Minneapolis Country Music on Back to the Country 2/10/26

The city of Minneapolis has dominated recent news cycles and was just nominated last week for a 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for its solidarity and collective nonviolent resistance to the masked and fascist ICE surges. I'm sure most of you watched as thousands of MN residents stood in the cold singing to ICE agents outside their hotels, that it's OK to change their minds. It was beautiful!

As such, I thought this week's episode of Back to the Country might be a good time to look at the history of Minneapolis country music. From the early days of the Sunset Valley Barn Dance in the 1940s through the Kay Bank/Soma era of the '60s, on through the Prairie Home Companion pickers and singers of the '70s and even Prince's country music exploits as Joey CoCo in the '80s, there have been tons of amazing country musicians from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. I'll certainly share some of my favorite records by my friends in the Twin Cities and thanks to the massive 78 collection of Upper Midwestern recordings at Mills Music Library, I'll also share a whole bunch of rare MLPS gems from '40s and early '50s.

Minneapolis has also been through some particularly tough times in recent years, so I'll also spend some time looking at the country music responses to the tragic murder of George Floyd, as well as the most recent country music songs protesting ICE from Zach Bryan, Jesse Welles, the Boss, and more. It's an awful lot to fit into just three hours, but I'll do my best!

Tune in tomorrow (2/11) via 89.9fm from 9am-noon (CST) or streaming at wortfm.org or via the WORT app.

R.I.P. Steel Guitar Extraordinaire Pete Finney

Really bummed to see my feed flooded with Pete Finney tributes today. Pete was a superb steel guitarist, a really smart historian, super nice guy, and seems to have been loved by just about everyone in Nashville. He and his wife Carol deserve all the love, so I'll add to the tributes.

I met Pete back in 2016 at the International Country Music Conference when he was being awarded the Chet Flippo Award for the excellent book and Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit he co-curated on Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and the Nashville Cats. Before he accepted his award, he came early and listened to several other presentations that day, including my talk on the country music recordings of Hoagy Carmichael. He approached me after my talk, said he was a big Hoagy fan, wanted to hear more, and invited me to the Country Music Hall of Fame later that evening to hear him play, see his exhibit, and talk more country music. I gladly accepted the invitation.

It was only later that night, during his intro at the Hall of Fame gig that I learned he had toured for many years with CMHOFers like Patty Loveless, Vince Gill, Reba, the Judds, as well as the Chicks and spent many years with the Monkees, too. Later I started to see his name on all sorts of recordings by Bobby Bare, Justin Townes Earle, Brennen Leigh, Clem Snide, Robbie Fulks, and more, and he seemed to always be playing with Chris Scruggs and the Stone Fox Five when I was in Nashville. That guy was in demand and everywhere!

At some point he asked me who my favorite pedal steel player was and I said 'Pete Drake.' He got excited and said PD was one of his favorites, too. I told him I was soon to be recording with Betty Amos w/ Judy and Jean in Nashville and asked if he'd be willing to play steel on the session. He said, 'Sure!' And because we both loved Pete Drake, I asked if he'd be willing to cover Pete Drake's Starday recording of "The Spook" with me? Again, 'Absolutely!' That tune ended up being the bonus track on the Bear Family Records release of Nate Gibson & the Stars of Starday and it's one of my faves. Pete nailed the Pete Sound!

It's sad to see this picture today, taken less than a decade ago, and know that since that session we've lost Betty, Judy, Jean, Dave Roe, and Pete. But I'm mighty grateful our paths crossed and particularly for the time, kindness, and sharing of talents. RIP Pete.

Photo by Drew Carroll. L-R: Chris Scruggs, Pete Finney, Cousin Kenny Vaughan, Dave Roe, Betty Amos, Judy Lee, Jean Amos, Nate Gibson, Timon Kaple

Hoo Hoo Hoo... Hoosiers?!

Back when I attended Indiana University for grad school, football season tickets were $30. If you wanted to buy any basketball tickets, you also had to buy the football season ticket package just to get them. I didn't buy either because the baseball tickets were free and we had Kyle Schwarber. 

But this year, the football team has been doing really well. Like, really good. And their rise from worst football program in college history to unexpected dominance just happens to coincide with reports of teachers being removed from IU classrooms for teaching about historical racism, with IU faculty being beaten and dragged off Dunn Meadow for protecting students and their right to free speech against armed national guards, with the moving and minimizing of the Archives of Traditional Music, and the elimination, merger, or suspension of approximately 250 undergraduate degrees in 2025-26 (including my own Folklore & Ethnomusicology program). 

It's extremely difficult to cheer for the horrific MAGA takeover of a once great educational institution, but IU does throw the ball really well and Fernando Mendoza seems like a good guy. I'll root for their football team in the Championship game tonight, but I'm much more interested in rooting for the incredible faculty and staff still at IU and still fighting for education and academic integrity every day. It's an uphill battle and I appreciate all of you! 

Now it's time to turn off my country music Ode to the Hoosiers LP (recorded at the Starday Sound Studio in Nashville just after the basketball team won the national championship in 1981) and turn on the game. Hoo Hoo Hoo... Hoosiers?!

Country Music in Español on Back to the Country 1/14/26

Howdy Friends, I’ll be back on the WORT FM tomorrow morning from 9-noon (CST) hosting Back to the Country and the theme this week is Country Music in Español. The NFL Super Bowl is just around the corner and back in October, half-time performer (and most streamed artist of 2025) Bad Bunny went on SNL and told everyone that we had just a few months to learn Spanish. Well, in case you haven’t been keeping up with your lessons, this show is for you!

We’ll start with traditional country music songs mostly sung in English but with some Spanish words here and there. Then we’ll move on to country songs with full verses sung in both English and Spanish. From there, we’ll hear songs fully sung in Spanish, but we’ll begin with translations of songs that were first hits in English so that you grab onto the narrative quickly.

Along the way we’ll pay tribute to three of my favorite Spanish-singing country superstars who we lost in 2025: Johnny Rodriguez, Flaco Jiménez, and just last month, Raul Malo of the Mavericks (The Mavericks in Español 2xLP is so, so good!). I’ll also play some of my favorite records by Rudy Tutti Grayzell, Freddy Fender, Linda Ronstadt, Big Sandy, Tish Hinojosa, the Austin Lounge Lizards, Gerardo Meza and the Mezcal Brothers, Southern Culture on the Skids, and Cris Plata to name a few. We’ll dip into some of the absolute gems from UCLA’s massive Frontera Collection. And I’ll for sure play for you my 1963 Johnny Cash Cantado en Español EP, released only in Spain with him singing two songs in Spanish. It’ll be lots of fun and, with any luck, when it’s all over, tú puedes hablar y entender Español! ¡Escucha wortfm.org o 89.9FM en Wisconsin!

Jewish Country Music on Back to the Country 12/10/25

Howdy Friends. Hanukkah begins this weekend and its got me thinking about all of the great Jewish country music out there in the world. Sure, there's the well-known Jewish country stars like Kinky Friedman, Ray Benson (Asleep at the Wheel), Shel Silverstein, and Mickey Raphael (Willie Nelson & Friends). There's lots of great folk-country Jewish artists like Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Leonard Cohen as well as bluegrass legends like Bela Fleck, Noam Pikelny, and David Grisman (to name just a few). And I can't leave out former bandmates Bobbie Malone and Dave Aaronoff (with a great new Hens release), or local star Jerry Wicentowski (Bluegrass Hoppers). Infamous tailor to the stars, Nudie Cohn, even made a country record and heck, it was Steve Goodman who wrote the perfect country music song!

I know it's just barely scratching the surface, but I've tracked down my favorite three hours worth of Jewish country music from my own collection and I've also found some rare gems to play from the Mayrent Collection of Yiddish Recordings. It's the largest collection of Yiddish language recordings (over 9,000+ 78s), with some incredible country-related records within, and it lives right next door to my office in Mills Music Library! I just might even have a special guest on during the middle of the show...

Hope you can tune in to Back to the Country tomorrow morning (12/10) from 9am to noon (cst) via 89.9FM in southern Wisconsin or streaming via wortfm.org and here's to a joyful festival of lights!

RCA Victor Chairs and a new Back to the Country show 11/12

For many years I've been wanting to find one of these rad 1940s/50s RCA Victor dealer chairs, but they always seem to be either WAY out of my price range or a million miles away. Never in my wildest dreams would I expect to find not just one, but TWO of them less than two miles from our home in the local antique mall (shout out to Atomic Antiques). Even more astonishing, because there was only one arm rest, they were sold for mere pennies on the dollar. I owe a gazillion thanks to my friend Dave Lass for texting me a heads up and then meeting me the next morning before they opened to make sure nobody else found them before us. Thank you, thank you, Dave!!

The next step is to find a way to use the one existing armrest as a template to make the others. I'm thinking wood. Does anybody have any suggestions or experience making RCA Victor chair armrests?

Well, the next step is actually to host Back to the Country on WORT FM tomorrow morning (11/12) from 9am-noon cst (streaming via wortfm.org). I'll be spinning some amazing recent acquisition 45s all morning, several of which were produced by RCA Victor around the same time as these chairs!

A Halloween Hayride Tomorrow (10/29) on WORT

Happy Early Halloween, y'all! Tomorrow is a bonus 5th Wednesday of the month which means I'll again be hosting Back to the Country on WORT FM from 9am-noon (cst). I've got a big ol' stack of my favorite spooky country classics at the ready for a swingin' Halloween Hayride! Salty Holmes, Eddie Noack, Jesse Welles, Hank Levine, and whatever else three hours will allow! Streaming worldwide via wortfm.org and via the WORT app.

Photo: Throwback to a couple decades ago when Nate Gibson & the Gashouse Gang and Reverend Horton Heat rocked a Halloween Hootenanny at the Middle East in Boston. With thanks to Emily Gabrian for the snap!