Martin Anderson
Music Director & HostEschewing his mother’s taste for easy listening music early on, Martin Anderson was raised on his dad’s love for jazz, his brother’s Beatles/classic rock LP’s, and the bluegrass and Top 40 radio of the D.C. area. He began volunteering for the University of Delaware’s WXDR/WVUD eclectic overnight and morning mixes in 1989. Upon graduating with an American History degree, he moved to Eugene, Oregon, he spent the 90’s working in natural foods, environmental causes, and above all, public radio. He hosted various folk, world, Triple-A, and other shows at KLCC, and started a “Miles of Bluegrass” show at KRVM.
After two years working underwriting sales and various music and public affairs programs at KHSU in Arcata, CA, Martin joined WNCW in 2001 as your weekday morning host. He loves interviewing the many talented musicians who come to Studio B, stretching out with the many styles ‘NCW embraces, and reflecting listener requests, events of the day, and our beautiful Southern Appalachian landscape. As Music Director, he books our live sessions, and keeps in touch with the record labels and promoters that send us new music. When not at the station, he enjoys gardening, hiking, traveling, history, and raising his daughter on good music and more.
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One of our favorite singer/songwriters to come out of the West Coast these past few years, Margo Cilker is back with her third full-length. This one was co-produced by her and Texan Bruce Robison in Lockhart, TX, with an all-Texas backing band that included pedal steel player Eric Heywood, guitarist Geoff Queen, and fiddler Beth Chrisman. Cilker is a Pacific Northwest-based Americana artist with deep California roots, but you might mistake her for an Austin resident on this one. Most of these songs cover rather tragic topics, but she delivers them more as a witness than a victim, with the hope of righting the wrongs she writes about. As Steve Horowitz of Pop Matters writes, “Ultimately, Little White Cross succeeds not because it dwells on sadness but because it finds meaning within it. Margo Cilker’s voice may not be conventionally commanding, but her gifts as an interpreter and storyteller give these songs weight.” -
In his last couple of months before dying in November of 2025, Todd Snider spent time in his East Nashville studio (famously known as The Purple Building) and laid down these songs solo. He had enough new compositions to work on what would have been a double album. “This album is a glimpse into the creative outpouring from Todd in September and October of 2025,” says the late singer/songwriter’s producer/engineer and longtime friend Joe Bisirri. “His ‘sound of country music 10 years from now’ meant taking his favorite country music tropes, dismantling and reassembling them over stretched-out, swampy grooves with New Orleans-style horns. He was so sure of this sound, feel, and his studio band's pliability that he insisted on recording his vocal and guitar first, with no accompaniment or click track. Todd wanted the band to record after him, so they would HAVE to follow his lead wherever it went.” -
Music was always a constant presence throughout Danielle Ponder’s life, including time spent performing with her family’s band at a young age. But she pursued a legal career focused on criminal justice reform, until her late 30s when she allowed herself to seriously imagine music as more than a side pursuit. In 2021, at age 39, she finally took the leap, leaving law behind to pursue her artistry full-time. The gamble paid off: she signed her first record deal in 2022, and her debut album Some of Us Are Brave introduced Ponder as one of soul music’s most compelling new voices. Now she’s on Dead Oceans Records for this 2nd album, with support from Phoebe Bridgers among others. Everything Has Changed dismantles the stories Ponder once told herself and finds peace in what remains—all themes that have shaped much of her journey. -
One of Canada’s most revered songwriters has decided to showcase the musical roots that inspired him to pursue a career in music as a teenager and young man: gospel, blues, jazz, folk, and pop songs that helped shape his artistic voice. “What began back in the eighties as a vague notion grew over time into a strong desire to put together a collection of material, written by others, that I found sticking to the edges of my musical landscape,” Cockburn explains. “The accumulation of these songs started in the sixties, before I’d even begun to try to create my own.” It’s just the 81-year-old and his acoustic guitar here, as he’s been doing on tour the past couple of years. In fact, he’ll be performing at the Carolina Theatre in Charlotte on October 30th and the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville on November 2nd. -
Martin Anderson caught up with Jay Cobb Anderson, Mimi Naja, and Kellen Asebroek of the band Fruition at AmericanaFest in Nashville last month. In this session, they talk about their recent decision to split up this winter and the making of their new album Something More, and listen to acoustic versions of a couple of their new songs that they played at East Iris Studios in Nashville during the festival. -
Get ready for some “Swampytonkin’” music, as Paige calls it. Raised on a farm near the muddy banks of the Mississippi River, the Austin-based singer-songwriter and pianist is back with her second full-length album, Swampwater. Recorded at Austin’s famed Finishing School and produced by Jonathan Tyler, Swampwater is a raw collection born from personal experiences, navigating love, loss, heartbreak, and grief, before ultimately heading to the honky-tonk to sing the blues away. -
Ezra Collective's latest album, their 4th, is the most ambitious and personal record of their career - conceived as a body of work split into three spiritual and geographical movements, the album traces the movement of Black people across continents and decades, from the music of Africa to the rhythms of the Caribbean, and home to the streets of London. Formed in the youth clubs of London, Mercury Prize and BRIT Award winners Femi Koleoso (drummer and bandleader), TJ Koleoso (bassist), Joe Armon-Jones (keyboardist), James Mollison (saxophonist), and Ife Ogunjobi (trumpet) have now spent over a decade making jazz joyful, urgent and undeniable. -
Hailing from Austin, Texas, The Animeros craft a genre-blending sound with their distinctive style and captivating live shows, as captured on this new Easy Eye Sound/Concord release. South Texas soul and 1960s Columbian cumbia rhythms meet up in a gritty barroom in Mexico, where the drinks flow and the dance floor is electric. “The psychedelic cumbia/chichi sorcerers lay down a 60s/70s fuzz bomb of South American mania.” –The Austin Chronicle -
Henry Jenkins, Hudson Whitlock, Callum Riley, and Darvid Thor have been playing music together since their playground days. Meeting as high school preteens, these four friends explored the teachings of the great small combo instrumental bands à la Booker T. & the M.G.'s and The Meters. With these lessons in one hand and their characteristic sense of goofy humor in the other, the ensuing 18+ years saw Karate Boogaloo develop the kind of shared musical language that can only be built through countless hours spent together existing as friends and musical allies. All in all, a great all-instrumental out of Melbourne, Australia. -
Grand Rapids, Minnesota trio Wild Horses - comprised of married couple Jed LaPlant [vocals, guitar] and Ariana LaPlant [vocals, fiddle, keys], joined by longtime friend Landon Pahl [bass] - have released their second full-length album, out now via Outlaw Foundry/Atlantic Outpost. Recorded in Montana, Nashville, and Minnesota, The In Between showcases the group’s signature hybrid of folk, Americana, country, and rock. The trio has lately been opening for the likes of Sam Barber, Charley Crockett, and Trampled By Turtles.
