Blount County Live

Lee and Scott sit down with Jay Clark, and if you're wondering how someone goes from chasing bears in Oklahoma to hosting the best listening room show in Blount County, well, buckle up. This man's got more stories than a Sunday sermon and twice the heart.

Jay's the guy who teaches at Maryville College (yeah, he's got a PhD but insists students call him by his first name), runs an $82.5 million science center project, and somehow finds time to curate the second Tuesday Shindig at TriHop. He's the one telling rowdy crowds to shut up so you...

Lee and Scott sit down with Cruz Contreras, and if you've been following East Tennessee music for the past couple decades, you know this man's resume. From studying jazz piano at UT to fronting the Black Lilies, to his trippy solo album "Cosmico" (seriously, check that one out), Cruz has been all over the musical map. But guess what? He's back in Blount County to stay.

We're talking about life between Butterfly Gap and Montvale, where there's no cell service but there is internet (priorities, people). Cruz breaks down why he went solo, how he recorded "Cosmico"...

Lee and Scott sit down with Doug Harris, and if you're trying to figure out which Doug Harris band you saw last weekend, join the club. This man's got more musical projects than Blount County has dive bars – the Dirty Dougs, Doug Harris Band, Dirty Doug and Johnny, and a few others we probably forgot to mention. But here's the deal: every single one of them is worth catching.

Doug's heading to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge representing the Smoky Mountain Blues Society, and if you know anything about Beale Street in January, you know it's go...

Hold up. Did we just say sixteen? Yeah, you read that right. Wyatt Ellis might not be old enough to vote, but this Townsend native's already played the Grand Ole Opry multiple times, won an IBMA award, and has his own exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame. No big deal.

Lee and Scott sit down with the mandolin wizard whose theme song "Maryville" literally opens and closes our podcast (you're welcome). Wyatt breaks down how he went from a 10-year-old kid who heard Rocky Top once to performing with Randy Travis's band and recording in...

Lee and Scott catch up with Lane Shuler, Townsend native turned Maryville resident who's been crafting his own brand of alternative hip-hop right here in Blount County. Lane breaks down how he went from a kid in Townsend with no music shops or guitar teachers to creating what he calls "liquid running through a dark alleyway" – and honestly, once you hear it, that description makes perfect sense.

We dive into the making of his upcoming album "Candlelight Vigilante" (dropping Q1), which features some mind-blowing production with up to 75 tracks on certain songs. Lane's working with Will Johnson, wh...

Y'all better buckle up for this one. We sat down with East Tennessee's own EmiSunshine – yeah, that 20-year-old powerhouse who's been making grown folks cry with her voice since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. While Nashville's churning out cookie-cutter country, this Madisonville native's out here singing about real stuff: mountain folks losing their land, families getting torn apart by pills, and why your mama's homemade biscuits matter more than any record deal.

She'll tell you straight up why she turned down that reality TV nonsense, how she's building her own dang studio (because waiting on Nashville is...