News Category: Radio Bristol

Bristol, Tenn.-Va. (August 8, 2022) – There are still a few tickets remaining for WBCM Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time variety show this Thursday, Aug. 11, featuring headliner Fireside Collective, a progressive bluegrass outfit from Asheville, North Carolina, and Larry Bellorín & Joe Troop, a Venezuelan-Appalachian duo also based in the Tar Heel state. The live taping of the show will take place in the performance theater at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum at 7 p.m.

Fireside Collective is celebrating the release of the band’s fourth studio album, “Across the Divide,” on the heels of its 2022 New Artist of the Year nomination from the International Bluegrass Music Association. In a recent No Depression review of the record, journalist Nancy Posey writes: “…Fireside Collective has achieved a balance between a traditional and progressive bluegrass sound and, lyrically, between relationships of trust and permanence and disconnected one-night stands.”

Larry Bellorín is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and old-time musician. Bellorín was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Troop, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds of North Carolina during the pandemic. His acclaimed “latingrass” band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum seeking immigrants. Destined to play music together, the versatile, multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters came together and now perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, and whatever else they throw in the van.

Farm and Fun Time is hosted by Radio Bristol Program Director Kris Truelsen and his house band Bill and the Belles. In addition to performing upbeat, musical segues and peppy sponsorship jingles during the program, the group is known for combining a stringband format with their signature harmonies, candid songwriting, and pop sensibilities.

Farm and Fun Time is recorded before a live audience and syndicated for television on Blue Ridge PBS, East Tennessee PBS, and PBS North Carolina. Tickets to the show are $35 and may be purchased by visiting the Events page at BirthplaceOfCountryMusic.org.

Farm and Fun Time can also be accessed in its entirety through WBCM Radio Bristol’s Facebook page, on the air at 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, online at ListenRadioBristol.org or via the station’s free mobile app.

Bristol, Tenn.-Va. (June 28, 2022) – The 95th Anniversary of the 1927 Bristol Sessions will be celebrated with a night of music featuring Rhonda Vincent & The Rage, Lauren Morrow, Roni Stoneman and host band Bill and the Belles at 7 p.m. EDT, July 21. The event is a special live taping of WBCM Radio Bristol’s “Farm and Fun Time” variety show at Historic Downtown Bristol’s Paramount Theater.

From July 25 to August 5 in 1927, Ralph Peer recorded 76 songs by 19 acts for the Victor Talking Machine Company. Those sides included the first recordings of the Carter Family, the “First Family of Country Music,” and Jimmie Rodgers, the “Father of Country Music,” and catapulted early country music into the mainstream.

“This is a very special edition of ‘Farm and Fun Time ‘ as we honor Peer and the 1927 Bristol Sessions,” said Radio Bristol Program Director Kris Truelsen. “We are very excited to have a great lineup of artists that includes Rhonda, Lauren and special guest Roni Stoneman, a direct descendent of one of the original performers on the Sessions; she is the daughter of Ernest “Pop” Stoneman who encouraged Peer to travel to Bristol to record. This is going to be a very special show.”

Headlining the event is the reigning “Queen of Bluegrass” Rhonda Vincent and her band The Rage. This multi-talented, multi-award-winning artist has earned an unprecedented seven consecutive Female Vocalist of the Year awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) from 2000-2006 and an eighth in 2015. In 2021 Rhonda was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.

Lauren Morrow is the former frontwoman for The Whiskey Gentry. Her first solo EP achieved widespread acclaim, including “Best of” lists in Rolling Stone and Garden & Gun. Lauren recently wrapped up recording her first solo, full-length album at Nashville’s Sound Emporium.

Virtuoso bluegrass banjoist Roni Stoneman is the second-youngest of Ernest “Pop” Stoneman and wife Hattie’s 23 children and is known for her role on the popular variety show “Hee Haw.” She performed with her siblings and parents in The Stoneman Family band, including shows at the White House, the Smithsonian, and the Grand Ole Opry.

Host band Bill and the Belles is known for combining a stringband format with their signature harmonies, candid songwriting, and pop sensibilities. Composed of Truelsen on guitar, fiddler Kalia Yeagle, banjo/banjo-uke player Aidan Van Suetendael, and bassist Andrew Small, the band’s latest album Happy Again is full of life, humor, and tongue-in-cheek explorations of love and loss.

Presented by the nonprofit Birthplace of Country Music organization, “Farm and Fun Time” is a revival of the classic program that aired on WCYB radio in the 1940s and 1950s and was fundamental in the career development of bluegrass acts such as Flatt and Scruggs, The Stanley Brothers, and Jim and Jesse McReynolds.

“Farm and Fun Time” broadcasts live before a studio audience and can be accessed in its entirety at WBCM Radio Bristol’s Facebook, on the air at 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, online at ListenRadioBristol.org or via the free mobile app. The show is syndicated on Blue Ridge PBS, East Tennessee PBS, and PBS North Carolina.

Tickets for “Farm and Fun Time” are on sale now for $35-$82 at the Paramount box office located at 518 State Street, Bristol, Tennessee and online at ParamountBristol.org.

Bristol, Tenn.-Va. (April 5, 2022) – Kentucky Music Hall of Fame inductee and six-time IBMA Best Female Vocalist Dale Ann Bradley will headline WBCM Radio Bristol‘s “Farm and Fun Time” variety show on April 14 at 7:00 p.m. EDT, supported by Tammy Rogers and Thomm Jutz. Rogers may be best known as co-founder and fiddler for GRAMMY Award-winning bluegrass act The SteelDrivers. The program will broadcast live from the intimate performance theater inside the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Historic Downtown Bristol, Virginia-Tennessee.

“We’re excited to host some of the most gifted songwriters from the bluegrass world this month for ‘Farm and Fun Time,'” said host and Radio Bristol program director Kris Truelsen. “Dale Ann Bradley is nothing short of bluegrass royalty and has paved the way for so many musicians in bluegrass music. Sharing the bill with GRAMMY-nominated Thomm Juttz and GRAMMY Award winner Tammy Rogers, who just released a fantastic duo album. Add Bill and the Belles into the mix and you’ve got the ingredients for an unparalleled live performance!”

Dale Ann Bradley joined Bill Monroe, Keith Whitley, Sonny Osborne and Sam Bush in the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in 2018. The following year Bradley, as a member of the all-female group Sister Sadie, won the IBMA’s Vocal Group of the Year – the first time an all-female group has ever earned this distinction. Over the course of her career Bradley has collaborated with the likes of Vince Gill, Pam Tillis, and Dan Tyminski. She was also voted SPGBMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 2020. Her 2021 release “Things She Couldn’t Get Over,” earned Bradley the IBMA for Best Female Vocalist in addition to Gospel Recording of the Year.

Tammy Rogers and Thomm Jutz met in 2016 when seated at the same table at a music industry gala, yet their creative paths had run parallel for years. GRAMMY-nominated Jutz toured as a guitarist for Mary Gauthier, Nanci Griffith, and David Olney before developing a reputation as one of bluegrass music’s most prolific songwriters. Among a catalog of more than 140 songs, the duo selected a dozen of their best for the album “Surely Will Be Singing.”

Based in Johnson City, Tennessee, Bill and the Belles is known for combining a stringband format with their signature harmonies, candid songwriting, and pop sensibilities. Composed of Truelsen on guitar, fiddler Kalia Yeagle, banjo/banjo-uke player Aidan Van Suetendael, and bassist Andrew Small, the group has a knack for saying sad things with a bit of an ironic smirk and revels in the in-between. Deeply engaged with the stringband tradition and eager to stretch those influences to a contemporary setting, the band’s latest album “Happy Again” is full of life, humor, and tongue-in-cheek explorations of love and loss.

Presented by the nonprofit Birthplace of Country Music organization, “Farm and Fun Time” is a revival of the classic program that aired on WCYB radio in the 1940s and 1950s and was fundamental in the career development of bluegrass acts such as Flatt and Scruggs, The Stanley Brothers, and Jim and Jesse McReynolds.

“Farm and Fun Time” broadcasts live before a studio audience and can be accessed in its entirety on WBCM Radio Bristol’s Facebook page live. You may also tune in to the program on the air at 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, through the station’s free mobile app or online at ListenRadioBristol.org.

“Farm and Fun Time” is syndicated on Blue Ridge PBS, East Tennessee PBS, and PBS North Carolina. Viewers in these markets should check local listings for program scheduling.

Tickets for “Farm and Fun Time” are $35, on sale now via the Events page a BirthplaceOfCountryMusic.org.