Published: March 26, 2008 02:22 pm      

Mountain Stage back at Paramount with distinguished lineup

ASHLAND — The Paramount Arts Center again will host an installment of Mountain Stage, an internationally distributed weekly, two-hour, live performance radio program produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Scheduled to perform at the show Sunday are Kathy Mattea, Tim O’Brien, Sonny Landreth, Tift Merritt, Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee.

Grammy winner Mattea is known for classics such as “18 Wheels and A Dozen Roses” and “Where’ve You Been.” She said her latest album, COAL, offered her a “re-education” in singing.

Songwriter O’Brien, a child of West Virginia, said WWVA Jamboree has never stopped mining the American music canon for great material. O’Brien was so full of songs when he approached his latest phase of recording that they overwhelmed one album and became two: “Fiddler’s Green” and “Cornbread Nation.”

Landreth can claim Eric Clapton as a fan. “He’s probably the most underestimated musician on the planet and also probably one of the most advanced,” Clapton said. Landreth’s latest recording effort finds the slide guitar master on his first live recording and back at his old haunt in Lafayette, La.

Tift Merritt is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and recording artist known for her mix of rock and roll, soul and country. Her third studio album, “Another Country,” was released in February this year.

First assembled for several U.S. government-sponsored tours of China and Tibet, Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow quartet explore a mixture of old-time, folk, and bluegrass numbers, as well as original compositions. A further dimension is added to the music by a recurring Chinese influence: the country’s traditional music incorporated into a number of old-time “Sino-American folk” tunes.



Mountain Stage with Larry Groce will be at the Paramount Arts Center at 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $35, 30, $25 and $10 and may be purchased at the PAC box office by calling (606) 324-3175 or visiting the box office Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.