\n<\/p>\n
\n\tKetch Secor<\/a>, the charismatic leader of Old Crow Medicine Show<\/a>, dropped his new solo album, Story the Crow Told Me<\/em>, earlier this summer and celebrated it with a special concert at the Station Inn, Nashville\u2019s historic bluegrass outpost. During the show, Secor also announced his new role as host of Tennessee Crossroads<\/em>, a travelogue series airing on public television.<\/p>\n \n\tBut Secor is fully aware that his series, and other educational television and radio productions, are in danger after President Trump signed a law<\/a> pulling back $1.1 billion in congressional funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps finance NPR and PBS. <\/p>\n \n\tSecor is undeterred.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt does seem like a pretty strange time to go take a job in public broadcasting, but I always did things my own way anyway,\u201d he tells Rolling Stone<\/em> during this week\u2019s episode of the Nashville Now<\/a><\/em> podcast.<\/p>\n \n\tSecor recalls growing up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and making his TV debut on PBS by answering phones as a sixth-grader during a telethon. Later, he became enamored of Ken Burns\u2019 Civil War<\/em> documentary and recognized the origins of popular names in his region.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cEverything was named for a battlefield \u2014\u00a0the shopping malls, the subdivisions, all named for elements of the Confederacy,\u201d he says. \u201cSome of it is coming back again\u2026and some people are really happy about that. We\u2019re in a strange new paradigm.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSecor says his role on Tennessee Crossroads<\/em>, and as an ambassador of country music, is to foster unity and introduce viewers and listeners to new cultures, even those of a meat-and-three restaurant.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s by taking this camera and this microphone to a catfish joint in Paris, Tennessee, and saying, \u2018So, what\u2019s on the menu today, sir? How do you make your collard greens? Tell me what you put in the butter beans that makes it so special?\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n