Farm and Fun Time featuring Jesse Daniel, Compton and Newberry

Date: Thursday, May 11, 2023

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET (Doors open at 6:30 p.m., guests are asked to be seated by 6:55 p.m.)

Location: Performance Theater, Birthplace of Country Music Museum

Tickets: $40

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Hosted by Kris Truelsen and his house band Bill and the Belles, Farm and Fun Time is a re-imagining of the classic WCYB Radio program of the same name that aired in the 1940s and 1950s. Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time broadcasts live before a studio audience and recorded for television syndication on Blue Ridge PBS, East Tennessee PBS, and PBS North Carolina. It can be accessed on 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, or online at ListenRadioBristol.org and on Radio Bristol’s free mobile app. Viewers may also tune in to watch through Radio Bristol’s Facebook page.

About Jesse Daniel

It’s no secret that Jesse Daniel puts on one heck of a live show. With his top notch band, he’s been touring the country for years and earning fans the old fashioned way – with honest songs played well. The California native is blazing the trail for a new wave of traditional artists, bringing his hardcore country music to stages all of the country. There are many making traditional country music in modern times, but there is no one making it like Daniel. His sound is uniquely his own, while rooted in the tradition of his Bakersfield heroes including Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. Daniel and his band has toured or shared stages with Colter Wall, Tyler Childers, Sierra Ferrell, Charley Crockett, American Aquarium, Turnpike Troubadors, Shane Smith, Mike and the Moonpies, Raul Malo, and many others.

About Compton and Newberry

Mike Compton and Joe Newberry, masters of old-time mandolin and banjo/guitar, dig deep into early country music and blues. Their duet-singing, two-man string band ranges between traditional songs, instrumentals, ‘mother’ ballads and original tunes. It’s not about the number of notes with Compton and Newberry, but telling the truth and respecting the song.

Mike Compton is a Grammy award winner, IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year nominee, a steady sideman for John Hartford from 1994 until Hartford’s death in 2001, and mandolinist for the Nashville Bluegrass Band. Mike is inarguably the world expert on Bill Monroe-style bluegrass mandolin, and is also steeped in old-time fiddle tunes, early string band music and Delta blues.

Known far and wide for his powerful banjo playing, Joe Newberry is a prizewinning guitarist, songwriter, and singer to boot. In addition to his work with Mike, Joe plays with fiddler and step-dancer April Verch. He was a frequent guest on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, and was a featured singer on the Transatlantic Sessions. He won the songwriting prize for “Gospel Recorded Performance” at the 2012 IBMA Awards for his song, Singing As We Rise, and was co-writer, with Eric Gibson, of the 2013 IBMA Song of the Year for They Called It Music.

About Bill and the Belles

Farm and Fun Time house band Bill and the Belles is a Johnson City, Tennessee-based band known for combining a stringband format with their signature harmonies, candid songwriting, and pop sensibilities. Featuring Farm and Fun Time program host Kris Truelsen on guitar, fiddler Kalia Yeagle, banjo/banjo-uke player Aidan VanSuetendael, and bassist Andrew Small, the group has a knack for saying sad things with a bit of an ironic smirk, and anyone who’s been to one of their shows can attest that you leave feeling lighter and refreshed. This is a band that revels in the in-between: deeply engaged with the stringband tradition and eager to stretch those influences to a contemporary setting. A timeless place where Jimmie Rodgers and Phil Spector can overlap, and a driving fiddle and banjo tune makes way for a sentimental parlor song. And while Bill and the Belles’ latest chapter offers a bigger, moodier, and more decade-ambiguous sound, they maintain their status as the most refreshing stringband around.

Farm and Fun Time is made possible by our generous sponsors Eastman Credit Union, Toyota of Bristol and Virginia Tourism Corporation.