrival of the young singer/songwriter/guitarist/banjoist as a pop force to be reckoned with. It's frank and fearless, tender and rowdy.

DAVID WAX MUSEUM had the breakout performance at the 2010 Newport Folk Festival and made them the most talked-about band of the weekend, with NPR hailing them as "pure, irresistible joy." They released a trio of albums that earned escalating raves everywhere from SPIN and Entertainment Weekly (who described them as sounding "like Andrew Bird with a Mexican folk bent"). Entering a self-described Technicolor world, David Wax Museum's new album 'Guesthouse' melds the band's strong acoustic sound with synthesizers, layers of percussion, and adventurous sonic processing to create the band's boldest studio album to date.

WoodSongs Kid: Makinnon Layne is an aspiring musician and actor from Knoxville, Tennessee.  This 12-year-old is huge country music fan.

TOM PAXTON is a legendary singer/songwriter. Paxton headed to Greenwich Village in the early ’60s, just in time to join Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Joan Baez and other troubadours who took over coffeehouse stages — and took on the world. Paxton has been raising his rich voice in song ever since, carrying on the folk tradition with passion, wit and grace. Tom received a 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy during the 51st Annual GRAMMY® Awards. He is considered one of the great songwriters of the last century and will be reckoned as one of the greats in this new century, as well. He's celebrating the  release of his 62nd (or so) album, Redemption Road.

BEN SOLLEE is Kentucky-born cellist, singer-songwriter, and composer known for his innovative playing style, genre-bending songwriting, electrifying performances, political activism, and wide appeal. Like his contemporaries Chris Thile and Abigail Washburn, Sollee’s music is difficult to pin down. It’s Ben’s quality of narrative and presence on stage that unifies his musical influences. This past year Ben has performed at Carnegie Hall, wrote the score for the documentary film Maidentrip, toured for two weeks in Europe and returned to the United States to perform with the Charlotte Ballet.

VICTOR WAINWRIGHT & THE TRAIN features the high-octane boogie piano and big soul sounds of vocalist and blues man Victor Wainwright, backed by one of the tightest smokin’ bands on the scene. Victor’s star is definitely on the rise, having won the coveted BB KING Entertainer of the Year in 2016 at Blues Music Award as well as “Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year” in both 2013 and 2014. With the release of ‘Boom Town’, the band’s latest record, they’re poised to ignite blues/roots fans with a sound that’s infectious and impossible to ignore.

BIRDS OF CHICAGO is a collective built around husband and wife duo JT Nero (Chicago, IL) and Allison Russell (Montreal, QC). Since forming in 2012, they’ve toured internationally 10+ months of the year. Their brand of rock and roll poetry can be a little hard to categorize, for people that insist on categorizing... their voices are undoubtedly the centerpiece - Nero's fractured country soul croon is wrapped in Russell's silver and gold tones for a harmony blend that is like nothing else in music today. ‘Real Midnight’ is the band’s poignant new Joe Henry produced album.

WoodSongs Kid: Mikaya Taylor is talented bluegrass singer from Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. This 12 year old is being called ”Kentucky’s Singing Angel.”

An entire one hour radio special showcasing twenty incredible WoodSongs Kid performances that epitomizes the incredible wealth of brilliance that have graced the WoodSongs stage over the years including a young Sierra Hull jamming with her hero Sam Bush pulled from deep in our archives. That clip has gone viral several times and was included in The Sam Bush documentary released last year. Plus, kids from across North America, Ireland, Canada, Europe and more performing with Riders in the Sky, bluegrass legend Doyle Lawson, The McCrary Sisters and guitar master Tommy Emmanuel.