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Los Angeles-based rockabilly musician and writer Deke Dickerson and Sally Jo played live at KTOO Friday. They’re due to play in Petersburg Friday night, Sitka on Saturday and in Juneau at 10 p.m. Sunday at the Alaskan Bar.

When Dickerson was 15, he asked one of his musical heroes, Lou Whitney, for advice. Whitney told him to get out now to avoid a life of heartache. Dickerson didn’t listen, and over 30 years later he’s touring the world.

“At the end of the day, if you have music inside of you, it’s gotta come out, and you have to figure out a way to get it out. That’s just what I’ve been doing and figured out a way to make a living at it,” said Dickerson on KTOO’s “Juneau Afternoon.”

Dickerson and Jo will be joined by local musicians Maridon Boario on bass, Jason Messing on drums and Terry Schwartz on electric guitar.

Listen to their music and interview here:

Juneau Afternoon host Sheli DeLaney had the opportunity to interview musician Ani DiFranco as she passed through Anchorage this week. The prolific singer-songwriter was on her way to headlining Salmonfest in Ninilchik this weekend.

In May of this year, DiFranco published her memoir, “No Walls and the Recurring Dream.” It is full of stories and insight about being a self-made, independent, unsigned musician, and the many struggles, missteps and triumphs she has experienced along the way.

Among other things, they discussed the early days of DiFranco’s career, when she often played to indifferent crowds in her hometown of Buffalo, New York.

“I sort of miss the days of winning people over,” she quipped. “Now I can walk into a welcoming atmosphere, but back in the the day when I was just walking in cold, there’s something to that that I kind of relish, that I kind of miss, you know? Because it’s much more like the rest of the world, where you just show up as strangers … and you can just start clean.”

DiFranco is as well-known for being a feminist and an activist as well as a musician. Currently, she is focusing her efforts on reproductive rights and making a point to talk about it a lot onstage.

“Our collective evolution is thwarted when we prevent women from becoming themselves,” she said.

DiFranco also has an album in the works called the “Prison Music Project.” It features music, poems and raps recorded by men in prison, and she hopes the project will bring awareness to the system of mass incarceration in the United States, which she labels as a crisis.

“We’re all fallible,” she said. “Some of us get second chances, and some of us don’t. And I think we need to look at that and why.”

When asked about the experience of narrating the audiobook version of her memoir, the first response is a resounding “UGH!” While she enjoyed exploring a new form of writing, she said with a laugh that the recording of the audiobook was “traumatic.” It went against nearly all of her creative instincts.

“I felt like, this is too much,” she said. “I can’t just speak this level of intimacy into a microphone for anybody with $10.95!”

Later, DiFranco realized that when she is writing and creating art, the mechanism she has for doing that is to pretend she is alone and no one is listening. Narrating her book brought her to a whole new level of exposure and sharing, and she had to admit to herself that the game of pretend was over.

“No Walls and the Recurring Dream,” a memoir by Ani DiFranco, is out in bookstores now.

DiFranco will perform on the main stage of Salmonfest in Ninilchik on Friday August 2, at 9:15 p.m.

The Grammy Award-winning Tex-Mex conjunto band Los Texmaniacs dropped by KTOO to record their songs as part of KTOO’s Red Carpet Concert series. The 2019 Alaska Folk Festival guest artists performed a medley of their songs “Soy de San Luis” and “Mexico Americano” from their 2018 album, “Cruzando Borders.”

Created in collaboration with Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus, this video is part of our Red Carpet Concert series, an ongoing music video project by KTOO Public Media. Watch this video and other Red Carpet Concerts, including QUEENS, at KTOO.org

For the past three years, Gustavus sound engineer Justin Smith has visited Juneau to help record KTOO’s Red Carpet Concert series. This year, he stepped in front of the camera to play his original song “Rolling Tune” during the 2019 Alaska Folk Festival. The instrumental guitarist was a member of the Cook County Blues Band and owns the music production company Rusty Recordings.

Created in collaboration with Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus, this video is part of our Red Carpet Concert series, an ongoing music video project by KTOO Public Media. Watch this video and other Red Carpet Concerts, including Homer bluegrass band Burnt Down House, at KTOO.org.

The Homer bluegrass band Burnt Down House stopped by KTOO to perform “Weary Bones” as part of KTOO’s Red Carpet Concert series. The song was written by bass player and lead vocalist Angela Brock. The six-piece acoustic band describes themselves as “True County” and features Katie Klann on fiddle, Josh Kennedy on banjo, Geddy Miller on mandolin and Dylan Weiser on guitar.

Created in collaboration with Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus, this video is part of our Red Carpet Concert series, an ongoing music video project by KTOO Public Media. Watch this video and other Red Carpet Concerts, including Nicole Church, at KTOO.org

 

Arkansas songwriter Willi Carlisle stopped by KTOO to play his original tune, “Boy Howdy, Hot Dog!” as part of KTOO’s Red Carpet Concert series. The song was inspired by things his uncle said to him while growing up.

Created in collaboration with Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus, this video is part of our Red Carpet Concert series, an ongoing music video project by KTOO Public Media. Watch this video and other Red Carpet Concerts, including QUEENS, at KTOO.org