High Plains Morning

Live music is BACK! This Friday night, check out an outdoor concert under the stars with Amarillo folksinger Randy Palmer and his buddies The Prairie Dogs at Starlight Canyon Bed & Breakfast (100 Brentwood Rd., Amarillo). Randy stopped by HPPR to play a few tunes with his buddy Byron Williamson. You won't want to miss this event, so bring a chair, a blanket, some beverages, and friends.

This week on High Plains Morning, we talked to Ben Wilting, the Digital Services Librarian at Amarillo Public Library, about their new MakerSpace — a facility where library cardholders can join together, relax, and work on art, general crafts, sewing/textiles, leatherworking, painting, clay, metalwork, woodworking, jewelry-making, repairs, or even experiment with starting a creative business.

Look out, Amarillo. There's a new  art + music+ vintage resale + counseling collective in town! (Wait, what?) Yes, the creative minds of Caliche Co. have  just secured the single weirdest thing that's hit Bomb City since Hayden Pedigo's City Council campaign. This week on High Plains Morning, I sat down with Lance Garza to discuss this highly creative endeavor.

One of the rare benefits of our world's recent shift to online education involves wider access to literary readings, lectures, and academic discussions hosted over the internet. Just log on to a video chat link, and suddenly you're in the front row of a college classroom (while safely plopped on your sofa).

As we flap our wings into the summer, live music has been returning across the country. Thankfully, there is no shortage of great bands bustin' a hub for tour dates across our region and beyond.

Today, we welcomed a High Plains hero to the airwaves. Andrea Elise is an Amarillo native, and she’s been listening to High Plains Morning for years. However, it’s only in these last few months that she’s decided to turn her passion for music and dance into an online fitness series. Seniors Wearing Socks offers easy, low-impact, dance-based workouts that last for one song only. Her selections range from Devo to Elvis to the Mavericks.

Today on Growing on the High Plains, we're going to keep it clean with a walk throught he wafting felds of an aromatic herb most associated with washing. The scent of "lavandula," or lavender, most often evokes fresh folded laundry or a sleepytime tea. However, this ornamental, flowering plant has also been used since ancient times for medicine and cosmetics. Learn more about the history of this peaceful perennial, and consider planting a few shrubs in your garden—preferably where they can be skimmed and celebrated along the walkway).

On Monday, High Plains Morning celebrated Bob Dylan's 80th birthday with a tribute show co-hosted by my friend (and avid Dylan fan), Daniel Margolis. He recommended some Dylan deep cuts for our listeners ("secular" and otherwise), shared a little history about the music, offered up some odd facts about onion rings, and selected a handful of covers he thought you might enjoy. I also nabbed some fantastic recommendations for Dylan covers from my buddies Gabriel Wallace and Sean Witzman—so scroll down for those as well.

Hear the full interview/co-host session with Daniel on the file below. Scroll down for quick links to all of the available recommended songs.  

Just as the seasons are rapidly changing, so is the modern age. Thankfully, we have some guidance on how best to deal with our future-forward present from Texas-based, folk-rock songwriter Vanessa Peters . On her new album, Modern Age, she explores the pressures of living in a difficult "now." Though normally based in Dallas, this album was recorded in Italy where she and her band were located throughout the pandemic.

As April rolls on, American Red Cross marks its designation as National Volunteer Month with a blood drive scheduled across Kansas.

It feels odd to even say the sentence, but it seems to be true: live music is BACK! Today on High Plains Morning, I had a blast visiting with Nate Green, owner of the Starlight Canyon Bed & Breakfast, about their new music series, Concerts in the Canyon.

Thanks to Babji & Devi Yalamanchili of Keep Amarillo Clean for stopping by HPPR on Earth Day(!) to remind us about their Clean-Up Day this Satruday, April 24th from 9a to 12p CT. It's happening across Amarillo, and all you have to do is clean up trash from around your neighborhood.

Today we celebrate more than half a century of Earth Days, so I thought we’d spend some time with the history of this national observance for our dear Planet Earth. The origins of this holiday go back to the hippie era, but it might surprise you that the “flower children” had less to do with it coming about than a politician from the northern US. Tune in for this week’s Growing on the High Plains as we reflect on the environmental activists that sparked a revolution for conservation and preservation of clean air, water, and land across the globe.

Our bowl runneth over on High Plains Morning after a visit from Tina Brohlin of High Plains Food Bank. She stopped by the studio to remind Amarillo-area residents about Empty Bowls, an annual fundraiser for the Kids Cafe that'll take place on April 20th at 5:30 - 7:30 pm CT.

While the pandemic seems to have thwarted most live performances scheduled for last year, it’s refreshing to see some arts organizations emerging on the other side with their postponed productions across the High Plains. This weekend, Amarillo Opera will have three performances of the Michael Ching show, Remove Shoes Before Entering—a collection of vignettes spanning a scale of human emotion and touching on various challenges of living in our modern world.

This Friday night, we’ll all get to tip our communal cowboy hat to the South Plains as Texas Tech University hosts the 6th annual Lubbock Lights concert, an evening celebrating the musical heritage of the region. And this year, they’re welcoming home some hometown heroes to take the virtual stage: Flatland Cavalry.

Today on High Plains Morning, we caught up with Dr. Lori Muntz at Seward County Community College about the recent SCCC Poetry Contest, as well as their Celebration of Creative Writing event TONIGHT, Thursday, April 15 at 7:00 pm CT, live streamed on their Facebook page.

This week, we checked in with High Plains hero Joyce Knight at the Catholic Charities of the Texas Panhandle. Tonight, they host their Annual Salt & Pepper event (which is usually a luncheon, but it’s going virtual for 2021).

Today's Growing on the High Plains creeps up on you like a sudden spring shower as we take a look at some lovely vines that entwine. Tune in for a few musings on the deep purple, star-shaped blossoms of clematis. 

Last week on High Plains Morning, we had a delightful visit from Marcy McKay, an Amarillo-based author and regular HPPR Radio Readers Book Club contributor about her latest book, When Life Feels Like a House Fire: Transforming Your COVID-19 Stress.

Last week on High Plains Morning, I had the supreme honor of speaking with a beloved Texas songwriter that features heavily on our station: Jaimee Harris. From needing roadside assistance to a cozy Zoom room, our chat took a fun turn from concept to execution. Thankfully, the Waco-native/Nashville-émigré buckled in for roller-coaster ride of a conversation, covering everything from her latest acoustic EP, The Congress House Sessions to her beloved andogynous, bovine plush. (#Horns&Udders) Over the course of her career, Harris has developed an impressive and lengthy résumé as an accomplished singer-songwriter, as well as a musical collaborator. So we also mined her extensive knowledge of some HPPR favorites like Jimmy LaFave, Gretchen Peters, Malcolm Holcombe, Mary Gauthier, Emmylou Harris, Townes Van Zandt, Eliza Gilkyson, Ray Wylie Hubbard & more. Plus, listen in to hear her slay my ridiculous lightning round (which I"m SO glad i didn't edit down for time).Hear the full interview on the link below, and check out The Congress House Sessions online.  

Spring is upon us across the High Plains, and surely all your veggie cultivators have been busy in your beds—garden beds, that is. Today’s Growing on the High Plains take a look at an easy-to-grow root vegetable that, despite its name, is neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke. While alternate names like “sunroot,” “sunchoke,” and “earth apple” often get used in lieu of “Jerusalem artichoke,” it’s one of those tubers that you won’t easily forget once you’ve eaten it. They look a bit like a ginger root, though their texture and flavor is more like a potato or water chestnut.

This Spring weather certainly keeps residents of the High Plains on our toes. Some evoke lions and lambs, but it seems our recent Aprils have brought forth entirely different menageries. First it's cold, and then it's hot, but then there's a blizzard that melts in the summery sunshine...and soon rain, wind, and repeat. Thankfully, most of us longtime "Plainspeople" have adapted to these fickle fluctuations and accept it as normal. Today's Growing on the High Plains will explore some of the poetic musings on this time of year, whatever it might bring.

The High Plains has always been populated by generous, community-minded people that look after one another in good times and bad. So this week we welcomed representatives from two of Amarillo’s most prominent service organizations in the barrio neighborhood on our city’s north side.

Today on High Plains Morning, we took some time to unwind and reflect with Samantha Crain, an HPPR favorite and Oklahoma native. The Choctaw-American songwriter, singer, composer, producer, videographer, and all-around High Plains hero shared some reflections of her recent work, including the new single "Bloomsday" (which is out now).

Today is a really big deal for Oklahoma folk duo The Imaginaries—something they’ve been dreaming of for a long, long time. Both Maggie McClure (piano, keyboard, vocals) & Shane Henry (guitar, vocals) have been awaiting the release of their debut, self-titled album, The Imaginaries, since well before the pandemic.

Today we welcomed curator Alex Gregory back to High Plains Morning for a chat about what's going on at Amarillo Museum of Art.

Today's Growing on the High Plains continues our look at the most exciting time for gardeners experiencing a bit of Spring fever. As the mail is delivered in March, it often means seed catalogs find their way into our eager hands. Today we'll discuss a couple that I've enjoyed for years: my Vermont Bean Seed booklet and the Jung Seed Company, which handles nine catalogs of tried-and-true seeds and has been in business since 1907.