In September 1995, Rolling Stone magazine published tributes following the death of the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. In his tribute, Bob Dylan said of Garcia: “He is the very spirit personified of whatever is muddy river country at its core and screams up into the spheres.” (RS 717 - September 1995)

That amazing range or arc of musical expression is the foundational idea behind the radio programme From the Mud to the Stars hosted by Terry Yates on Kandos, NSW community radio station KRR. (98.7) And that idea has influenced how Terry programmes and structures his show, and how he presents music from a variety of genres, themes and eras of production from 1920s to the current year of today’s programme. Terry attempts to have a balance of female and male performers, tries to avoid the obvious greatest hits, and is cautious about nostalgia. If anything, his default is Americana, but he enjoys disrupting preconceptions and creating fresh relationships between songs. His comments on the music that he plays are less encyclopaedic and more inclined towards the songwriter’s poetic use of language.

Terry is a retired English teacher, a poet and a member of a Kandos based band, Bushrock. He has been presenting From the Mud to the Stars since 2002. In 2005 he published a book of poems called Tell the Black Water.