Blair Gillespie

Blair Gillespie's love of country music goes back to visiting his grandparents in downtown San Luis Obispo and throwing some Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Oak Ridge Boys on the record player.

He got his first AM radio after selling chocolate bars for a school fund-raiser and started calling in requests to local country DJs for Hank Williams.

"Junior or Senior," they'd ask. "I wanted the original Hank Williams."

"The old country music I have no problem with, but if you say modern country I think of bro country," Blair says, "But what I really like is how the roots of country music are represented today with artists like Dale Watson, Rodney Crowell and Sarah Gayle Meech."

Blair founded the show "Across the Tracks," which he hosted on Thursday nights from 8:00-10:00 p.m., and now acts as a substitute for that show and for our other KCBX Americana shows.