David G Smith is a dedicated artist in every sense of the word. He splits his time between his home in Iowa with recording in Nashville and touring around North America. He is not only a great singer/songwriter but an outstanding guitarist utilizing his powerful slide guitar technique, his mighty finger picking, as well as his lead and rhythm guitar styles. His 2019 album Who Cares has been a constant on the charts with songs that range form raucous to sublime.
Recently KC Café Radio Music Director Kathy Forste had the pleasure of chatting with David from a secret location in Mexico. He shared a special preview of a song from his album Witness Trees which will be released in early June. He also performs one of his most successful songs from his last album Who Cares, the beautiful and touching, Mi Familia. They discussed the differences and challenges between recording his last two albums, as well as his touring plans for the coming year.
Jim Chesnut’s album is titled This Guy Sings! Jim approach to making music truly lives up to that description. Jim is a true artist who believes the song is the most important thing. Jim has the uncanny ability to deliver a great vocal to a terrific lyric and bring the song to life.
Jim started his career playing hotels in East Texas making good money doing cover tunes. There he’d meet up with a young Rodney Crowell just before his career led him to Nashville and fame and fortune. Jim took off to LA where he met three important music insiders, Bob Webb (Jimmy Webb’s father) Glen Hardin (Elvis’s piano player) and the legendary Leon Russell. They advised Jim to go to Nashville and get a record deal. It wasn’t too long before Jim’s song, Oklahoma Morning was catching the ear of Charley Pride. Soon after Charley Pride recorded Jim’s song, the famous publishing company Acuff-Rose offered him a songwriting deal. Within two months he had a record deal with MGM/Hickory Music where he was hand-picked by Roy Acuff himself to have his spot on the label!
This was the beginning of the end of a whirlwind career that had Jim signing with Mike Curb and United Artists Records, dealing with alcoholism, moving back to Texas and happily meeting the love of his life. Jim at this point left the music business for over 25 years before deciding to get back into songwriting and recording again.
Recently, KC Café Radio Music Director, Kathy Forste, had the pleasure to chat with Jim Chesnut via Skype from his home in San Antonio, Texas. They talked about his amazing early success, why he left the music industry, why he came back and what he thinks of the current state of the music industry. They also talked about his exciting new project, Texas Live Music Project and how it will help bring venues and artists together.
Louisiana born Georgia raised Chuck McDowell is an award winning songwriter and entertainer with a reputation as a remarkably prolific songwriter in songwriting circles around the country. Clever and driven in his pursuit to write better songs, his focus and energy has gained attention from, and garnered co-writes with, some of most lauded songwriters & lyricists of our day.
In the beginning…. well, In the 2nd grade, Chuck was star struck by the Beatles and amazed by the effect the guitar slinging songsters had on the girls. He decided it was time to pick up the guitar for himself. But eventually, when it was time to get serious about life and start a family, his music was relegated to his basement and occasional church services.
Over the last 12 years, Chuck has again dived into his passion and commitment to music and the wonderful connections it creates between people. A romantic, an innovator and a wildly creative personality, he first put together the eclectic ESOEBO, a guitar/cello duo with Gail Burnett that re-imagines and re-invents a wide variety of cover songs (Eclectic Selections Of Everything But Opera). Gwinnett Magazine named ESOEBOBest Entertainer of the Year.
Recently, KC Cafe Radio Music Director Kathy Forste talked with McDowell via Skype. They talk about his path to music, the formation of ESOEBO, and the influences that continue to shape his music to this day.
Twenty-Eighteen marks the 30th consecutive year that Folk Alliance International has been celebrating folk music, its musicians and those involved in furthering the cause of Folk Music around the world. That makes this year’s conference theme, 30 Years of Community and Song all the more appropriate.
This year also marks KC Cafe Radio’s 10th year of Bringing You The World’s Finest Original Music, and 5 years of bringing conference coverage to our airwaves. This year, we continue the tradition of on-air visits with with old friends, as well as new relationships we have made.
KC Cafe Radio Music Director Kathy Forste
Here we present the interviews and performances that were recorded in our hotel room recording studio during the conference. Our thanks to Laura Spink, Graydon James, Joy Zimmerman, Patterson Barrett, Chuck McDowell, Hilary and Stuart Adamson, Emily White,Wyatt Brewer,Sarah Lynn, Julie Bates, Andrew Morris, Betsey Beymer. Rachel Baimen, Christian Sedelmyer, Amy and Mike Aiken, Maggie and Abigail Vogts, Chuck Costa, Mira Stanley, David Hakan, Dan Weber, Laurie Raveis and Dennis Kole.
If someone had told the teenage Donna Lynn Caskey that one day she would play banjo and perform original music in public, she would’ve thought they were joking. Born in the Tidewater region of the Virginia coast, the youngest of ten children in a family of music makers and music lovers, Donna Lynn came to believe early on she would have to make do in the “music lover” camp only.
Donna Lynn’s early experiences with formal music education left her feeling insecure. She felt dyslexic when it came to reading standard musical notation during piano lessons, so she doubted she could ever be a real musician. Nontheless, she continued in the role of music fan and appreciator by devouring eclectic public radio broadcasts, checking out stacks of recordings from the library, going to concerts, compulsively making mix tapes comprised of beloved songs and new musical finds and sharing them with friends. She eventually realized that some of her favorite songs and voices were often rough around more than just the edges, yet were tremendously affecting. She was also encouraged by stories of musicians who couldn’t read a note, but who could touch hearts with their gifts just the same. She began to think maybe she could make music, after all. It didn’t have to be pretty and perfect. Simple, homemade music could be powerful music.
Music also started to feel more within reach while Donna Lynn studied art at Hollins University in the Blue Ridge Mountains. College years were also the time when she discovered a deep love of the banjo. A regular attendee of the local Roanoke Fiddle & Banjo Club, she found herself weeping with joy more than once during banjo solos. On Saturday mornings, she would go listen to old-time and bluegrass jams at an acoustic music store inside Happy’s Flea Market. Before long, she had her eye on a lovely banjo hanging on the wall. As her college days waned and she was unsure what was next, she bought herself that banjo for graduation.
Donna Lynn proceeded to spend the next two years traveling, moving from job to job and place to place. The banjo gathered dust at her parents’ house, and she felt guilty letting that beautiful instrument go unplayed. She took it to a local music shop for consignment. The woman behind the counter convinced her not to, however, and Donna Lynn ended up paying to have the banjo set up and restrung instead.
Soon after, a friend was heading to Brasstown, North Carolina for an internship at the John C. Campbell Folk School. Donna Lynn looked at the course catalog, which listed a class called “Beginning Clawhammer Banjo by Ear” taught by Diane B. Jones. The catalog also indicated scholarships were available. The week before class was scheduled to start that summer of 2001, Donna Lynn was notified she was awarded a scholarship. Three days in to that week-long, intensive class, the basics of playing clicked.
The following week, Donna Lynn and her banjo moved to California by train. She was afraid she’d left the music community behind her in Virginia, but within days of arriving, she met a fiddler at the farmers’ market who invited her to a weekly old-time jam. Through the jam, she was connected to local music festivals, banjo workshops, lessons with master old-time musician Brad Leftwich while he lived in the area, and to her first paying gigs. She remains friends with members of that group to this day.
Within months of starting banjo, Donna Lynn also began writing songs and performing. Her debut album of original material, Nameless Heart, was released in 2014 to glowing reviews for innovative clawhammer-style playing and strong writing that simultaneously acknowledges life’s difficulties while offering a genuine message of hope. The Ventura, California based artist recently completed her second album, The Love Still Shows.
Recently, KC Cafe Radio Music Director Kathy Forste spoke with “Banjo Gal” Donna Lynn Caskey via Skype. They talk at length about Donna’s upbringing being surrounded by music, the significance of her challenges, and how those challenges shape the music she writes and performs today.
