WUWF's Radio Live: Eric Erdman, The Lubben Brothers, and Shelby Kemp

Last month I saw one of my favorite local singer-songwriters was going to be on January’s edition of Radio Live so I bundled up headed downtown for an evening of incredible music. More on that artist in a minute. First, a little background on the show for those who may not know.

WUWF’s Radio Live has been the centerpiece of Pensacola’s singer-songwriter music scene for nearly 40 years. Musicians from around the corner and around the world have traveled to Pensacola to perform in front of an audience while that performance is being broadcast live on WUWF public radio.

Radio Live got its start in 1988 and since 2000, the show has been located in the Museum of Commerce in Pensacola’s Historic Village downtown. It’s really a beautiful place for a concert. The shows are held the first Thursday of every month and typically have three different acts. They also typically sell out. 

For the 35th anniversary a couple of years ago, WUWF produced a story about the history of the program and if you want to dig a little deeper to know more about how it all started and how it developed into what it is today, you can listen or read about it here.

Alright, now back to the reason I went to January’s show and the new discoveries I made.

I first became aware of Eric Erdman in either 2012 or 2013 during Hangout Fest in Gulf Shores, Alabama. But it wasn’t inside of the festival. He was playing and singing on a shuttle bus, entertaining the festival folks as they were shuttled back and forth from parking to the venue. Kind of a unique gig but it made at least one lifelong fan.

His songs are clever and beautiful. They make you cry,  smile, or even laugh when you hear them and the lyrics stick with you, bouncing around in your head for days. I looked him up after I got home back in let's say it was 2012 and have followed his career ever since. He was based in the Mobile area and fronted the band The Ugli Stick for a time as they toured the country. He’s written and produced a ton of music. Some of his own and some for other artists and he even spent some time writing songs back in my hometown of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. 

More recently, he co-wrote the song Stone's Throw with the Red Clay Strays (a band that is blowing up) and has a new album of his own out that’s excellent. 

And the live show was everything I expected. The songs were great but the beauty of these kinds of shows is the between-song, behind-the-music stories about what inspired their creation in the first place. I love that stuff and the man is a natural born storyteller.

Seeing Erdman would have been enough for me but also as expected, with the quality of artists Radio Live brings in, I loved the other two acts as well. 

The Lubben Brothers brought their high energy folk music all the way from Iowa to the Radio Live stage. They are triplets and their between song stories lean heavily on that family connection. Some really beautiful songs throughout but their Woody Guthrie style The Charleston Massacre made me choke up and even though I was there photographing things, I just stood frozen during that one.

The rockin’ portion of the night came from Hattiesburg Mississippi’s Shelby Kemp and the Lucky Strokes.  Shelby on guitar and vocals, Taylor Galbraith on drums, and Ashley Galbraith on Bass. The songwriting was still top shelf but the style turned toward blues/rock where the guitars and the atmosphere were electric.

Couple of final notes. The Radio Live shows are on the WUWF youtube page here if you’re looking to discover your next favorite musician. And if you want to catch the show live, it’s the first Thursday of each month. Tickets and info here. And as I said above, it tends to sell out early so plan in advance. 

Also, full disclosure. I work for the University of West Florida so I got to see and photograph the show on-the-clock, which may make me seem a bit biased. 😄 But I honestly love Radio Live and the people who put it on do an incredible job. The space looks like it would be acoustically challenging but I'm blown away by how good it sounds in person and on-air. These people are audio pros and it shows.

Here's a video from each including the song that first got me hooked on Eric Erdman.