Alabama Arts Radio podcast --MS Hill Country Bluesman Kenny Brown

This week Deborah Boykin interviews bluesman Kenny Brown, who recently appeared at the Chicken and Egg Festival in Moulton. Brown talks about R. L. Burnside and the other musicians who were his influences. He also discusses his North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic. The event pays tribute to Brown's musical roots by presenting most of the performers currently playing in the distinctive hill country blues style he learned as a child.

AlabamaArts Radio Podcast, Ceramic Artist Guadalupe Lanning Robinson

Visual Arts Program Manager Georgine Clarke talks with Guadalupe Lanning Robinson, Huntsville ceramic artist and recipient of the Individual Artist Fellowship in Craft from ASCA. Robinson, native of Mexico City, has brought her cultural traditions into her contemporary work. She discusses ways in which she markets her pottery as well as the important role of the Alabama Clay Conference to potters of the region. She provides information about art activity in Huntsville, particularly studio spaces of Lowe Mill, a recently developed center which helps create an artist community in the area.

AlabamaArts Radio Podcast, Author and Historian John Sledge

Joey Brackner interviews Mobile preservationist, historian, book reviewer and author John Sledge about his career and his latest book The Pillared City available from the University of Georgia Press.

AlabamaArts Radio Podcast, Archive of Alabama Folk Culture Kevin Nutt

Anne Kimzey, folklorist with the Alabama State Council on the Arts, interviews archivist Kevin Nutt about his work at the Archive of Alabama Folk Culture located in the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery.  During the program Nutt shares samples of traditional music selected from the archive including old-string band music, a capella gospel and Sacred Harp singing.

AlabamaArts Radio Podcast, Poet Mary Kaiser

In this interview, executive director Jeanie Thompson of the Alabama Writers’ Forum, talks with Mary Kaiser, one of two recipients of a fellowship from the Alabama State Council of the Arts and a featured poet at the 5th Alabama Book Festival, April 17 in Montgomery, Ala. Kaiser, a faculty member at Jefferson State Community College, talks about the genesis of her chapbook, Falling into Velazquez, which won the 2006 Slapering Hol Chapbook Award from the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center.

AlabamaArts Radio Podcast, Alabama Book Festival

Randy Shoults, program manager for literature at ASCA, talks with Jeanie Thompson, executive director of the Alabama Writers’ Forum and producer of two events for the 5th Annual Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery, Alabama on April 17 in Old Alabama Town. Thompson produces the Festival’s Poetry Tent and directs the Teacher Workshops associated with the Book Festival. Thompson tells about the range of poets highlighting generations of writers in the state, from up and coming young poets through the state’s poet laureate, and reads selections of poets’ works.  For a complete list of poets and other authors at the Alabama Book Festival, go to www.alabamabookfestival.org.

AlabamaArts Radio Podcast, Alabama Music Hall of FAme

In this program Joey Brackner interviews Alabama Music Hall of Fame director David Johnson about the 13^th Induction Banquet and Awards Show to be held in the Convention Center in Montgomery, Ala., Thursday, March 25. The inductees and their categories are: Performing artist/group category- The Blind Boys of Alabama and Eddie Levert, (the lead singer of the O’Jays); Music creator- Dothan songwriter/record producer Buddy Buie and Florence session musician Jerry Carrigan; Entertainment industry-Elba native, record producer/musician Paul Hornsby; John Herbert Orr Pioneer Award- The late Muscle Shoals musician Terry Thompson and singer/Colbert-Lauderdale County State Senator Bobby Denton.