This week, a special road trip episode featuring up and coming Irish finger style guitar Jedi Shane Hennessy recorded live at the 2024 Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. Also, a performance from each of the top three 2024 Walnut Valley International finger style guitar champions, Hiroya Tsukamoto, Mikey Bilello, and Stephen Bennett. The annual Walnut Valley Festival, now in it’s 53rd season, is one of the oldest and most respected acoustic music festivals in the world. Held at the Winfield, Kansas fairgrounds, more than 30 musical acts will perform on four separate stages, presenting over 200 hours of live music. Also, there is a dedicated contest stage where contestants vie for national and international championships in Finger Style Guitar, Flat Pick Guitar, Bluegrass Banjo, Old Time Fiddle, Mandolin, Mountain Dulcimer, Hammered Dulcimer, and Autoharp. There is a juried arts and crafts fair, exhibits by renowned instrument makers and music shops, family activities, a bevy of food vendors, a farmer’s market and even a pub! An unusual aspect of Walnut Valley is its campground tradition. Campsites are not reserved and campers line up to claim a choice campsite during the "Land Rush.” Walnut Valley Festival goers often bring their own musical instruments to participate in the sometimes all night campground jam sessions. Bands like Old Sound and Sally & The Hurts that began as "Jam Bands" in the campgrounds, have even been invited to perform at the festival. Shane Hennessy is a virtuoso fingerstyle guitarist, singer/songwriter, and composer. With an upbringing in the world of Irish traditional music, Shane has been captivating audiences globally for the past few years, with sell-out solo tours in Europe and North America under his belt, as well as regular appearances at major international music festivals including MerleFest, Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival, Sound of Europe Festival (Düsseldorf, Germany), and Milwaukee Irish Fest. He has released four albums of original music, and his most recent studio album ‘Rain Dance’ was hailed as “a triumphant reaffirmation of his virtuosity and compositional excellence” by Irish Music Magazine. Shane has collaborated with Tommy Emmanuel, worked with Grammy-winner Bill Whelan (composer of Riverdance), and made his début on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee in March 2023. A musician from a young age, Shane credits his background in Irish traditional music as the base on which he has built his genre-defying musical explorations. Initially a concertina player, he achieved successes in competitions in Ireland. He then turned to the guitar aged twelve inspired by the music of James Taylor. Becoming more interested in songwriting and in music in general, it was when he discovered the styles of Tommy Emmanuel and Chet Atkins that his interest in solo performance blossomed. Described by legendary guitarist and mentor Tommy Emmanuel as “a brilliant entertainer and an amazing musician who transcends the guitar the same way Muhammed Ali transcended boxing”, Shane has since developed an unmistakably unique voice as a fingerstyle guitarist, blending his native Irish music with elements of jazz, country, blues, funk, classical, soul, world, and hip-hop. With the addition of some smooth vocals and improvisations, it makes sense why music legend super-producer Nile Rodgers (CHIC) remarked that “[Shane’s] style is killer, it’s really cool stuff.” https://www.shanehennessy.ie/bio In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers a 2015 archival recording of Ozark original guitarists Danny Dozier and Randy Buckner performing the 1924 Isham Jones song “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives. In his segment “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins concludes his three part series on the surprisingly violent history of tornadoes in the Ozarks.
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