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To mark what would have been David Bowie’s 77th birthday today, Wilco have shared their live rendition of the music icon’s “Space Oddity.”

The cover was recorded during the band’s visit to Mountain Stage, NPR Music, and West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s long-running live radio show and features as the opening track on an upcoming compilation highlighting performances from the series.

“As a gratefully, if not begrudgingly, Earth-bound band, it’s always an honor and a challenge to tackle any of David Bowie’s space-soaring arrangements,” Wilco said in a statement.

Monday, January 8th, would’ve been David Bowie’s 77th birthday. To mark the occasion, Wilco has shared their rendition of Bowie’s 1969 hit, “Space Oddity.”

The release hails from Wilco’s 2023 performance on Mountain Stage (a public radio show distributed by NPR Music), and will be included on an upcoming compilation announced today titled Live On Mountain Stage: Outlaws and Outliers, due on April 19th via Oh Boy Records.

Presenting a wonderfully Wilco-esque take on “Space Oddity” — itself named the 43rd best song of all time by Consequence in 2012 — the band settles into an acoustic arrangement, allowing Jeff Tweedy’s vocals to masterfully convey the tune’s enduring appeal for humanity.

Speaking about the performance in a statement, the band said: “As a gratefully, if not begrudgingly, Earth-bound band, it’s always an honor and a challenge to tackle any of David Bowie’s space-soaring arrangements. Striving to reach...

When musician Joe Troop visited the Arizona borderlands with his band Che Apalache in 2019, he had a shattering experience. While going into the Sonoran desert with guide Randy J. Mayer of Good Shepherd United Church of Christ, Troop and his mates came across a marker for an unknown 16-year-old boy who’d died during the treacherous journey to reach the U.S. Just over the hill from that spot loomed a typical American McMansion.

“Big American flags, audacious swimming pool, this don’t-tread-on-me iconography,” Troop says. “It’s like, right...

There is a wealth of new holiday music from country and Americana artists this year. As we enter the heart of an unusual Yuletide season, Rolling Stone Country rounds up some of this year’s best holiday songs.

Scarlett Burke & Hailey Whitters, “Howdy Christmas”

“A little eggnog in my whiskey,” is all Scarlett Burke and Hailey Whitters say they need to get in the holiday spirit in this throwback country twanger. Donning their best “boots and bells,” the songwriters ready for a Christmas at home — even if it’s only in their minds.

Bluegrass bandleader Del McCoury, who turned 80 years old on February 1st, celebrated his birthday on the Grand Ole Opry stage Wednesday night surrounded by family, friends and fellow musicians. The celebration of McCoury’s life transformed the long-running live radio show into the “Grand Del Opry.”

The evening of musical tributes and collaborations included Opry members Dierks Bentley, Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, Old Crow Medicine Show and Jesse McReynolds, as well as guest artists Sam Bush, Abigail Washburn and the Travelin’ McCourys, the Grammy-winning group that includes Del’s sons Ronnie and Rob McCoury,...

Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn met at a square dance in Nashville. She was dancing. He was playing. Fifteen years later, they’ve built entwining careers — as well as a family — upon that initial encounter, touring the world together as a Grammy-winning, husband-and-wife folk duo.

The new video for “Take Me to Harlan” finds Fleck and Washburn revisiting the dynamic of their first evening spent in one another’s company. In the clip above, Fleck’s banjo provides the soundtrack for his wife’s clogging. She stomps, jumps and drags her feet against the ground,...

Artists representing traditional, contemporary and boundary-stretching styles are among the list of this year’s nominees for the International Bluegrass Music Awards, announced today at a Nashville press conference. In another banner year for women in bluegrass, the top nominees, with an impressive six nods each, are fiddle-playing singer-songwriter Becky Buller, the first-ever woman named Ibma Fiddle Player of the Year in 2016, and Molly Tuttle, who in 2017 earned an Ibma honor as Guitar Player of the Year, the first female artist to win in that category.

Also recognized among the...

MerleFest, presented by Window World, finished its 31st year on a high note with an unparalleled performance by the Steep Canyon Rangers, special guest Steve Martin, and surprise appearances from Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Alison Brown, Bryan Sutton, and Jens Kruger of the Kruger Brothers.

Early estimates show that from its start on Thursday, April 26, to its close on Sunday, April 29, participation over the festival’s four days exceeded 75,000 attendees and artists from across the world. MerleFest, held on the campus of Wilkes Community College, is the primary fundraiser for the Wcc Foundation, which funds scholarships, capital projects, and other educational needs.

More than 120 incredible performers contributed to the success of this year’s festival, some as returning artists and some as newcomers. In addition to The Steep Canyon Rangers and Friends with special guest Steve Martin, this year’s lineup included Kris Kristofferson, Jamey Johnson, The Mavericks, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn,...

Kinan Azmeh: "When I was a little kid, I was the young clarinetist from Damascus." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

At the Grand Central Terminal multi-sensory Interactive Experience inside Vanderbilt Hall for Morgan Neville's The Music Of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma And The Silk Road Ensemble, Kinan Azmeh spoke with me on his work at refugee centres, being the "young clarinetist from Damascus", storytelling, and what home means to him.

Last year, Kinan was unable to perform at Lotus Club with Cristina Pato, Kojiro Umezaki, Colin Jacobsen, Shane Shanahan, Joseph Gramley, Evan Ziporyn, Johnny Gandelsman, Sandeep Das, Abigail Washburn, Logan Coale, Nicholas Cords, and Yo-Yo Ma because he was premiering the film at a refugee camp in Jordan. I brought up Gianfranco Rosi's Oscar nominated Fire At Sea (Fuocoammare) on the Lampedusa refugee crisis during our conversation.

A Music Of Strangers multi-sensory Interactive Experience with Anne-Katrin Titze Photo: Anne-Katrin...

Cristina Pato: "Silk Road is a collective of musicians from all around the world." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Cristina Pato is featured in Morgan Neville's glorious The Music Of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma And The Silk Road Ensemble, along with Kinan Azmeh, Kayhan Kalhor, Wu Man, and Yo-Yo Ma himself. I first met Cristina at a performance hosted by Richard Gere, Barbara Kopple, and Darlene Love inside New York's Lotus Club last year following the premiere of the film, when she performed with fellow musicians Kojiro Umezaki, Colin Jacobsen, Shane Shanahan, Joseph Gramley, Evan Ziporyn, Johnny Gandelsman, Sandeep Das, Abigail Washburn, Logan Coale, Nicholas Cords with Yo-Yo Ma.

The Music Of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma And The Silk Road Ensemble at Grand Central Terminal Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Yesterday morning, we met up again, this time inside Grand Central Terminal's Vanderbilt Hall, where a Music Of Strangers multi-sensory Interactive Experience was taking place.

The Orchard's Paul Davidson, Morgan Neville, Yo-Yo Ma and Sony's Dennis Kooker Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Introducing Gay Talese, the author of The Voyeur's Motel (to be adapted for the screen by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, directed by Sam Mendes and produced by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks) and Morgan Neville, the Oscar-winning director of 20 Feet From Stardom, at Lotos Club, created a Music Of Strangers conversation that lead to Alexander Payne's producer Jim Burke (Downsizing, The Descendants and Election) for A Beautiful Game, the Marx Brothers, Best Of Enemies, Keith Richards: Under the Influence and Joan Didion in Shotgun Freeway: Drives Through Lost L.A.

Gay Talese on The Music Of Strangers: "This is a major international film!" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Darlene Love, Richard Gere and Barbara Kopple hosted the after party where Cristina Pato, Kojiro Umezaki, Colin Jacobsen, Shane Shanahan, Joseph Gramley, Evan Ziporyn, Johnny Gandelsman, Sandeep Das, Abigail Washburn, Logan Coale,...

Paul Davidson, Morgan Neville, Caitrin Rogers, Cristina Pato, Dianne Weyermann, Dennis Kooker and Yo-Yo Ma Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Morgan Neville's 20 Feet From Stardom star Darlene Love, Richard Gere and Barbara Kopple hosted an invited Cinema 1 screening of The Music Of Strangers, followed by a performance from the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma at Lotos Club. The director of Keith Richards: Under the Influence and together with Robert Gordon, the Gore Vidal and William F Buckley Jr Best Of Enemies documentary, gave me some insight on what Keith and Yo-Yo have in common. Yo-Yo shares a moment he loves with Cristina Pato in The Music Of Strangers and confirms his fondness of Ts Eliot.

Morgan Neville with Yo-Yo Ma: 'Yo-Yo is just trying to change the world' Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze Gaby Hoffmann, Alan Alda, Gay Talese, Heidi Ewing, producer Caitrin Rogers, Silkroad's Laura Freid, along with musicians Kojiro Umezaki,...

Abigail Washburn’s new album “City of Refuge” isn’t any one thing, but a montage of American(a) songwriting styles, from the soft-rock of “Chains” to the dots of bluegrass and old-timey music weaved between folk traditional and country structures. And Washburn’s natural diction and whirring voice is its leader. Her alto isn't meant to break down the “City” walls in its strength, but kind of burrows under them, with a little flip or tic on a turn of phrase. The set isn’t showy or too overburdened with noise, despite the sheer number of contributing musicians (more than two dozen). What kills...

Abigail Washburn may have married the country’s foremost banjo star in 2009, but don’t call her Mrs. Béla Fleck. Having spent the past half-decade dividing her attention between the Sparrow Quartet and Uncle Earl, she steps out on her own with City of Refuge, her second solo album and finest effort to date. City of Refuge rolls a number of rustic traditions into its eleven tracks, which celebrate the roots of folk and bluegrass without sacrificing Washburn’s crossover appeal. An Illinois native, she approaches Appalachian music from an outsider’s perspective, adopting some of its traditions while also throwing orchestral strings,...

On her last release, Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet, Washburn joined forces with Béla Fleck, Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee. For her upcoming album, City of Refuge (due Aug. 31 on Foreign Children Records), Washburn is in the spotlight, but some of her more musical friends—including The Decemberists’ Chris Funk and Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket—contributed to the album, which was produced by Tucker Martine (Sufjan Stevens, Spoon)....