Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Guitar "Festi-Pull" - TPR's In Focus - August 18, 2026

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Guitar "Festi-Pull" - TPR's In Focus - August 18, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Wiregrass Archives at Troy University's
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  Dothan campus, identifying and preserving historical documents
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  and photographs for research related to the Wiregrass region.
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  More information at troy.edu/wiregrassarchives.
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  From Troy Public Radio,
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  this is In Focus, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  The Joe Thomas Jr. Guitar Pull is a tradition at
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  the Cloverdale Playhouse in Montgomery, and its driving force is
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  Greg Thornton. Greg joins us with a preview
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  of Saturday's Festa Pull, which has grown thanks
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  to its many fans. The music you're hearing is from Giorgio Ferrera's
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  The Interstate Life, and we remember when Giorgio was
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  a contestant at NPR's Tiny Desk concert
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  in 2018. Greg Thornton,
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  it is an honor to have you back on Troy Public Radio. Welcome.
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  Great to be with you again, Carolyn. Greg, you are the
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  organizer of the Joe Thomas Jr. Guitar Pull at
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  the Cloverdale Playhouse. What's coming up? The Guitar Pull now is
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  in its 16th season, and we are refashioning
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  the guitar pole, and we're calling it the Joe Thomas Jr.
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  Festipole. And it is Saturday, August 22nd,
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  late afternoon and early evening music festival.
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  We will have 12 artists playing. We have
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  2 slots in the theater itself from 4:30
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  to 6, and then from 7 to 8:30 we have singer-songwriters
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  playing in the theater. And in between those 2 slots,
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  we have a great jazz combo called Most Dubious.
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  They're talented musicians, but there are 5 of them who will be playing
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  out in the courtyard as people come and go from the food trucks and
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  from the great restaurants, which are within walking distance
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  of the Playhouse, and listen to music for 4 hours.
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  And there is air conditioning.
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  Greg, the intro music that we were playing by Giorgio
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  Ferrera, is from the album The Interstate Life.
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  Can you tell us more about him? Yeah, Giorgio's great, from Birmingham.
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  Well, Giorgio is just a fabulous artist,
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  and Giorgio's played at the Guitar Pull at least 3 times,
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  but his music just has a spirit to it, fills you
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  up. His music, as you can tell, falls into the folk
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  tradition. Giorgio has a Christian element to his
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  music, but his music carries across a number of genres,
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  I would say. He's gonna be playing in the late afternoon with
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  an actor I've worked with at the Shakespeare Festival named Michael Grieve.
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  Michael's a fabulous singer-songwriter himself.
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  They will be joined by Megan Lee, who has played at
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  our guitar pulls a number of times. So there's 3 of
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  them in the afternoon slot, and then they will be joined later in the theater
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  with the evening slot by Troy Atkinson, and Scott Grant and
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  Julie Gribble. And Troy has been nominated for
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  a Josie Award that comes out of Nashville for a Song
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  of the Year. Great talent playing at the Playhouse.
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  The Guitar Pull has evolved into a
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  festival, and you're calling it a Festi-Pull. How did that evolution
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  come about? Well, obviously we have the Guitar Pull,
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  and that has to do with, you know, a number of artists
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  might sit together and somebody has one guitar in the group And so they
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  want to play their song, and so they sort of pull the guitar away from
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  the person who's playing and they play their songs. That's the story,
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  I stick to it. And the Guitar Pull has over the
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  years evolved from a monthly series to a semi-annual
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  series, and now we're trying to have more artists
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  all at the same time gathered together, Carolyn. That's kind of how it's
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  evolved. So all totaled, we have 12 artists
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  musicians coming on the 22nd. But it all started when you and Joe Thomas were
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  sitting at a restaurant in Old Cloverdale.
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  Tell us more about Joe Thomas Jr. Well, Joe was
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  himself a singer-songwriter. He's a fabulous,
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  fabulous talent and would play at pubs in
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  town. When you go sit in a pub and you have a microphone
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  and a guitar, you have to compete with the TVs that
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  are blaring, All of the people sitting around chatting, that's the pub atmosphere.
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  But Joe decided he was gonna try to create a
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  night where the singer-songwriter would play their original
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  tunes, and maybe the audiences, the regulars,
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  would just listen to the music. We decided,
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  let's bring 'em into the theater and they will play their tunes
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  and just talk about how a song came to be. What was
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  the birth of a piece of music? What was the origin of a
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  lyric? That got the audience just quietly sitting there listening
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  to songs. And there'd be a give and take with audience members
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  asking a question. What happened? Did you break up with that person and
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  she, he broke your heart and you wrote a song about it? That's how the
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  great tunes begin. Or what were you doing walking down the street or sitting
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  in your canoe rowing down a river and it inspired
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  you to write a piece of music? The songwriters themselves talked back with the audience
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  and said, here's how the song came to be. That's kind of how it happened.
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  Joe's idea came to life at the Playhouse because
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  it's a theater which thrives on words. So you
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  connect it with the music and off you go. Besides being a
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  famous actor, you're also a musician.
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  Are you performing at the Guitar Festival?
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  I thought about sort of being a troubadour and just walking around kind of being
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  a busker. And playing, and then I thought,
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  nah, that's a little too self-aggrandizing.
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  So we got this great jazz combo. Ryan Avery is the
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  leader of this group, and Ryan's a fabulous trombone
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  player. So it's kind of more brass and drums playing
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  out in the courtyard as people come and go.
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  Well, this will be based at the theater, which was formerly a
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  church. So how about the acoustics inside for those who are performing
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  indoors? Unplugged. The acoustics are so good. We have done
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  a number of Unplugged with a number of artists.
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  It's all just acoustic, like sitting in somebody's living room. Nothing like
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  an old church. The acoustics are fabulous. The resounding tone
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  of that old church just travels around beautifully, so music
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  just lives inside that building. It's wonderful. Over the past 16
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  years that you've been involved in the Guitar Pool,
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  which is now the Guitar Festival.
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  You've watched music go through different styles.
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  What's your assessment of today? There's still a single note on a piano.
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  There's a chord on a guitar. There's the sound of a singer's voice,
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  a cappella or accompanied by instruments.
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  It just continues to grow. And the thing that Joe's mission—
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  and we continue to try to live it as much as we can— is
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  to bring the younger artists in, new songwriters.
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  I encourage anybody who's got a new song out there,
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  send me the music if they want to try their song out.
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  Because what it basically is, Carolyn, is 6 or 7 original
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  tunes, and then we do what is a cover. The artist who plays at
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  the Guitar Pole, and now the Festa Pole, will sing the final song that's written
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  by an artist that has inspired them. So it runs
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  the whole gamut of original and, um, inspired songs.
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  Do some of these artists represent what we would think of as roots
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  music? Yes, Troy certainly does, and Scott
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  Grant, who plays in the evening, plays a lot of that music.
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  Scott comes from this area, as does Troy. There's a new
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  fellow who's joining Scott, he's going to sit in, named John
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  Mark Turner, who's a slide guitarist that comes right
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  out of the ground down here in the South, as well as take
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  your pick of indigenous music, African-American music.
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  It all comes from the roots. That's our mission. Online,
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  can people find a description of this event
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  Saturday, August 22nd? They can.
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  cloverdaleplayhouse.org— O-R-G. They will get links
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  to the guitar pull itself on that website. The tickets are
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  easily gotten. At the door. Thank you so much.
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  Thanks, Carolyn. That was Greg Thornton with a
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  preview of Saturday's Joe Thomas Jr.
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  Guitar Festival starting at 4:30 PM
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  at the Cloverdale Playhouse in Montgomery's Old Cloverdale District.
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  More information is at the cloverdaleplayhouse.org
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  website. The music you're hearing is from Troy Atkinson.
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  One of the stars at Saturday's guitar festival.
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  Thanks for joining us for In Focus, which is a podcast
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  wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in touch at
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  infocus@troy.edu. I'm Carolyn Hutcheson,
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  and this is listener-supported Troy Public
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  All the layers of self-confidence we tear, strip, and peel.