About the Show
Music City Roots
A weekly concert and live radio show presented from The Loveless Cafe Barn in Nashville, TN.
Alabama native Barry Waldrep grew up in a world of Bluegrass performing with his father James Waldrep on the festival circuit from the age of 6.
As a teenager he starting paying his dues in the honky tonks around the south after being heavily influenced by the southern rock sounds of The Allman Brothers Band.
In his twenty’s he founded the Jam Band Rollin’ in the Hay, a fusion of Bluegrass and Southern Rock, touring together for 16 years. Since leaving the band in May 2009, he has toured and recorded with some of the best in the business.
Music is my life “Waldrep says” I have never known what it’s like not to play music. It has always been there as far back as I can remember. It’s not about anything other than loving what I do. The road is a strange place to live your life, but the happiness music brings, makes is all worth while.
Waldrep has 3 solo releases, 7 with Rollin’ in the Hay, and 21 bluegrass tribute CD’s with CMH records in Los Angeles. He also collaborated with heavy metal guitarist Jacob Bunton to write and produce the release “Six Ways til Sunday”. In addition he appears on The Zac Brown Band “Pass the Jar” CD & DVD, along with Kid Rock & Little Big Town. “Album #2” Joey & Rory, “The 25th Anniversary Celebration” Randy Travis, and his latest project Barry Waldrep & The Band of Brothers & Sisters. A live double CD set of all the music he has played throughout his career, with many guest performers.
He has a long resume of recording credits with many great artists, but what Waldrep loves most is performing on stage with great players, and creating on the spur of the moment. That’s when the magic happens. “Waldrep says” Growing up playing bluegrass, it was structured in many ways, but then improvisational as well. This is demonstrated with Barry in every show.
Barry Waldrep is the musician’s musician, and is respected by all who take the stage with him. Throughout his career he has performed with some of his hero’s in music. Bill Monroe, Tony Rice, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, John Cowan and many others. But his father was his biggest, as he paved the way by teaching him to play, along with the ropes of the road. This is obvious when you listen to Barry’s tribute to his late father “The Man I Am Today” on the recent Band Of Brothers & Sisters release. “Barry says” He taught me at a very young age of what not to do if you are in the music business and on the road, and that has been as valuable as being able to play my instruments.
Waldrep occasionally performs with Allman Brothers Bassist Oteil Burbridge who also has a Bluegrass/Jam Band background. The two of them together plow down the boundaries of the musical walls for sure.
Barry Waldrep is a blazing instrumentalist on many instruments, and bonds with the road and the stage. As a side man with others or performing with his own band, it is sure to be a great performance.
“Tim and Dan are blood related to A.P., Sarah and Maybelle Carter but they don’t make a big deal out of it. Like their mama, who taught them to rinse collard greens in the Maytag, they make their new old timey music with tried and true ingredients and modern appliances,” says esteemed mandolinist and vocalist Tim O’Brien of the Carter Brothers. Now living north of Nashville, Tim and Danny Reid Carter arrived in Music City with the kind of tight harmony only siblings can claim. Performing to adoring fans for the past two decades, the Carter Brothers and are releasing their first album of rocking bluegrass, and their first for Compass, The Road To Roosky, on October 25.
Raised in the Carter Family musical legacy, The Road To Roosky is homage to their unique heritage with equal parts of reverence and raucousness. Their advanced skill on their many instruments – Tim on banjo, vocal harp, mandolin and guitar, Danny Reid on guitar – lends itself to masterful arrangements alongside the drums of Dann Sherill and electric bass of Ross Sermons.
The brothers were also charmed by black gospel and blues music, especially musicians like Blind Willie Johnson. The album covers “Soul of a Man” in a tribute to the style while Tim’s bluesy banjo permeates throughout. “I’ve been playing with my brother for so long and he’s such a blues guitar player that all of that rubbed off on my playing through the years. I wanted to make sure that the banjo on this was not so much about playing Earl Scruggs style banjo but that [the banjo] fit these tunes,” comments Tim. Sam Bush, the patron musician of newgrass music, is featured on many of the tracks, including the traditional tune “Jerusalem Moan,” which became a special collaboration between past and present. Recorded with Vassar Clements a few months before his untimely death in 2005, “Jerusalem Moan” is possibly the only recording that features Vassar singing and scatting as well as playing fiddle.
Additional standout tracks include “She’s a Hurricane,” which features Ferrell Stowe on slide guitar as well as the title track “Road To Roosky,” a story-song about a vagabond with no arms, his dog and the small town in Ireland that the Carter Brothers can’t seem to get off their minds. “Any American that has ever been to Ireland, and that has any roots to there, gets a feeling that they’ve been there before, it’s eerie. We love that place.” The album rounds out nicely with the bluegrass tune “What Does the Deep Sea Say,” a track that foregoes the drum set for the classic brother duo tradition and features Tim O’Brien on mandolin and vocals.
The Carter Brothers’ music is universal, inspiring fans from California’s west coast, to Florida’s Key West, to the heart of Ireland. Dave McAdams of the Dublin Times praises, “Electrifying and hard driving original rock/folk/blues and newgrass music. Superb songwriters on a level all their own. Stunningly precise musicianship performed with a seemingly effortless and totally joyful demeanor.” Their loyal following shares the sentiment with a fan club that runs merchandise tables and uses their airline points for cross-country tours. “We allowed people to come into our lives and be a part of this, we encourage it. We try our best to go out and make friends and fans along the way. When we were approached to start a fan club, we were hesitant to call it a fan club, we wanted to call it a friends club,” laughs Tim.
Tim and Danny Reid will be on tour promoting the album this fall in Ireland and Key West, FL with dates throughout the Southeast United States to be announced.
Rusty Shackle are a six piece band from South Wales, UK. Formed in early 2010 Rusty Shackle can be described as an Alternative Folk band, throwing together Guitars, Fiddle, Banjo, Mandola, Trumpet, Bass, Drums and Percussion to give their unique take on Contemporary folk music.
The band were very busy in 2013 releasing their second album and playing numerous festivals. Their recent album is titled “The Bones” as a reference to them striping back their sound to the bare bones both in the production of the album and in the arrangements within the song themselves.
Rusty Shackle’s previous performances include: Cambridge Folk Festival, Hebridean Celt Festival, Nibley Festival, O2 Arena Islington, main stage Victoria Park BT London Live Olympics closing ceremony, Hyde Park BT London live bandstand, Cardiff Olympic Torch celebrations, Great British Folk Weekend, Folk By the Oak, Green Man Festival, Etihad Stadium, Wychwood Festival, SWN Festival and the Acoustic Festival of Britain.
2014 is shaping up to be an exciting year for the band. As well as writing new material the band will be playing countless UK festivals and June sees the band heading to the United States for a mini tour.
Texas Music Magazine calls Mingo Fishtrap “the space where melodic pop meets gritty Memphis soul, with a twist of N’awlins funk.” That space is growing like kudzoo vine on the Mississippi Delta, crisscrossing the country with a deep, tenacious groove and a sanctified mission to shake your soul.
While attending the University of North Texas’ College of Music, Roger Blevins, jr. casually asked a few dorm mates to jam on some old soul & funk tunes. Missing that sound that he had grown up hearing, the Mississippi-native quickly found himself surrounded by an eight-piece band, replete with percussion and horn section. That first unassuming encounter lit a fire, and once the college crowd got wind of this old-school sound coming from Bruce Hall, it spread to Dallas’ infamous Deep Ellum, Fort Worth’s legendary Caravan of Dreams and down the I-35 corridor to Austin.
Their first album in tow, the band relocated to the Live Music Capital of the World. Mingo quickly carved a niche in the heavily saturated scene, with the Austin Chronicle saying “Their gumbo of tight & punchy horns, deep rhythms, restless melodies, and emotive singing has garnered Mingo justified respect as a live powerhouse.” The album Yesterday also garnered a handful of Austin Music Awards, and they once again set their sights on fanning the flames.
Mingo hit the festival circuit, which carried their brand of whiskey-soaked, funky soul from Portland, OR to Portland, ME and hundreds of shows everywhere in between. Recent support dates for the likes of contemporaries Robert Randolph, Trombone Shorty, MOFRO & Galactic, along with legends such as Parliament, Sting, Little Feat and Earth Wind & Fire, have raised the profile of the band, sharpened their focus and in 2012 led to the band signing with Intrepid Artists Booking and an ever expanding tour calendar. Over 100 shows are scheduled for 2013, and performances will include features at the 10th Wakarusa, the Rochester International Jazz Festival and Ontario’s Thunder Bay festival.
Finding what time they can between shows, Mingo is putting the finishing touches on their fourth full-length album.
Cale Tyson is a singer, songwriter and guitar player from Nashville, Tennessee. Born in a small town in Texas, he was raised in Fort Worth, the home of Townes Van Zandt and the place where he first heard the classic country sounds that have inspired and enriched his gentle, melancholy, and undeniably whiskey-soaked sound.
With a nostalgic heart and an ear for melodies from long ago, Tyson’s latest EP, High On Lonesome is a beautiful collection of songs that continue the legacy of some of the legendary songwriters whose music he first heard as a child – Gram Parsons, Guy Clark and Willie Nelson, to name but a few.
Recorded in Nashville, High On Lonesome features some of the town’s finest players including guitarist Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart), keys player Tyson Rogers (Don Williams), John McTigue (Brazilbilly) on drums and Mike Rinne (Caitlin Rose and Andrew Combs) on bass.
The end result is at once a loving tribute to the great country songwriters that have come before him and also a persuasive plea to those who might think that country music’s best days have been and gone. As long as Cale Tyson has a say in it, the best days might yet be still to come.
