“Farm and Fun Time featuring Rodney Crowell and Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley at the Paramount”

Join the audience for a live broadcast of WBCM Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time variety show, featuring special guests Rodney Crowell and Rob Ickes & Trey Hensely hosted by Kris Truelsen and his house band Bill and the Belles, on the stage of the historic Paramount!

Farm and Fun Time is a re-imagining of the classic WCYB Radio program of the same name that aired in the 1940s and 1950s. Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time broadcasts live before a studio audience and recorded for television syndication on Blue Ridge PBS, East Tennessee PBS, and PBS North Carolina. It can be accessed on 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, or online at ListenRadioBristol.org and on Radio Bristol’s free mobile app. Viewers may also tune in to watch through Radio Bristol’s Facebook page.

About Rodney Crowell

Rodney Crowell YES is the songwriter’s songwriter and an icon among giants. Native Texan, Crowell is a multi-Grammy Award-winning troubadour with fifteen number one hits. Over the course of his career, Crowell has gracefully blended his own mainstream success as an artist with a prolific catalog of songs cut by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Keith Urban and more, making him a master among his peers.

With more than 40 years of American roots music under his belt, Crowell has also been cited as the architect of Americana music, extending his genre reach, but owing to the distinctly universal, literary quality of his writing, he has also penned beloved songs for artists as diverse as Bob Seger, Etta James, the Grateful Dead, John Denver, Jimmy Buffett and countless others.

Crowell came up in Nashville’s songwriting heyday alongside Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and Steve Earle and has continued that legacy of camaraderie and kinship with his peers well into the iconic era of his career. As many say – “your favorite song was probably written by Rodney Crowell.” Crowell has four daughters and lives with his wife and dog in Tennessee. He writes every day and loves tending to his garden.

About Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley

Take a 15-time IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) Dobro Player of the Year and a Tennessee-born guitar prodigy called “Nashville’s hottest young player” by Acoustic Guitar magazine, and you have Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley, a GRAMMY®-nominated powerhouse acoustic duo that has electrified the acoustic music scene around the world. Acoustic Guitar describes their sound as “steel-string bluegrass with all the intensity of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Known for their white-hot picking and world class musicianship as six-string virtuosos, as well as their soulful stone country vocals, Ickes and Hensley cleverly and uniquely meld bluegrass, country, blues, rock, jamgrass, and string band music of all kinds to create a signature blend of music that defies restrictions of genre (as heard on their new record, Living In A Song, released on February 10, 2023). With Living In A Song, Ickes and Hensley made a conscious effort to spotlight their songwriting chops by collaborating with and paying homage to some of Nashville’s finest songwriters. They made a conscious decision to lean the music in a classic country direction, with some elements of Americana and bluegrass thrown in for good measure.

As a duo, Ickes and Hensley have shared the stage or collaborated with Tommy Emmanuel, Taj Mahal, Vince Gill, David Grisman, Jorma Kaukonen, Hot Tuna, Marty Stuart, and Steve Wariner, among many others.

Farm and Fun Time is made possible by Eastman Credit Union, Toyota of Bristol and Virginia Tourism.