The “House Blend” music and interview show on Santa Clarita television station SCVTV is one of three finalists for a WAVE award from the Alliance for Community Media.
WAVE awards recognize excellence in community television. For the nomination, SCVTV’s original “House Blend” show was up against music shows produced by local television stations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada and New Mexico.
The selected “House Blend” episode featured the legendary acoustic duo Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen, taped at the SCVTV Media Center on May 21 and hosted by local music journalist Stephen K. Peeples. In the show, Hillman and Pederson perform “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season),” made famous by Hillman’s 1960s band, The Byrds.
The other nominees in the “professional music programming” category are Jazz-elle Lasiuk of Santa Cruz County for “Planet of Dreamz” and Jul3ia Astatkie of Kaua’i, Hawaii, for “Requiem55.”
The 2011 nominees were announced Monday. Winners will be named Oct. 8 during the ACM’s annual conference in San Jose.
It is SCVTV’s first shot at a WAVE award but not its first ACM nomination. SCVTV had the No. 2 local TV website in the nation (SCVTV.com) in a previous ACM competition.
The weekly “House Blend” series premiered on SCVTV in August 2010. It is produced by Megan Mann-Perez, SCVTV’s production manager. Executive producer is SCVTV President Leon Worden. Co-producer Peeples, an award winner in his own right, hosts and scripts the show and books the talent.
“To be nominated for a new show on our first try is exciting,” Mann-Perez said. “We’re very proud of every ‘House Blend’ episode we’ve taped to date. This is the kind of show people in Santa Clarita are excited to see. There’s so much local talent here and it’s wonderful to finally have a forum like ‘House Blend’ where artists can show off their skills and viewers can get to know the performers via Stephen’s interviews. Many thanks to all of our volunteer crew members who have brought this show to life.”
“Each of the more than 25 ‘House Blend’ shows we’ve produced so far is worthy, but the Hillman-Pedersen episode is my favorite to date,” said Peeples, also a volunteer.
“It’s the episode Megan, our sound ace Mike Mazzetti, Leon and I always talk about as our best combination of talent, performance, sound and presentation so far,” Peeples said. “I’m very proud of what we accomplished, and that our work has earned this WAVE nomination.”
With Hillman playing mandolin and Pedersen on acoustic guitar, the episode features not only The Byrds’ timeless hit but also “Wait a Minute” from Pedersen’s first solo album, “Southwest” (1976); “Wheels,” a Hillman-Gram Parsons tune from the first Flying Burritos album (1969); and “Desert Rose,” from the fourth Desert Rose Band album (1990). All four songs are also featured on Hillman and Pedersen’s “At Edwards Barn” live album on Rounder (2010).
During the interview segments, the duo talks about their half-century of friendship and highlights of their stints in The Byrds (Hillman), The Dillards (Pedersen), The Flying Burrito Brothers (Hillman), and the Desert Rose Band (both).
“Chris and Herb’s performance was stellar,” Peeples said. “The songs they chose represented key moments of their individual and collective careers. That worked really well with the chronology of my questions, and they were warm and genuine during our interview. The crew loved their delicious, timeless music and easy-going attitudes.”
Television viewers in the Santa Clarita Valley can catch “House Blend” Thursdays and Saturdays at 10 p.m. on SCVTV (Time Warner Cable Channel 20, AT&T U-verse Channel 99). It’s available 24/7 on demand on the Internet at scvtv.com. The Hillman-Pedersen episode can be viewed here.
