Mainer

Wade and Julia Mainer

Three legendary performers –– folk artist Hazel Dickens, and bluegrass pioneers Wade and Julia Mainer –– offer up a masterful presentation of classic American music on the next edition of Jubilee. The program, taped at the River of Music Party in Owensboro last summer, airs Saturday, Sept. 13 at 11/10 p.m. CT on KET2 and Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 8/7 p.m. CT on KET1.

Marrying the songwriting abilities of Woody Guthrie with the singing skills of Kitty Wells, Dickens remains an inspiration for generations of women singers of bluegrass and country music. Raised in a coal-mining community near Montcalm, W. Va., as one of 11 children, Dickens moved away in her teens to work in the factories of Baltimore. Her firsthand experience with hard work and hard times inspired songs such as “Working Girl Blues,” “Black Lung” and “Don’t Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There.” Dickens quickly became a strong voice in the folk music scene.

Wade Mainer also influenced generations of great musicians, including Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley and Doc Watson. Mainer and his band created a distinct sound that bridged the gap between old-time mountain music and bluegrass. During the 1930s, he recorded the classic songs “Maple on the Hill” and “Take Me in the Lifeboat” with his brother and their group Mainer’s Mountaineers. In 1937, he married singer/guitarist Julia Brown, a pioneering female vocalist who would later join her husband for performances on the road. Now, the Mainers bring more than seven decades of musical experience to the Jubilee stage.

Jubilee is a KET production, distributed to public television stations nationwide. The series is directed by Nick Helton and produced by Duncan Hart. Nancy Carpenter is executive producer. More information about Jubilee is available at www.ket.org/jubilee. More information about KET programming and education services, as well as how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.