Mile High Noon: On the Road with Kyle James Hauser

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27min 38sec
Photo: alisha mile high noon banjo

On the Guest DJ series, listeners get to choose the music, but with one condition: you have to teach host Alisha Sweeney something in return!

Local musician Kyle James Hauser taught Alisha the fundamentals of playing the banjo on a beautiful fall day in Denver's City Park. The musician has been splitting time between his Colorado home and Louisville, Ky., where his label sonaBLAST Records! is stationed.

Kyle's latest album "You A Thousand Times" came out this year and spent some time on our Top 30 chart. This is his first record without a banjo as his main instrument but he's returning to it now while playing in a new ensemble bluegrass group Rapidgrass, who will play some shows around Colorado later this year.

His debut record "Oh Oh" is where you can hear his pop approach to playing banjo and he revealed to On The Road that his song "Life, Love and Pain" will be in a new film, "Produce."

Listen to this episode of On The Road as Alisha learns to hold and tune the banjo, put on picks, play a few patterns and shapes, and take part in a mini jam session with Kyle at the very end!

THE PLAYLIST:

  1. Jayme Stone - "Vinicius"

  2. Finders and Youngberg - "Diner"

  3. Gregory Alan Isakov - "Virginia May"

  4. Ark Life - "What You Want To"

  5. Pinhead Circus - "Jack Knife Powerbomb"

Thanks to Kyle James Hauser for the lesson and to the Olde Town Pickin' Parlor for the banjo loan!

Want to teach Alisha something new and be our next Guest DJ? Find her on Twitter @openairalisha or send us a Facebook message!