Monthly Live Variety Show at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum
Bristol, Va./Tenn. (July 1, 2019) – Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time live variety show returns July 11 at 7:00 p.m. EST with musical guests Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys and Kelsey Rae. The show is live from the Performance Theater at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Historic Downtown Bristol – home of the legendary 1927 Bristol Sessions.
A revival of the former WCYB radio program that aired from Downtown Bristol in the 1940s and 1950s, Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time is a lively, musical variety show that offers the very best in roots music performances from the region and beyond, along with humor and a bit of storytelling.
In July, Farm and Fun Time welcomes Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys and Southwest Virginia native Kelsey Rae to the program. Host Kris Truelsen and his house band Bill & the Belles will also perform their signature, vintage sponsor ads and show segues between acts.
Chuck Mead is a country singer with a rock ‘n’ roll heart. He’s also a renowned songwriter, producer, music director, musicologist, and architect behind the rebirth of Nashville’s Lower Broadway and the global neo-traditional country music movement. A Kansas native, Chuck has been at the forefront of Americana music for the better part of 25 years. He is perhaps best known for co-founding the famed 1990s alternative country quintet BR5-49, whose seven albums garnered a CMA Award for Best International Touring Act and three Grammy nominations and helped build an indelible bridge between authentic American roots music and millions of fans worldwide. Since then he’s toured the globe, entertained thousands on the high seas, released three solo albums, made 137 appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, co-produced critically acclaimed tribute albums to Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, and acted as a musical director/supervisor/producer of the Broadway hit musical Million Dollar Quartet and companion CMT television show Sun Records.
Southwest Virginia native singer-songwriter Kelsey Rae Copeland calls Nashville home these days. She performed in a Patsy Cline tribute event in Nashville her first year living there, and also at The Bluebird Café shortly before she moved to Music City where she shared her 2015 Richard Leigh Songwriting Festival contest winner “The Old Town.” Since then, she’s been heard around Music City during her residency at The Nashville Palace, a spot known for featuring deep cuts of traditional country, on Broadway at Layla’s and Robert’s Western World, and on Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights at American Legion Post 82, one of the latest venues featuring traditional country music. Kelsey Rae is creating a buzz in Music City with her choices of what she sings and who she sings with. She says it’s her heart talking and what she loves as she’s writing and singing 1950s pop country. Her love of the mountains, Southwest Virginia, and the influences of the Carter Family and Dr. Ralph Stanley stay dear and close and can be heard in Fortune Teller, her album of original songs that showcases a distinctive voice and lyrics that speak to those inspirations and also her love for the music of Patsy Cline, Connie Smith, Anita Carter, and Kitty Wells.
Tickets to be part of the studio audience for Farm and Fun Time are $30 and can be purchased online at ListenRadioBristol.org. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and guests are asked to be seated by 6:55 p.m.
Farm and Fun Time may also be viewed in its entirety on Radio Bristol’s Facebook Live atFacebook.com/WBCMRadioBristol. Radio Bristol can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, online at ListenRadioBristol.org, and through the station’s free mobile app.