WDVX Summer Nights at Yee Haw is back this year for six shows. These are free listener appreciation shows supported by ORNL Federal Credit Union and Yee Haw Brewing Company on Broadway in Knoxville. We kick off this year’s series with Songs From the Road Band and Tim O’Brien Band on Wednesday night May 15th at seven. This is a live radio show hosted by Alex Leach.

Songs From The Road Band is an Asheville, North Carolina based bluegrass supergroup featuring Mark Schimick (mandolin), Charles Humphrey III (bass), Sam Wharton (guitar), James Schlender (fiddle), and Gabe Epstein (banjo). The band takes flight with virtuosic picking, singing, and Grammy award winning songwriting. Several of their most recent singles have gone to the top of the Bluegrass Today Grassicana chart. They have 6 studio albums available at all musical outlets.

Born in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1954, Grammy winning singer songwriter and multi- instrumentalist Tim O’Brien grew up singing in church and in school. After seeing Doc Watson on TV, he became a lifelong devotee of old time and bluegrass music. Tim started touring nationally in 1978 with Colorado bluegrass band Hot Rize. His songs “Walk the Way the Wind Blows” and “Untold Stories” were bluegrass hits for Hot Rize, and country hits for Kathy Mattea. Soon more artists like Nickel Creek, Garth Brooks, and The Dixie Chicks covered his songs. Over the years, Tim has collaborated with his sister Mollie O’Brien, songwriter Darrell Scott, and noted old-time musician Dirk Powell, as well as with Steve Earle, Mark Knopfler, Dan Auerbach and Sturgill Simpson.

Living in Nashville since 1996, O’Brien’s skills on guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and banjo make him an in-demand session player. He tours throughout the US and abroad, most often with his wife Jan Fabricius on mandolin and vocals. A voracious reader who loves to cook, he has two sons, Jackson (born 1982) and Joel (born 1990). The International Bluegrass Music Association awarded him song of the year in 2006 and named him best male vocalist in 1993 and 2006. He was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2013 and into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in 2022.

O’Brien’s latest release, 2021’s “He Walked On”, weaves historical and socially conscious themes through songs about ordinary and not so ordinary people just trying to “keep it between the ditches”. Other notable O’Brien recordings include the bluegrass Dylan covers of “Red on Blonde”, the Celtic-Appalachian fusion of “The Crossing”, and the Grammy winning folk of “Fiddler’s Green”. His duet recording “Real Time” with Darrell Scott is a cult favorite, and he won a bluegrass Grammy as part of “The Earls of Leicester”. His 2017 release “Where the River Meets the Road” paid tribute to the music of his native West Virginia. A new release of original material “Cup of Sugar” drops June 16.