MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — MTSU’s WMOT-FM Roots Radio
89.5 is throwing its first birthday party Saturday, Sept. 16, in downtown Nashville, and the musical guest
list is a mini-Americana festival.
Set for
11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sept. 16 at the corner of Sixth Avenue South and Peabody
Street, the event is part of WMOT’s weeklong coverage of the 18th annual AmericanaFest Music Festival and Conference.
Raucous
Mississippi singer-songwriter Paul Thorn
of “Too Blessed to Be Stressed” and “Mission Temple Fireworks Stand” fame —
a longtime friend of WMOT dubbed by Twangville.com as “the Mark Twain of
Americana” — will be the first of a dozen artists to take the stage under the
“Yee-Haw Tent” at 11 a.m.
He’ll be
followed by 40-minute sets on the hour from Reckless Kelly, Whitney Rose, The Secret Sisters (including MTSU
alumna Laura Rogers), The Deep Dark Woods, The O’Connor Band
with Mark O'Connor, Lilly Hiatt, the Texas
Gentlemen, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Katie Pruitt, and the Vandoliers.
Mike Farris, the multi-award-winning roots
rocker and Tennessee native whose career has stretched from his 1990 founding
of the immortal Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies to his rebirth as a “good news”
artist with a best roots gospel Grammy for “Shine for All the People,” will
close WMOT’s big birthday bash with a 10 p.m. set.
Admission
to the party is free for WMOT members.
AmericanaFest conference registrants, wristband holders and the general public
are invited for a suggested $20 donation. All attendees will receive a
commemorative 2017 WMOT AmericanaFest poster.
You can
join WMOT today at http://ow.ly/6Tn430f1ayX
to attend the Sept. 16 event free and
take advantage of special AmericanaFest membership packages.
WMOT-FM, a
100,000-watt professional radio station housed in the Center for Innovation in Media inside the university’s Bragg Media
and Entertainment Building, changed formats Sept. 2, 2016, from its classical,
jazz and news-talk focus to Americana in a partnership with Music City Roots, a Nashville-based
firm that provides programming for both radio and television.
You can
watch last year’s launch party at https://youtu.be/xLfQdtQVOA0.
“This has
been an extremely busy year,” said Val
Hoeppner, executive director of WMOT Roots Radio and director of MTSU’s
Center for Innovation in Media.
“We have
a very small staff with a very large signal. I’ve told people that we at WMOT
have felt like we’ve spent the first year with our hair on fire. We’ve had to
completely resurrect our membership, update our technology right in the middle
of all of it — we’ve had a year of turbulence, yes, but our staff is dedicated
to our listeners and to the university.
“MTSU’s
what pulled us through; there’s been a lot of hard work and also a great
partnership with the people of Music City Roots. I couldn’t be happier at how
we’ve come through. We were 43rd in the market last year out of 45, and our
first year, we’ve come up to between 25 and 27 in the Nielsens — that’s
dedication of the people here.”
WMOT,
which broadcasts at 89.5 FM as well as online at http://www.wmot.org, is a charter member of National Public Radio since 1969 and the region’s only Americana music channel.
WMOT’s
average number of listeners rose from 100 every 15 minutes in July 2016,
according to Nielsen Audio figures, to 500 per quarter hour for July 2017 — a 400 percent audience boost in only a year.
About 4,300 people listened to WMOT over a day’s time in July 2016; this
summer, that number rose to 10,000 listeners during the day.
For more
information about WMOT-FM Roots Radio 89.5, part of MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment, visit http://www.wmot.org.
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