Gillian Welch

Much of the music played during this broadcast of Bluegrass Junction are songs from a 2004 performance by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings at St Luke’s in London recorded for broadcast on BBC4. The session was recorded with Gillian and her partner-producer David Rawlings at LSO St Luke’s in London on Monday 2 August and includes a special encore cover of The Band’s classic The Weight, with bluegrass outfit Old Crow Medicine Show.

Welch grew up in West Los Angeles where she first got into bluegrass and early country music such as Delmore Brothers, the Carter Family, and the Stanley Brothers. While attending the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Gillian began performing at open mike showcases with fellow student David Rawlings. The pair went on to perform regularly across the USA.

Pete Seeger takes up second fiddle (banjo) in this show with four songs. Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist. He was a very prolific songwriter who often performed with Woody Guthrie, another staple in American Folk Music. Woody Guthrie’s son, Arlo Guthrie, makes an appearance in our set list and Led Zeppelin rounds off the program.

This program was made possible by the generous donations from our sponsor, Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery in Chattahoochee, Georgia. If you can’t find it at Ralph’s, you can probably get along fine without it!

Thank you for listening!