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Across the Blue Ridge #84 - The Lonesome River Band: Music Through The Generations

by Paul Brown

The Lonesome River Band, based in southwest Virginia, has been delighting audiences at bluegrass festivals and theater shows since the 1990s. We feature the band, including life stories of its members, on this edition of Across the Blue Ridge. Paul Brown

The Lonesome River Band, under the leadership of banjo picker Sammy Shelor of Meadows of Dan, Virginia, is celebrating 35 years in 2017.  It's been an impressive force on the bluegrass scene since the early 1980s. Band members combine their great technical skills with creativity and a sense of tradition to fashion a musical language at once rooted and inventive.  These players all bring family music traditions to their careers. We find out about that, and we hear some music of their ancestors as far back as the 1927 Bristol Sessions in Tennessee that helped spark the growth of the country music industry.  This is a fascinating show for detailed listening, for traveling, or as company around the house.

Playlist

  1. Cumberland Gap
    Lonesome River Band
    Turn On A Dime
     
  2. Little Log Cabin By The Sea
    The Carter Family
    The Bristol Sessions
     
  3. Sandy River Belle
    Dad Blackard's Moonshiners
    The Bristol Sessions
     
  4. Bonnie Brown
    Lonesome River Band
    ATBR live recording
     
  5. Carolyn The Teenage Queen
    Lonesome River Band
    ATBR live recording
     
  6. The Game I Can't Win
    Lonesome River Band
    ATBR live recording
     
  7. Break 1 - Mountain Reel
    Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers
    Old Time Songs
     
  8. This Old Heart
    Lonesome River Band
    ATBR live recording
     
  9. Rich Mountain
    Clarice & Jesse Shelor
    The Shelor-Blackard Families
     
  10. Texas Plains
    Luke Smathers String Band
    Mountain Swing
     
  11. Rocking Of The Cradle
    Lonesome River Band
    Bridging The Tradition
     
  12. Break 2 - Arkansas Traveler
    Clarice Shelor
    The Shelor-Blackard Families
     
  13. Highway Paved With Pain
    Lonesome River Band
    ATBR live recording
     
  14. Harvest Time (In Homer Lawson's Field)
    Lonesome River Band
    ATBR live recording
     
  15. Ida Red
    Lonesome River Band
    ATBR live recording
     
  16. Gone & Set Me Free
    Lonesome River Band
    ATBR live recording

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