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Writer's pictureThe Sound Cafe

A Conversation With Joe Newberry



Dan Raza chats with Joe Newberry for his latest Sound Cafe Podcast, they chat about his songwriting process and lots more.


You can listen to the entire interview and music HERE


Dan Raza is an acclaimed singer/songwriter based in London UK, he also produces a monthly radio show called Spirit and Roots where he does in depth interviews with leading songwriters.




Joe Newberry is known around the world for his clawhammer banjo playing, Joe Newberry is also a powerful guitarist, singer and songwriter. The Gibson Brothers’ version of his song “Singing As We Rise,” featuring guest vocalist Ricky Skaggs, won the 2012 IBMA “Gospel Recorded Performance” Award. With Eric Gibson, he shared the 2013 IBMA “Song of the Year” Award for “They Called It Music.”

A longtime and frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion, he was a featured singer on the Transatlantic Sessions 2016 tour of the U.K. with fiddler Aly Bain and Dobro master Jerry Douglas, and at the Transatlantic Session’s debut at Merlefest in 2017 with fellow singers James Taylor, Sarah Jarosz, Declan O’Rourke, Karen Matheson, and Maura O’Connell. In addition to performing solo, he plays in a duo with mandolin icon Mike Compton, and also performs with the dynamic fiddler and step-dancer April Verch.

Newberry has taught banjo, guitar, singing, and songwriting at numerous camps and festivals, including Ashokan, Midwest Banjo Camp, American Banjo Camp, the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Targhee Music Camp, the Swannanoa Gathering, Centrum Voice Works, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Pinewoods Camp, Vocal Week, Bluegrass Week, and Old-Time Week at the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, WV, the Australia National Folk Festival, the Blue Ridge Old-Time Music Week, and the Bluff Country Gathering. He was for many years the coordinator of Old-Time Week at the Augusta Heritage Center.

Newberry is a board member of the International Bluegrass Music Association, representing Artists, Composers & Music Publishers. He says that serving on the IBMA board allows him a chance to give back to the music that has given him so much.

Growing up in a family full of singers and dancers, he took up the guitar and banjo as a teenager and learned fiddle tunes from the great Missouri fiddlers. Newberry moved to North Carolina as a young man and quickly became an anchor of the incredible music scene in the state. He does solo and studio work, and plays and teaches at festivals and workshops in North America and abroad.




You can listen to the entire interview and music HERE




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