Songs of Rivers and Mountains: Joan Shelley & Jeff Little
This week we visit with two Southern crafters of music and song. Kentucky native and guitarist Joan Shelley takes her ethereal songwriting and voicing of life’s emotional flow from observations on the banks of the Ohio River near Louisville. Then, the virtuosic Blue Ridge pianist Jeff Little shares his stories of growing up playing alongside the legendary flat-pick guitarist Doc Watson at the family’s music store in Boone, North Carolina. It led to a singular career of playing high speed fiddle tunes on the piano. Also music of love, loss, and fast trains from Bill Frisell, Johnny Cash, James Brown, Tom Waits and Elizabeth Cotton.
HOUR ONE
Brighter Than the Blues Joan Shelley
Over and Even, No Quarter
This Place Joni Mitchell
Shine , Joni Mitchell
Lonesome Bill Frisell
Harmony, Blue Note
Pretty Fair Miss in a Garden Doug and Jack Wallin
Doug & Jack Wallin: Family Songs and Stories from the North Carolina Mountains, Smithsonian Folkways
Pretty Little Miss Joan Shelley and Doug Paisley
Rivers and Vessels, No Quarter Records
Instrumental: Keep On the Sunnyside Bill Frisell
Beautiful Dreamers, Savoy
Kentucky Everly Brothers
Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, Barnaby Records
Blue Kentucky Girl Loretta Lynn
Blue Kentucky Girl, MCA Nashville
Banks of the Ohio Johnny Cash
Unearthed, American Recordings
SEGMENT: Joan Shelley
Instrumental: Timoney's Nathan Salsburg
Third Nathan Salsburg, No Quarter
Beat the Retreat June Tabor
Beat the Retreat: Songs of Richard Thompson, Capitol
Urge for Going Tom Rush
The Circle Game, Elektra
Closing Bed: Dandelion River Run Richard and Mimi Fariña
The Complete Vanguard Recordings, Vanguard
HOUR TWO
Billy in the Low Ground Jeff Little
Just a Little Music, self-released
Freight Train Boogie Doc Watson
The Elementary Doctor Watson!, Tomato
Casey Jones Grateful Dead
Workingman's Dead, Warner
Night Train James Brown
The 50th Anniversary Collection, UTV
2:19 Tom Waits
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, Anti
Memphis Mail Scott Dunbar
Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris, Dust to Digital
Instrumental: Big Sky Jeff Little
Just a Little Music, self-released
SEGMENT: Jeff Little
Going Back to the Blue Ridge Mountains The Delmore Brothers
The Delmore Brothers, Vol. 2, Classic
(Oh Susanna) Dust off that Old Pianna Fats Waller
The Essential Fats Waller, Sony
Chicken Shack Boogie Amos Milburn
Down the Road Apiece-The Best of Amos Milburn, Capitol
Instrumental: Tipitina and Me Allen Toussaint
Our New Orleans, Nonesuch
Take Five Dave Brubeck
Time Out, Columbia
Brighter than the Blues Joan Shelley
Over and Even, No Quarter
I'm Going Away Elizabeth Cotton
Shake Sugaree, Smithsonian Folkways
Careless Love Snooks Eaglin
Classic African American Songsters, Smithsonian Folkways
Closing bed: Careless Love Etta Baker
Railroad Bill, Cello