Cameron DeWhitt
500 episodes listed below
Old-time tunes, stories, and source trails.
Get Up in the Cool pairs old-time music interviews with informal playing sessions. The conversations move patiently through repertoire, sources, teaching, music scenes, instruments, and the strange little decisions that make a tune feel alive.
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Get Up in the Cool is an interview-and-jam show about old-time music and the people who keep finding new reasons to play it. It does not rush. A typical episode starts with a tune, then stays close enough to ask what just happened: where the melody came from, whether the phrasing is crooked, what recording shaped it, or why a player hears it differently now. From there, the conversation can drift anywhere useful. Recent episodes move through Illinois fiddle repertoire, banjo lessons, limberjacks and jig dolls, old source recordings, teaching old-time music, maritime folk, punk backgrounds, songwriting in a traditional idiom, and the awkward social dynamics of music scenes. The show is best when it lets craft become biography. A guest might begin by naming a tune and end up talking about patience, competitiveness, access, family instruments, or the moment a sound became joyful rather than dutiful. Cameron DeWitt’s questions are casual but attentive. He leaves space for uncertainty, jokes, half-remembered sources, and the kind of musician talk that makes sense only because everyone in the room has spent time chasing a tune. The music is not treated as museum glass. It is social, stubborn, funny, portable, and sometimes difficult. Episodes often include practical threads about workshops, learning tunes on the fly, private lessons, or where to find a guest’s work, but the heart of the show is the exchange itself. A phrase gets tested. A memory surfaces. Someone plays another tune. Then the conversation returns with a slightly different shape. For listeners who already care about folk, fiddle, banjo, and the ethics of tradition, Get Up in the Cool offers the pleasure of specificity without closing the door on discovery.
Made for: For old-time, folk, fiddle, and banjo listeners who enjoy patient musician conversations more than polished music journalism. It especially suits players who like hearing how tunes are learned, remembered, taught, and made social.
What sets it apart: The show lets playing and conversation shape each other, so tune choices, source memories, and craft details become the structure. Its looseness is the strength: the useful parts arrive through trust, digression, and close listening.
Get Up in the Cool features conversations and musical collaborations with some of Old Time music's heaviest hitters, like Ken Perlman, Adam Hurt, Spencer & Rains, and Jake Blount. As an interviewer, Cameron balances an effusive curiosity for the potential of traditional music with a dogged respect for its origins. Serving as audience surrogate, Cameron asks illuminating questions to Old Time's best and brightest while telling the larger story of the tradition's modern era.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Cameron DeWitt pairs interviews with collaborative playing to show how old-time musicians learn, interpret, teach, and reshape inherited repertoire.
Get Up in the Cool puts a tune beside a conversation and lets each clarify the other. Cameron DeWitt asks guests what they played, where they learned it, and how choices of rhythm, instrumentation, or phrasing place music within an idiom.
A crooked tune becomes your doorway into craft, memory, and the occasional misbehaving fiddle.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Crooked tunes, patient fiddle talk, and the harder work of sounding like yourself.
This conversation treats old-time music as a craft problem, a social problem, and a personal one at once. It moves through crooked tunes, source recordings, and the effort of learning from players such as Tommy Jarrell without slipping into imitation.
A loose, warm old-time music conversation that turns small musician details into bigger ideas about access and tradition.
This episode settles into a loose, warm pocket of old-time music talk, with Cameron DeWitt guiding Mireva Lindo and Jay DeRogers through Noe Beavers, mandolin, and the old Town School of Folk Music without forcing the pace.
A shed-side jam that turns tune memory into a sturdy lesson in old-time music.
Phoebe Sanders makes this Get Up in the Cool stop feel like a real conversation around old-time music, not a polished set piece. She moves from a jam to tune lore to the practical, lived-in details that keep the tradition moving, and the shed recording in La Mirada adds to that…
A 500th-episode return that treats old-time music as practice, memory, and a way of thinking.
Episode 500 brings Frank Fairfield back into view, recorded at his home in Los Angeles, and Cameron DeWitt treats the return as something worth pausing for.
A loose, thoughtful talk about how songs come to fit a genre, or refuse to.
Caleb and Reeb spend this Get Up in the Cool set turning over a familiar songwriting puzzle: why a tune starts to feel right in a country or honky-tonk setting, and why it still feels wrong when it does not. The strength here is how plainspoken the back and forth is.
Chicago critics DeRogatis and Kot pair new-album reviews with deep dives into records like Rumours.
Billboard's Keith Caulfield and Katie Atkinson break down the week's Hot 100 and 200 charts.
Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson trace viral internet stories from Reddit threads to courtrooms.
Cameron DeWitt opens with Sandal Ostrowski and a tune.
In episode 502 of Get Up in the Cool, Cameron DeWitt interviews Mareva Linda and Jay Desrosiers at Jake Blunt's home in Providence, Rhode Island, focusing on Illinois old-time fiddling and how both guests came to the tradition through Chicago's folk music community.
Cameron DeWitt visits 23-year-old Phoebe Sanders at her home in La Mirada, California, where she plays clawhammer banjo and creates folk art puppets including Tiny Gilligan — a jig doll custom-made to look like Gilligan from Gilligan's Island by a kazoo maker, after Phoebe discovered jig dolls as a traditional Appalachian folk instrument.
In episode 500 of Get Up in the Cool, host Cameron DeWitt interviews musician and teacher Frank Fairfield at Fairfield's home in Los Angeles, framing the conversation as a full-circle moment from when DeWitt first saw Fairfield perform in 2012 in Philadelphia.
This episode features an interview and jam session with musician Kenny Feinstein, exploring his transition from punk to old-time music, along with announcements about a workshop on learning tunes.
This episode features an interview and jam session with musician Tommy Schultz, focusing on old-time music, with announcements about upcoming workshops and live shows.
Cameron DeWitt talks with Caleb and Reeb at his home in Portland, Oregon about writing songs that sound traditional without feeling stuck in old phrases.
This episode features an interview and jam session with Evan Coombs, discussing topics like Green Day, maritime folk music, and hiking the Appalachian Trail, along with announcements about music workshops and charity efforts.
This episode features an interview and jam session with musician Sophie Enloe, focusing on writing new old-time tunes and includes announcements about upcoming live performances.
Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with Old Time musician Sparrow Smith.
Host Cameron DeWitt opens a call-in episode of Get Up In The Cool, inviting listeners to share their feelings about current times and plays a song about booze.
An old-time music show featuring an interview and jam session with Sue Truman and others, recorded at the Portland Old-Time Music Gathering.
Host Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with Old Time musicians Annie and Ellie Davis, discussing their music and upcoming performances.
Host Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with the band Butterchurch, discussing their upcoming tour and playing old-time music.
Host Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with old-time musician Will McKay, discussing an upcoming tour and playing traditional music.
Cameron D.
Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with old-time musicians River Shirell and Alex Sturbaum, with a plug for his drag band Tradwife's upcoming show.
Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with old-time musician Eros Falk, discussing upcoming events and the tradition.
This episode features an interview and jam session with musician George Jackson, focusing on old-time music and fiddle tunes, recorded in Myrtle Beach during Get Up and the Cool month.
This episode features an interview and jam session with musician Joe Moore, discussing old-time music, banjo playing, and listener engagement through call-in episodes and workshops.
An interview and jam session with old-time musician Joseph DeCosimo, hosted by Cameron DeWitt.
Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with Sunfish Duo, discussing their music and upcoming events.
Host Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with old-time musician Christina R.
Host Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with old-time musician Brian Dolphin, recorded in Baltimore.
This episode features an interview and jam session with Shanice Richards, discussing old time music, recent festivals, and upcoming live shows.
This episode features an interview and jam session with musician Morgan Harris, discussing their upcoming Duo Bill tour with Cameron DeWitt and performances at the Baltimore Old Time Music Festival.
An interview and jam session with Old Time musician Creekbed Carter Hogan, including show announcements and a performance.
Host Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with Joy Adams and Hazel Royer of Big Richard, discussing upcoming shows and events.
An interview and jam session with old-time musician Eva Leach, recorded at the Oli Old-Time Festival.
Host Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with Old Time musician Ellie Hawkinson, discussing upcoming shows and the tradition.
An interview and jam session with Old Time musician Carolyn Kendrick, discussing her album inspired by the Satanic Panic and performing a murder ballad.
Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with old-time musician Cat Wallace, with a plug for his online banjo workshop.
Cameron DeWitt interviews and jams with the old-time band Natterjack, discussing their music and playing tunes.