This month's Folk Show Road Show brings you two concerts recorded in the depth of winter, from two performers whose warmth stood out on a couple of cold nights. Ana Egge's trip from NYC took hours longer due to icy roads, but the winter disappeared inside the Unitarian Fellowship Hall in State College on that March night of this year.
Shawn Colvin says "Ana has the rare gift of being so eloquent and simple that she takes your breath away. I just love her.” Steve Earle says her songs are "low and lonesome, big square-state noir ballads which she plays on a guitar she built with her own two hands," and she "sings like she's telling us her deepest, darkest secrets.” Lucinda Williams calls her a "folk Nina Simone;" Egge has just released her 8th album, this one with rising stars The Stray Birds.
Not everybody recognizes Verlon Thompson's
name, but most have heard his songs, recorded by artists like Jimmy Buffett, Anne Murray, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, Del McCoury, Sam Bush, Trisha Yearwood and many more. Thompson has recorded his own or been featured prominently on at least 20 albums
And he's toured the world, from Barcelona to Binger (his hometown in Oklahoma, of course), often backing up Guy Clark on guitar. If you've seen him in concert, you won't ever forget him, and we did our best to capture his warmth and skills as a story-teller, singer and guitar picker at an Acoustic Brew Concert in Lemont, in February of 2014.
