On air and online: Friday, April 28, Saturday, April 29 and Sunday, April 30 – The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour continues its Spring 2023 season.
Author: Frank Bill (“Back to the Dirt”) “… a gritty, wrenching novel from deep inside the traumas of a broken American heartland.“
Music: Songwriters Webb Wilder (Night Without Love) and Lynn Drury (Dancing in the Kitchen)
Hosts: Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers
Air times:
Friday, April 28 at 6 am (CT) – WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN
Saturday, April 29 at 3 pm (ET) – WUTC 88.1 FM University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
7 pm (CT) MPB — Mississippi Public Broadcasting
9 pm (CT) APR – Alabama Public Radio
Sunday, April 30 at 3 pm (ET) – WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville
2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico
SAVE THE DATES:
In Bill’s newest novel, Back to the Dirt (FEG Originals), Miles Knox is a Vietnam vet who’s worried he’s going to lose his job and his tenuous grasp on a stable life because of a fight he had with a coworker over some steroids.
His PTSD and struggles to control his steroid-fueled violent tendencies complicate life with his girlfriend, Shelby, a stripper who only occasionally seems to have the proverbial heart of gold.
She certainly seems to possess more kindness and generosity than her brother, Wylie, who’s currently on the run after being implicated in the deaths of two local oxycodone dealers and has their relatives on his tail.
When Wylie kidnaps his sister and holes up in Miles’s country lair, it may become too much for steroid-addled Miles to handle.
“One hell of a ride.” — Publishers Weekly
Webb Wilder says he is a purveyor of both kinds of music, rock AND roll.
“Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard, grow big, wear glasses if you need ’em.”
With this fearless credo, Webb Wilder has been playing his own brand of country-accented, retro-styled rock & roll since the ’80s, and created a tongue-in-cheek but larger-than-life persona to go along with it.
His most recent releases are the single, New Day and the album, Night Without Love.
One could reasonably say Webb Wilder was playing roots rock before anyone started calling it that, with a twang that came from somewhere in between country and rockabilly, some potent growl in the guitars, a hint of blues in the melodies, a tough backbeat that was just a little bit new wave, and Wilder’s vocals that could project wit while also getting the party effectively started.
Wilder’s early albums include 1986’s It Came from Nashville and 1989’s Hybrid Vigor; 2006’s More Like Me and 2015’s Mississippi Moderne.
Wilder can be heard regularly on his radio show, Afternoons with Webb Wilder, Mon-Thu on WMOT (Middle Tennessee) Roots Radio.
Lynn Drury Americana singer-songwriter (and Mississippi native) Lynn Drury moved to New Orleans in 1995 where she landed a weekly gig at Margaritaville in 1998. By 2003, she became a regular at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and has been a staple of the NOLA music scene ever since.
Her nine albums include her most recent, Dancin in the Kitchen. Other releases include Rise of the Fall and Come to My House.
Her unique style is the product of her country music raisin’ mixed with her love R&B and pop, and 20 years of soaking up the sounds and vibe of the Crescent City.
She refers to her sound as “NOLAmericana.”