10 p.m. to Midnight Host: Steve Winters
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A thematically split show: We paid tribute to the release 30 years ago (yes, another 30th anniversary) of the first New Grass Revival album on Starday and programmed two sets of snow songs for the season’s first substantial (read, near blizzard) snowfall. In between a few old recorded friends found their way on to the airwaves. Although the New Grass Revival was certainly not the first group to dabble in “Newgrass” music (there already were elements in the work of the Osborne Brothers, the Dillards, the Country Gentlemen, Jim and Jesse, et al), it was the release of the New Grass Revival’s debut album and their subsequent festival appearances that cemented the sounds of this bluegrass offshoot that incorporated the influences of rock, reggae, jazz and improvised Texas-styled fiddling. The young group of “mavericks” featured Sam Bush, Courtney Johnson, Ebo Walker and Curtis Burch. Together with the 1973 release of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” and Eric Weissberg’s “Dueling Banjos”, they were a major impetus in a attracting a young, educated and hip audience to bluegrass. They had Bill Monroe fretting for many years, fearful that this invasion of long-haired youth on stage was going to alienate the socially conservative, family-oriented audiences that were bluegrass music’s prime patrons
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