Tracking the Guitar Ghosts

Cold Mountain author, Charles Frazier, plus otherworldy grooves from Boston to Bentonia; Mali to Hindustan

Friday, April 21, Saturday, April 22 and Sunday, April 23 – The Thacker Mountain Radio Hour continues its 2023 season with a 1930s cross-country mystery, otherwordly blues and a ‘partners-in-roots’ duo!

Author: Charles Frazier (author of Cold Mountain) with his newest, The Trackers – “Frazier is in top form for his fifth novel… The Old West still lingers in this propulsive tale of individualistic characters striving to beat the odds.” — Booklist, Starred review

Music: Blues musician Ryan Lee Crosby and roots duo Stace and Cassie

Hosts: Jim Dees and our house band, the Yalobushwhackers

Air times:

Friday, April 21  at 6 am (CT) – WYXR 91.7 FM Memphis, TN

Saturday, April 22  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 23 at 3 pm (ET) – WUOT | 91.9 FM, Knoxville

2 pm (MT) KNCE 93.5 | Taos, New Mexico

SAVE THE DATES:

Cathead Jam returns to Jackson, MS! Friday, June 2 and Saturday, June 3 with The Flaming Lips, Goose, Shakey Graves, Larkin Poe and more! This year’s jam is proudly partnered with The Dreamnote Foundation, who work to improve access to music and art throughout Mississippi in underserved communities.
More info: www.catheadjam.com

 

Featuring

Author

Charles Frazier

In The Trackers (Ecco) the new novel by Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier, we meet a wealthy art lover, John Long and his wife Eve in Depression-era Wyoming. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations.

When Eve flees home with a valuable painting, Long recruits a lovelorn WPA muralist, Val Welch, to retrieve it.

From ramshackle Hoovervilles to San Francisco nightclubs to the swamps of Florida, Val’s search for Eve narrows, and he soon turns up explosive secrets.

“Frazier is a gifted stylist… his gritty portrait of America in the depths of the Depression rings true, as do the character details.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Charles Frazier is the author of Cold Mountain, an international bestseller that won the National Book Award and was adapted into an Academy-Award winning film by Anthony Minghella. He is also the author of the bestselling novels, Thirteen Moons and Nightwoods.

Music

Ryan Lee Crosby

Ryan Lee Crosby is a blues guitarist/vocalist from the Boston area, “a former English major and post-punk rocker who can channel 1930s Mississippi.”

His latest album, Winter Hill Blues was produced by Bruce Watson, (Fat Possum producer of R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough). At age 32, Ryan Lee Crosby heard the music of Skip James for the first time, and it changed his life.

He began annual visits to Bentonia, Mississippi to apprentice with Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, the last living bluesman to learn from James’ mentor, Henry Stuckey (1896–1969). Crosby also says the trips were therapeutic following the loss of both his parents to illness.

Crosby’s guitar playing reflects Bentonia blues’ deep roots in African music, particularly that of West African Mali artists like Ali Farke Touré and Boubacar Traoré, as well as North Indian Hindustani classical raga music. In addition to an electric 12-string guitar, Crosby performs on a chaturangui, a 22-string Indian slide guitar.

Crosby’s previous releases include the albums, River Music and Live in Germany and the singles, Down So Long and Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down.

Born in Maryland, Crosby grew up in Fairfax, Virginia and moved to Boston in 1998, at age 18.

He started the Boston-based post-punk rock group, Cancer to the Stars, in 2000. The group played area clubs — T.T. the Bear’s Place, The Middle East, Lizard Lounge — before breaking up in 2004.

Stace and Cassie

Stace and Cassie are a husband and wife duo from Brandon, MS. They released their debut album, The Ruins, on famed R&B label, Malaco, Records, in 2016.

After extensive touring and road-testing tunes, they have since released a new album, Partner In Crime.