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Tyler Childers

NPR

Muddy Bottom Blues

Program #188 (August 6 at 8:00 p.m. and August 7 at 3:00 p.m.)

Hailing from the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky, Tyler Childers is part of a wave of 2010s Americana artists who prize authenticity both in their songs and sound.

Sonically, Childers borrows heavily from the weathered, ornery, progressive country records of the '70s, a comparison brought into sharp relief on his second album, 2017's Purgatory, which was produced by the acclaimed Americana rocker Sturgill Simpson.

Childers has played music since his childhood in Lawrence County, Kentucky and had been playing professionally for over half a decade. As a young adult, he relocated to Lexington, Kentucky and played with a band called the Food Stamps.

He began his solo career with the self-released 2011 album Bottles & Bibles and continued to write and perform for the next five years. Miles Miller, a friend of Childers' and drummer for Sturgill Simpson's, introduced the two singer/songwriters and Simpson decided to produce a record for Childers with the assistance of engineer David Ferguson. The resulting Purgatory arrived in August 2017 on Thirty Tigers, followed in 2018 by Live on Red Barn, Radio Pts. I & II, a reissue of a pair of EPs taken from two 2013 performances for the Lexington-based Red Barn Radio program.

Childers' third studio album, Country Squire, arrived in August 2019 and included the singles "House Fire" and "All Your'n."

(provided by Allmusic)

Paul Hitchcock earned his Masters in Communications from Morehead State University and Bachelors in Radio-TV/Psychology from Georgetown College. A veteran broadcaster for more than 40 years and an avid fan of blues, jazz and American roots music. Hitchcock has been with WMKY since 1986 and was named General Manager in 2003. He currently hosts "Muddy Bottom Blues" (Fri., 8pm-9pm), "Nothin' But The Blues" (Sat., 8pm-12am), "Sunday Night Jazz Showcase" and "Live From The Jazz Lounge" (Sun., 8pm-9pm) and "The Golden Age of Radio" (Sun., 2pm-3pm). He also serves as producer for "A Time For Tales" and "The Reader's Notebook."