S3E7 Appalachian Vibes featuring Tony Williamson

Hello beautiful people,
It’s an honor to introduce my guest this week he was a member of the famous Blue Grass Alliance during the late 70’s and 80’s with the likes of Sam Bush, Tony Rice, and Vince Gill, he was awarded the North Carolina Heritage Award in 2018 a few short years after Doc Watson. With a career spanning from the 1950’s to today, my guest is none other than the highly esteemed, influential multi genre mandolin player, Tony Williamson.
We discuss his childhood, growing up and performing with the older brother he idolized, Gary. As Tony puts it, "We would play shoot 'em up games, you know, cops and robbers? Gary always wore the white hat, and I always wore the black hat." Gary was the good brother, the rule follower, Tony the mischievous one, the rule breaker....and after college, they went on their separate paths. Gary would go off to get a PHD in Statistics from Stanford, and Tony went on the road to play with the famous Bluegrass Alliance, a collective of musicians that became the training ground for some of the most well known bluegrass musicians that ever lived.
In 2018 Tony won the NC Heritage Award, he was deeply humbled and in awe of the impact he has had on an instrument in his 50 year career.
You can learn more about Tony at mandolincentral.com

Appalachian Vibes Radio Show from WNCW is listener nominated, you can nominate an artist by emailing Amanda at [email protected].
Appalachian Vibes Radio Show is created and produced by Amanda Bocchi, a neo soul singer-songwriter, multi instrumentalist and journalist hailing from the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia.