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On your radio May 10—Hugh O’Doherty

Originally broadcast 9/9/2018

“He’s a musician! He’s a pilot! He’s a Renaissance Man! … I HATE him!” — Christine Lavin 

A veteran of New England, Greenwich Village, and California songwriting communities, Hugh O’Doherty ‘s live performances take the audience from romance to satire, and from riveting emotional issues to downright self-deprecating silliness. He lives in, and sings about, the real world. Hugh puts the frameworks of human connections into perspective with songs of: love, humor, childhood, friendship, marriage, blended families, justice, environmental issues, and other contemporary topics.

Hugh was raised in a family in which music was as essential as oxygen. Listening to it, dancing to it, playing it. In Hugh’s case, that meant singing, and playing piano and banjo (and guitar, when his brother, Liam Tomas O’Doherty, wasn’t looking). In high school, he sang in acoustic groups with Liam and other friends. Like Liam, Hugh started writing his own songs, and acting in the school plays. Hugh continued acting in college, while playing many of the campus coffeehouses in the Middle Atlantic States. He then carved a career, flying rescue aircraft, from hangars along American and Canadian shorelines. Meanwhile, Hugh conducted the parallel artistic pursuit of playing for the acoustic audiences of many of those regions, and engaging in California, New England, and Greenwich Village songwriting communities.

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On your radio May 17—Utah Phillips

A broadcast of the 3/1/2003 Cornell Folk Song Society show

Bruce “Utah” Phillips (1935-2008) was an American labor organizer, storyteller, poet and the “Golden Voice of the Great Southwest”. He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist. He was a gifted storyteller and monologist, and his concerts generally had an even mix of spoken word and sung content. He attributed much of his success to his personality. “It is better to be likeable than talented,” he often said, self-deprecatingly.

Phillips was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, Edwin Phillips, was a labor organizer, and his parents’ activism influenced much of his life’s work. Phillips was a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies). In recent years, perhaps no single person did more to spread the Wobbly gospel than Phillips, whose countless concerts were, in effect, organizing meetings for the cause of labor, unions, anarchism, pacifism, and the Wobblies.

While riding the rails and tramping around the west, he met Ammon Hennacy from the Catholic Worker Movement in Salt Lake City. He gave credit to Hennacy for saving him from a life of drifting to one dedicated to using his gifts and talents toward activism and public service.

Phillips met folk singer Rosalie Sorrels in the early 1950s and remained a close friend of hers. Sorrels started playing the songs that Phillips wrote, and, through her, his music began to spread. After leaving Utah in the late 1960s, he went to Saratoga Springs, New York, where he was befriended by the folk community at the Caffé Lena coffee house. He became a staple performer there for a decade and would return throughout his career.

His protégée, Ani DiFranco, recorded two CDs, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere (1996) and Fellow Workers (1999), with him. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for his work with DiFranco. His “Green Rolling Hills” was made into a country hit by Emmylou Harris, and “The Goodnight-Loving Trail” became a classic as well, being recorded by Ian Tyson, Tom Waits, and others.

Phillips became an elder statesman for the folk music community, and a keeper of stories and songs that might otherwise have passed into obscurity. He was also a member of the great Traveling Nation, the community of hobos and railroad bums that populates the Midwest United States along the rail lines, and was an important keeper of their history and culture. He also became an honorary member of numerous folk societies in the U.S.A. and Canada.

Phillips hosted his own weekly radio show, Loafer’s Glory: The Hobo Jungle of the Mind, originating on KVMR and nationally syndicated.

This recording of Utah is from his 2003 Cornell Folk Song Society concert in Ithaca, New York.

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LIVE Bound for Glory!

Rachael Kilgour

May 24, 2:00 pm 
at the Lansing Area Performance Hall

Come see Rachael Kilgour on May 24 at the Lansing Area Performance Hall (1004 Auburn Road, North Lansing, NY)! Our live Sunday shows start in the afternoon at 2 pm. The show will be recorded for broadcast on a future Sunday evening Bound for Glory radio show.

“…a heartfelt slice of master crafted indie folk brimming with the battle-tested capacity to endure the worst in others.”—Billboard

Canadian-American songwriter Rachael Kilgour is a 2025 Mcknight Music Fellow, a winner of the NewSong Music Competition (2015) and Kerrville New Folk Contest (2017), and has been featured at NYC’s Lincoln Center and The Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

Her oft-noted “unapologetic lyrics” (Rolling Stone) and “master crafted indie folk” sensibilities (Billboard) are on full display in her heartfelt release, My Father Loved Me, a collection of her delicately woven songs. The album was recorded in her late father’s native Ontario and was produced by JUNO-award winning and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Rose Cousins.

In the spare and often gutting language for which she is known, Kilgour gives us a complex portrait of a man seen through his daughter’s eyes. The record poses questions about belonging, inheritance, and grief and triumphantly affirms the value of one ordinary working man’s life.

On stage Kilgour expertly balances her poignant, literate songs with her quick wit, landing somewhere between a comedy special and a funeral. Listeners can expect to laugh, weep, and reflect on their own relationships with fatherhood, mortality, and grief.

Come join us for Bound for Glory’s monthly live shows on the fourth Sunday of each month at 2 pm. Admission–as always–is free, but we are encouraging donations for the performers.

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On your radio May 24—Mad Goat String Band

Originally broadcast 9/6/2015

Mad Goat String Band’s got the barn burners, laments, waltzes and toddles whenever the mood suits, and more than a few rural songs of livin’, lovin’ and losin’, with some churchy finger-waggers to boot. Their tunes and songs come from a wide range of influences from the southern mountains to East Texas, and from the Ozarks to Ithaca and Trumansburg.  Close harmony duet singing is a specialty, when not playing for squares and contras!

Jaden Gladstone is a fiddlin’, banjo-pickin’ Vermontster who puts out fires in his spare time.  In his other spare time, he’s a jazz saxophonist and full-time Cornell student.

Joe Hayward is pure Ithaca and the product of double double bass players, so no wonder he’s twice as good at every instrument he picks up.  Catch him elsewhere at Ithaca Bottom Boys gigs.

Marianne Marsh, a native midwesterner, has spent most of her life in or near Ithaca. She’s split her time over the last 33 years between being an evil administrator at Cornell, playing old-time music, and making jewelry. And oh by the way, she’s Joe Hayward’s mom.

Peter Fraissinet’s German dad played oompah harmonica, which may ultimately have turned Junior toward southern traditional music on fiddle and banjo.  This has led to other bad habits like collecting 78 rpm records.

Nancy Spero is an institution!  Known far and wide as a dance caller and chocolate connoisseur, she holds down the bottom end of the Mad Goat repertoire on the bull fiddle.

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On your radio May 31—Small Potatoes

Originally broadcast 4/14/2019

“Jacquie Manning and Rich Prezioso combine cleverly witty with powerfully poignant songs, along with well-chosen covers to present an unusually entertaining and involving repertoire engagingly delivered. Prezioso’s song “1000 Candles, 1000 Cranes” is one of the most outstanding songs of the past 50 years.”—Rich Warren, The Midnight Special – WFMT Radio, Chicago, IL

Jacquie grew up near Chicago, studied flute, taught herself guitar, and began in the mid-’70s as an independent folksinger, with forays into country, rock ‘n’ roll, girl bands and Celtic music, developing an easy affinity with audiences from Girl Scouts to Renaissance Fairs. Meanwhile, in Fort Lee, Rich learned his chops from the Beatles and Creedence, studying classical guitar while at Hampshire College in Amherst, playing in rock and blues bands. A job writing commercial music took him to Chicago, where his search for a female singer for a commission led friends to recommend Jacquie. And the rest is folk music history.

When this Chicago-based duo decided to hit the road to be full-time troubadours as Small Potatoes, they took a risk. A million and a half miles, thousands of shows, and at least six Dodge Caravans later, they’ve continued to be audience favorites on the national folk circuit. Their self-described “eclecto-maniacal” mix of covers and originals, arrived at through “careful indecision” is unique. Their “Celtic to Cowboy” repertory is solidly their own, staking out a contemporary “folk” music as authentic as America’s big tent. They won the Best of Bound for Glory’s award in 2000 (their “Live” CD is taken from BFG performances) and continue to engage audiences with their stage presence, their droll, savvy takes on life, and poking fun at themselves—all while performing with stunning musicianship.

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On your radio June 7—Rachael Kilgour

A rebroadcast of the 5/24/26 Live Bound for Glory show

“...a heartfelt slice of master crafted indie folk brimming with the battle-tested capacity to endure the worst in others.”—Billboard

Canadian-American songwriter Rachael Kilgour is a 2025 Mcknight Music Fellow, a winner of the NewSong Music Competition (2015) and Kerrville New Folk Contest (2017), and has been featured at NYC’s Lincoln Center and The Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

Her oft-noted “unapologetic lyrics” (Rolling Stone) and “master crafted indie folk” sensibilities (Billboard) are on full display in her heartfelt release, My Father Loved Me, a collection of her delicately woven songs. The album was recorded in her late father’s native Ontario and was produced by JUNO-award winning and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Rose Cousins.

In the spare and often gutting language for which she is known, Kilgour gives us a complex portrait of a man seen through his daughter’s eyes. The record poses questions about belonging, inheritance, and grief and triumphantly affirms the value of one ordinary working man’s life.

On stage Kilgour expertly balances her poignant, literate songs with her quick wit, landing somewhere between a comedy special and a funeral. Listeners can expect to laugh, weep, and reflect on their own relationships with fatherhood, mortality, and grief.

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On your radio June 14—Bill Staines

Originally broadcast 1/27/2008

For more than forty years, Bill has traveled back and forth across North America, singing his songs and delighting audiences at festivals, folksong societies, colleges, concerts, clubs, and coffeehouses. A New England native, Bill became involved with the Boston-Cambridge folk scene in the early 1960’s and for a time, emceed the Sunday Hootenanny at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge. Bill quickly became a popular performer in the Boston area. From the time in 1971 when a reviewer from the Boston Phoenix stated that he was “simply Boston’s best performer”, Bill has continually appeared on folk music radio listener polls as one of the top all time favorite folk artists. Now, well into his fifth decade as a folk performer, he has gained an international reputation as a gifted songwriter and performer.

Singing mostly his own songs, he has become one of the most popular and durable singers on the folk music scene today, performing nearly 200 concerts a year and driving over 65,000 miles annually. He weaves a blend of gentle wit and humor into his performances and one reviewer wrote, “He has a sense of timing to match the best standup comic.”

Bill’s music is a slice of Americana, reflecting with the same ease his feelings about the prairie people of the Midwest or the adventurers of the Yukon, the on-the-road truckers, or the everyday workers that make up this land.

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On your radio June 21—Ellis Paul

Originally broadcast 9/9/2007

“Ellis has a voice that is so powerful that you know who it is the second he comes through your radio. His music and songs are a new birth in American sound that makes me want to go see concerts again.”  – Kristian Bush / Sugarland

“Ellis Paul is one of Boston’s best-ever songwriting exports…” – The Boston Globe

Ellis Paul is a singular storyteller, a gifted musician whose words reach out from inside and yet also express the feelings, thoughts and sensibilities that most people can relate to in one way or another, regardless of age or upbringing.

He has become a staple at the Newport Folk Festival, has played Carnegie hall, and venues from Alaska to Miami, Paris and London. In addition to 19 albums released on the Rounder and Black Wolf record labels, his music has appeared on dozens of distinguished compilations. A Film/DVD entitled 3000 Miles — provides a further prospective on both the man and his music. He’s also released a pair of children’s albums, earning honors from the Parent’s Choice Foundation.  His latest recording, The Day After Everything Changed, was recently released on Ellis’ label, Black Wolf Records.

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On your radio June 28—Arise & Go

Originally broadcast 2/11/2018

Arise & Go is an exciting Celtic trio that finds its roots in the dance music of Ireland, Scotland and Atlantic Canada. Noted for their “precision and energy”, the band blends traditional melodies and instruments into fresh new arrangements. Based in Ithaca, New York, Ellie Goud, Michael Roddy, and Tim Ball bring their varied musical backgrounds together to produce a sound which is both grounded in tradition and uniquely fresh and driving.

Winners of the 2018 Best of Bound for Glory Award, Arise & Go has been featured in Irish Music Magazine, Roots Music Canada, and the Irish American News and praised for their “musical complexity and colour” that is also “authentically mindful of tradition.” 2019 sees the release of their full-length album “Meeting Place”.

From Quispamsis, New Brunswick, fiddler Ellie Goud grew up steeped in the Atlantic Canadian musical tradition. Her style combines Celtic and Acadian influences from Canada, Ireland and Scotland.

Piper Michael Roddy has spent over 20 years creating his unique combination of Scottish and Irish piping styles. Michael is an active teacher and has also premiered several of his own compositions and arrangements for pipes and orchestra.

The original show won the Best of Bound for Glory award in 2018.

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Spring season of
Live Bound for Glory shows!

The new series of live Bound for Glory shows will be returning in January 2026 in our new venue—the Lansing Area Performance Hall. The shows are on the 4th Sunday of the month at 2 pm. Coming this Spring season:

May 24 — Rachael Kilgour
June 28 — Evan Horne

These once-a-month live shows, hosted by Travis Knapp, will be recorded for broadcast on a future Sunday’s WVBR’s Bound for Glory radio show.

Come be a part of Bound for Glory’s new series of live shows at the
Lansing Area Performance Hall
1004 Auburn Road, North Lansing, NY

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