This weeks Music From the Front Porch will feature music from ROMP, a look at the year 1973 and the sounds of Earl Scruggs as highlights that are mixed in with great music old and new.
First Hour
In the first hour we'll start off with a bit of Earl Scruggs as a nod to his incredible influence on the banjo. It would be hard to find a modern-day banjo player not influenced by his three-fingered style in some way. It's not often that a musician can say they changed the way an instrument was played but Scruggs did.
Scruggs says that the three-fingered style kind of resulted from an argument that he had with his brother. He had been trying to play with three fingers and couldn't quite get it right so he locked himself in his room and went to work. He was playing the tune "Ruben" when he finally realized he had it and came busting out of his room yelling, "I've got it! I've got it! I can play with three fingers!" He played the tune for a week straight before trying the approach on other tunes as well, smoothing out the rolls into a syncopated rhythm pattern and emphasizing the melody lines. The style would come to be known as the "Scruggs-style".
Best known for his days with the bluegrass act Flatt & Scruggs and theme music to The Beverly Hillbillies and Bonnie & Clyde, Scruggs never shyed away from new musical horizons. He parted ways with Lester Flatt to work with his sons and Josh Graves on more progressive music.
Earl Scruggs passed away on March 28 of this year.
Second Hour
We will kick off the second hour with more music from the upcoming
ROMP Festival in Owensboro the last week of June. This week we will feature the Carolina Chocolate Drops, The 23 String Band, The Deadly Gentlemen and The Punch Brothers. For more info on ROMP and the full lineup check out their
website. Also, if you are a business and would like to display a flyer for the fest, e-mail me at johndmcmillen@gmail.com and I will hook you up.
We will also take a listen to music from the year 1973 this morning. The year saw Secretariat become the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 25 years. The Thoroughbred set race records in The Kentucky Derby and at The Belmont Stakes... records that still stand today. Raquel Welch was the hottest actress of the day and Burger King wanted you to “Have it Your Way”. Richard Nixon told us "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got." The MRI was invented and the first air bag appeared on the Oldsmobile Toronado. All in the Family was the #1 TV show and Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Roberta Flack, The Edgar Winter Group, Jim Croce and The Rolling Stones all had #1 songs as well as Marvin Gaye with “Let’s Get it On”.
This morning we will hear 4 songs released in 1973 including the cut "A Song for You" from Gram Parsons legendary album
GP as well as Tom Waits crooning to "Old Shoes" from
Closing Time, The hopping tune "Rider" from The Seldom Scenes'
Act 3, "Dark Hollow" from Muleskinners' self-titled release and Doc and Merle Watson teaming up on "Match Box Blues" from
Then and Now.
And finally in the second hour we will hear the new release
We Have Made a Spark from Rose Cousins. Cousins is hard to keep into one genre of music but her songs are impeccably arranged and feature a silky voice that delivers weighty subjects. We will hear "The Darkness" this morning.
Third Hour
Joe Pug will be performing at Lovett Auditorium Sunday, April 15th here on the campus of Murray State University. We will open the third-hour with a sampling of music by Pug including the title cut from his
Messenger release from 2010, "Call it What You Will" from
EP and "Lock the Door Christina from
In the Meantime. Pug, a Maryland native, got his start in music in the sixth grade after a science teacher dared his friends to come up with a musical act for the school dance. He went on to college in North Carolina before dropping out to relocate to Chicago and dedicate more time to songwriting. Pug has 4 releases to his credit since 2007. You can find more info at
http://www.joepugmusic.com/ and get a free sampler download of Pug's material.
See you Saturday morning at 10:00 AM CST on
www.wkms.org for Music From the Front Porch!
