Music

Hammond B3 organ master Dr. Lonnie Smith recently led his trio through a soulful set before a sold-out house at the Kennedy Center Jazz Club in Washington, D.C. The good doctor turns 70 this year, and he's still a leader and innovator on his instrument. He's also gaining a whole new audience, as young musicians and producers sample his deep, relentless grooves.

Rosi Golan makes her first appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live in Charleston, W.V. Born in Israel, Golan learned to speak French, English and Hebrew during her travels. But she didn't pick up a guitar until she was 19, after hearing a radio commercial advertising a sale at a local Guitar Center. Golan hasn't looked back, writing and singing songs for more than 10 years and cultivating her ear for dark, haunting melodies.

"We just played an absurd concert to nobody," Mount Eerie's Phil Elverum says, as he faces a sea of empty red seats at the Folger Shakespeare Library's gorgeous Elizabethan-style theatre in Washington, D.C., just across the way from the Supreme Court. Serendipitously, a group of schoolchildren had toured the oak halls of the library just minutes before, and would take cover in each other's coats from the gray rain outside.

"A transatlantic collaboration between four friends. Two songs were written and recorded in Chicago and then sent to Vienna. There they were translated into a film score."