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.