Join us for a Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time, with musical guests Holy Roller and Dylan Earl in the intimate performance theater at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.
Hosted by Kris Truelsen and Country Casserole, Farm and Fun Time is a re-imagining of the classic WCYB Radio program of the same name that aired in the 1940s and 1950s. Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time broadcasts live before a studio audience and recorded for television syndication on more than 143 PBS stations across the United States. It can be accessed on 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, or online at ListenRadioBristol.org and on Radio Bristol’s free mobile app. Viewers may also tune in to watch through Radio Bristol’s Facebook page.
“Holy Roller? More like holy ****!” That’s the review according to Nashville’s multi-Grammy award winning songwriter, Jim Lauderdale. The Richmond, VA based group is quickly proving that they intend to be the new face of southern rock. Holy Roller has been dominating the east coast, selling out nearly every show over the last year, not to mention some outstanding performances that landed them as festival favorites at Bristol Rhythm & Roots and Red Wing. Their sophomore album, Good Religion is out now and boasts some seriously riff-heavy, yet deeply intimate songs that are best played L-O-U-D. Holy Roller is down home, and good at it. Website: holyroller.music
Born in Louisiana and naturalized by the Natural State, Dylan Earl seeks to understand himself by understanding others and where he makes his home. His upcoming release, ‘Level-Headed Even Smile’ (2025), charts territory into his formative years discovering Arkansas, the people who showed him the ropes and back roads, and who he hopes to become. Offering poignant nostalgia, history, and a refreshingly progressive approach to country and western music, his newest effort is rife with wry wit, irreverence, and an endearing desire to color outside the lines. Website: dylanearl.com
Kris Truelsen and Country Casserole
Kris Truelsen has spent the better part of the last two decades touring across the U.S., honing his craft as a songwriter and performer. With his latest project fronting Country Casserole, he leans into the rock n’ roll side of country music. It’s rowdy, loose and unmistakably Kris. The band features an all star lineup including Nick Lawrence (guitar), Rebecca Branson Jones (pedal steel), Sarah Griffin (bass), and Levi Trent (drums).
Join us for Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time, with musical guests Paul McDonald and Liv Greene in the intimate performance theater at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.
Hosted by Kris Truelsen and his Farm and Fun Time House Band, Farm and Fun Time is a re-imagining of the classic WCYB Radio program of the same name that aired in the 1940s and 1950s. Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time broadcasts live before a studio audience and recorded for television syndication on more than 143 PBS stations across the United States. It can be accessed on 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, or online at ListenRadioBristol.org and on Radio Bristol’s free mobile app. Viewers may also tune in to watch through Radio Bristol’s Facebook page.
Paul McDonald’s voice is immediately recognizable and impossible to ignore. Often compared to legends like Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan, the poetic story-driven narratives and deeply catchy hooks in his music are delivered by a raspy yet refined voice reminiscent of another era that demands to be heard right now. He pulls off the rare feat of being a poet, visual artist, songwriter, adamant performer, and a powerful vocalist. Paul’s hope is to spread peace, love, and unity through his music. His first album in more than six years, “So Long To the Dark Side,” dropped on July 11, 2025, with the electric single, “Dark Side,” leading a string of releases in the build up.
Liv Greene isn’t running from herself anymore. She’s pried herself open and let real longing, frustration, and love break free. Deep Feeler, her sophomore album, is a reckoning with reality, a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance. It’s feminine, queer, and defiant. It also heralds the arrival of Greene as a powerful new voice who joins the songwriting tradition of Emmylou, Patty, Gillian, and Lucinda – in her own way. Greene self-produced and recorded Deep Feeler primarily live to tape in Nashville’s Woodland Sound Studios, with collaborator Matt Andrews (Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings, O Brother Where Art Thou) and a dreamy band of friends including Jack Schneider, Sarah Jarosz, Dom Billett, Elise Leavy, Jordan Tice, and Christian Sedelmeyer. The resulting collection of lilting melodies and poignant storytelling is a bold achievement: a piece of art that matters culturally, musically, and personally.
Kris Truelsen and the Farm and Fun Time House Band
Kris Truelsen has spent the better part of the last two decades touring across the U.S., honing his craft as a songwriter and performer. With his latest project fronting the Farm and Fun Time House Band, he leans into the rock n’ roll side of country music. It’s rowdy, loose and unmistakably Kris. The band features an all star lineup including Nick Lawrence (guitar), Rebecca Branson Jones (pedal steel), Sarah Griffin (bass), and Levi Trent (drums).
Join us for a Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time, with musical guests J & The Causeways and Dori Freeman in the intimate performance theater at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.
Hosted by Kris Truelsen and his Farm and Fun Time House Band, Farm and Fun Time is a re-imagining of the classic WCYB Radio program of the same name that aired in the 1940s and 1950s. Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time broadcasts live before a studio audience and recorded for television syndication on more than 143 PBS stations across the United States. It can be accessed on 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, or online at ListenRadioBristol.org and on Radio Bristol’s free mobile app. Viewers may also tune in to watch through Radio Bristol’s Facebook page.
In a modern world seemingly gone mad, one of distraction and white noise, what emerges from J & Causeways’ debut album, Motions, is this universal theme of togetherness and compassion — melodies conjured and cultivated with a keen understanding of reaching one another through healing and transcendence.
“This album is about getting the listener to tap into their own inner power and inner beauty,” says Jordan Anderson. “Stop searching outward for those answers. Start searching inward. And then, maybe we can raise ourselves up and out of our sadness and problems.”
Lead singer/keyboardist of New Orleans soul/R&B powerhouse ensemble J & The Causeways, Anderson has remained a magnetic presence in the city’s vast, storied live music scene for the better part of the last decade.
“It’s that breath of fresh air that is New Orleans,” the 34-year-old notes. “There are no bounds for music, food, art, people and culture — everything is enriched here.”
Dori Freeman has sharpened her vision of Appalachian Americana over five studio albums. From the country traditionalism of her self-titled debut to the amplified folk of Ten Thousand Roses, it’s a sound that nods to her mountain-town roots even as it reaches beyond them. Freeman continues creating her own musical geography with Do You Recall, the songwriter’s most eclectic — and electric — record yet.
Like a counterpart to Ten Thousand Roses — the 2021 release that found Freeman trading the acoustic textures of her earlier work for a more expansive, electrified version of American roots music — Do You Recall nods to the full range of Freeman’s influences and abilities. She still sings with the unforced vibrato of a classic folksinger, but she’s more of a modern trailblazer than a throwback traditionalist, funneling her Blue Ridge roots into a contemporary sound that’s both broad and bold.
“I grew up in a family that played a lot of traditional music, but my dad played a lot of other types of music for me, too,” says Freeman, who grew up in rural Galax, Virginia. “I’d go fiddler’s conventions, but I’d also watch my dad play jazz, swing, country, and rock & roll. He was a big fan of singer-songwriters. I think that variety has a lot to do with the way my own songwriting has developed.”
After traveling to New York City to record her first three albums with producer Teddy Thompson (son of folk-rock icons Richard and Linda Thompson), Freeman chose to stay in Virginia for the Ten Thousand Roses sessions. She remained there for the creation of Do You Recall, too, tapping drummer Nicholas Falk — her husband, as well as a touring member of Hiss Golden Messenger — to produce. The two musicians worked out of a small, timber-framed recording studio in the couple’s own backyard, tracking songs during the daytime hours while their daughter attended school. Grounded in sharp songwriting and layered with electric guitar, organ, pedal steel, percussion, and vocal harmonies, Do You Recall finds Freeman delivering tales about motherhood, marriage, and life in modern-day Appalachia.
The results are as stunning as they are diverse. On “Why Do I Do This To Myself,” Freeman nods to the glory days of 90s country with a combination of pop hooks and amplified power chords. She gets psychedelic with “River Runs,” lacing the folksong (which she wrote alongside Falk) with banjo, feedback, and hazy clouds of reverb. Her longtime champion Teddy Thompson sings harmony on “Good Enough,” whose nostalgic keyboard textures evoke the garage-rock era, while her father contributes to “Laundromat” — in which Freeman nurses a broken heart by turning to the washing machine and running a load of colors, taking solace in life’s more mundane tasks — as a co-writer. For Freeman, who penned every song on her previous albums without outside help, collaborating with other writers marks another milestone in her evolution as a singer, storyteller, and songwriter.
That evolution is highlighted by songs like “Soup Beans Milk and Bread” and “They Do It’s True,” two songs that ground themselves in Freeman’s experience as an Appalachian native who’s traveled the country for years, broadening her horizons far beyond the Blue Ridge. Both tunes explore the physical beauty, social challenges, and musical hallmarks of the area, and Freeman sings them with warmth and unflinching honesty. “I want people to associate different things with Appalachia than what’s become the standard,” she says. “You can’t define this area as one thing. I know my perspective on it, and I love sharing that perspective and representing Appalachia in my own way.”
Do You Recall offers a closer look at Dori Freeman’s brand of expansive Americana. It’s an album that both reaffirms her roots and reaches past them, exploring the sounds and stories that lay between traditional formats. Freeman does her best work in those gray areas, bringing her own color to a sound that’s varied, versatile, and unmistakably her own. She’s still proud of her Appalachian heritage. With Do You Recall, though, she’s making her own traditions. www.dorifreeman.com
Kris Truelsen and the Farm and Fun Time House Band
Kris Truelsen has spent the better part of the last two decades touring across the U.S., honing his craft as a songwriter and performer. With his latest project fronting the Farm and Fun Time House Band, he leans into the rock n’ roll side of country music. It’s rowdy, loose and unmistakably Kris. The band features an all star lineup including Nick Lawrence (guitar), Rebecca Branson Jones (pedal steel), Sarah Griffin (bass), and Levi Trent (drums).
Join us for a Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time, with musical guests Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms Country Band and Momma Molasses in the intimate performance theater at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.
Hosted by Kris Truelsen and his Farm and Fun Time House Band, Farm and Fun Time is a re-imagining of the classic WCYB Radio program of the same name that aired in the 1940s and 1950s. Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time broadcasts live before a studio audience and recorded for television syndication on more than 143 PBS stations across the United States. It can be accessed on 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, or online at ListenRadioBristol.org and on Radio Bristol’s free mobile app. Viewers may also tune in to watch through Radio Bristol’s Facebook page.
Dust off your boots and gather around for some true and original modern honky tonk music. An all-star cast of master musicians backs these two soul singers of country music, Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms. These two are known to roots music fans across the globe for their soulful harmonies, driving dance tunes, classic original songs, and commitment to the raw truth of rural American music. They live in the San Juan Islands of Washington, though until recently, home was Portland, OR. They are foundational to the exceptional old-time and country music scene in the Pacific NW with the Caleb Klauder Reeb Willms Country Band and their membership in the Foghorn Stringband, of which Caleb was a founding member. Charismatic performers, they bring their unique set of talents to the stage with an eye towards good times and an ear towards the deepest songs and tunes.
“Momma Molasses’ music interlaces; Classic Country, Folk, Piedmont Blues, Soul, Swing, Bluegrass, and Old-Time which blend into a uniquely timeless sound. Harnessing her rolling contralto voice which scales over homespun finger-picked guitar, her sound is warm, rich, and passionate, with songs that embrace, and captivate listeners, soothing well warn hearts with vulnerable lyricism.” Her music has been likened by listeners to Patsy Cline, “Mother” Maybelle Carter, early (pre-rock n’ roll) Janis Joplin. Prepare yourselves for an energetic and fun-loving chat with the one and only Momma Molasses!
Kris Truelsen and the Farm and Fun Time House Band
Kris Truelsen has spent the better part of the last two decades touring across the U.S., honing his craft as a songwriter and performer. With his latest project fronting the Farm and Fun Time House Band, he leans into the rock n’ roll side of country music. It’s rowdy, loose and unmistakably Kris. The band features an all star lineup including Nick Lawrence (guitar), Rebecca Branson Jones (pedal steel), Sarah Griffin (bass), and Levi Trent (drums).
