A Trip to Mountain Stage

(Joan Osborne)

Yesterday I returned to my old college grounds, Morgantown WV, to see another Mountain Stage Concert. If you don't know, Mountain Stage is a radio program that is recorded in West Virginia. Concerts feature about four or five different artists in genres like folk, bluegrass, jazz, soul, gospel, and more. Most of their shows are recorded in Charleston but they do a few shows each year in Morgantown. I only got into these shows last year but I try to hit them all up when I can and I subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. While I don't always love everything I hear, Mountain Stage has helped me discover plenty a new artist (or at least, new to me).

The first performer was a young woman named Lera Lynn. She and her band (two boys, one on guitar and one on bass) have been opening for Joan Osborne, who was the headliner for this show. She has a good strong voice and some fun songs as well. She closed with the song "Good Hearted Man" and the link will take you to the music video version of that song, which is quite entertaining.



The second act was a bluegrass group called Leftover Salmon. The lead singer is a WVU alumni and the crowd was very responsive to him. There was some amazing guitar and banjo playing with this group, I was blown away by the rapid fingering of guitar strings. Probably because I have no patience when I tried to learn guitar so I'm impressed by anyone who does.






Next was a folk singer named Sylvie Lewis. This woman quickly became my favorite act of the evening. She performed solo, accompanying herself on the ukelele, piano, or guitar depending on the song. The songs were very pretty, as was her voice. In between songs she would tell funny stories in her beautiful English accent. Not many people could tell a story about someone farting in an elevator with class, but Ms. Lewis sure did. After the show I bought her CD and had her sign it, not something I usually do but what the hell she was there. She signed the booklet of the CD with an "Isaac is fabulous". I loved it.
Here's the music video for her song "The Fish and the Bird".

The fourth act was probably the most popular with the crowd: The Punch Brothers. I had never heard of them, but I did notice their names on a track from The Hunger Games soundtrack, so I feel like they're doing quite well for themselves. I really enjoyed them as well, they have a lot of great songs on their new CD "Who's Feeling Young Now?". There are great vocals and equally good string playing in this young bluegrass band and I hope to hear more from them. Here's them performing "Patchwork Girlfriend".




The final act of the night was blues singer Joan Osborne. If you don't recognize the name, her most famous song is "One of Us" which you've most likely heard. The song was recorded quite a few years ago and she now has this awesome mature blues voice that she really knows how to use. Her new CD is called "Bring It on Home" and all her material was great. Listening to her felt like being in some sort of blues cafe, she was definitely a great note to end the show on. Here's a more recent version of her singing "One of Us". I was going to post a video of her singing something from her new album, but screw it, here she is singing "Ain't No Sunshine".

So yeah, that was my awesome weekend. Gonna go use up the iTunes gift card now...