Sagebrush Round-up to be featured today on WVPT

By Debra Minor Wilson
Times West Virginian

FAIRMONT April 16, 2008 07:07 pm

— A Marion County tradition will be treated to statewide publicity tonight on West Virginia Public Television.
The Sagebrush Round-up — Bunner Ridge’s venerable home to local and national country music talent — will be featured today at 9 p.m. on “Outlook,” WVPT’s weekly TV news magazine. The episode will be repeated at 6 p.m. Sunday, April 20.
Check your local listings for channel.
The network calls Sagebrush “a haven for West Virginia’s practitioners and listeners of Appalachian, country, and bluegrass music.”
You’ll get no argument from Bill Janoske. Past president of the Country Music Association of West Virginia, he now books all the acts at Sagebrush.
Filmmakers visited the Round-up in February and March, he said.
“We’ve done other TV specials before. We’re pretty excited about getting the word out about what’s going on in West Virginia and at Sagebrush.”
The filmmakers wanted business as usual.
“We didn’t put on any special acts for them,” Janoske said. “They wanted to make a documentary on how it is.”
And that’s what they got: music from local favorites Chuck Comas, Ray Hileman and the Wheels of Country, the Metheny Family, the Country Roads Band and others, he said.
Janoske hasn’t seen previews of the documentary, he said.
“It will be all new to me.”
Sagebrush Round-up originated as a radio show from 1938-48, sponsored by a local Fairmont radio station.
“For a while, it was a radio show, like the Grand Ole Opry or Wheeling Jamboree,” Janoske said. “Now there’s not too many radio shows like that left.
“It was home to Little Jimmy Dickens and Grandpa Jones. It closed for a while then opened back up at the new building on Bunner Ridge.”
Every Saturday all you have to do is follow the music up to the top of the ridge to see popular local talent perform.
This summer, the Round-up is bringing five national acts to Marion County: Mel McDaniel on May 10, Jimmy C. Newman on June 21 for the annual Hall of Fame of West Virginia Spring Festival, The Lewis Family on July 26, Dr. Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys on Sept. 13 for the annual CMA Fall Festival, and Mike Snider on Oct. 18.
The official Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum are also located at the Bunner Ridge site.
“It’s a good place for all ages, a family affair. It’s a West Virginia tradition, for sure.”
Two festivals are held each year, in June and September. A bluegrass weekend is held in any month with five Saturdays. The next are in May, August and November.
For more information, call 986-2158 or (301) 334-8629, or visit billjanoske.tripod.com.
E-mail Debra Minor Wilson at dwilson@timeswv.com.

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