This Tuesday July 14, we celebrate Bastille Day, commemorating the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison, a pivotal event that dismantled the absolute monarchy and launched the French Revolution.
For modern democracies (c’est nous?) the day symbolizes the triumph of popular sovereignty over tyranny, the power of collective civic action, and the universal principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Tonight we’re playing Bluegrass classics from Bill Monroe, the Osborne Brothers, and Jimmy Martin, as well as favs by contemporary artists Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson and The Punch Brothers.
Other highlights include tunes from John Herald and the Greenbriar Boys, “Ol Timey” ballads from The Holy Modal Rounders, and some tasty Bluegrass covers of several beloved pop songs – even The Who’s “Baba O’Riley”!
All that, as well as a revisit with a great ’90s Russian bluegrass band, Kurkuzawa.
Give a listen!
Beginning in 1953, Belgian singer/songwriter Jacques Brel wrote and performed poignant and passionate songs that brought him a devoted following in France. By the 1960s, Brel had become a major influence on counterculture performers such as Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen and David Bowie. Translations of Brel’s songs have been recorded by a wide range of singers from Nina Simone to Frank Sinatra.
Tonight, we’re playing Bluegrass music – with the occasional addition of “Ol Timey” tunes, “hillbilly” and various offshoots featuring banjos and other stringed instruments, brilliantly played by hippies & stoners “clean as country water and wild as mountain dew!”
Percy Faith’s hit “The Song from Moulin Rouge” aka “Where Is Your Heart” was #1 on the Billboard charts for ten weeks in 1953-1954. We’ll hear sweet versions of that song, along with great French covers of the garage rock classic “Hey Joe”, Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn”, and the Shirelle’s “Baby, It’s You”
In the opening set, we hear mon homme, Francis Cabrel singing a sublime cover of Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate” from Cabrel’s 2010 tribute album to Dylan, “Vise Le Ciel.” Cabrel also closes this first episode of summer with the country-tinged “Quand j’aime une fois j’aime Pour Toujours,” from the singer’s classic “Double Live” album (1999.)
On tonight’s Kingston Coffee House, I’ll be playing a set from one of my favorite songwriters Louisiana bayou legend Bobby Charles. In the 1950s, he wrote hits for Fats Domino and Bill Haley & the Comets, but his best songs were yet to come.
… Van watched from the side of the stage. Later, in the men’s room, I heard a drunk Pierce Brosnan yell, “What the #&@$ was that @&#%e!!”
“I’m as restless as a willow in a windstorm
I’m as jumpy as a puppet on a string
I’d say that I had Spring fever
… But I know it isn’t Spring”
– Oscar Hammerstein II
WRIU.org | February 26, 2026 By Mike Stevenson | WRIU “Punxsutawney Phil” saw his shadow on February 2nd (aka, Groundhog Day) marking the prediction of six more weeks of winter. The famed weather-predicting rodent emerged from his den at 7:25 …
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