Lost Highway sets sights on L.A. listeners

Will the Lost Highway wind through the Los Angeles airwaves?

Lost Highway is the young record label that has become a celebrated hub for alt-country and respected artists. Its roster includes Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams and Johnny Cash, and its soundtrack from “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” became a surprise commercial hit and won a Grammy for best album. Now the Nashville-based label is looking to export its signature style to radio.

The first installment of “The Lost Highway Radio Show” will begin airing this week in assorted markets across the country, and it offers a musical moment that will be intriguing to many fans: Bono of U2 will be hosting a 90-minute program featuring a May concert performance by Williams at the Bowery Ballroom in New York.

“We wanted to start with a bang and get people’s attention, and the Lucinda performance and the presence of Bono will do that, we hope,” Lost Highway chief Luke Lewis said. “The show, though, won’t always be live content. We’re not locked into any format.”

Despite the powerful resonance of “O Brother” and even Cash’s poignant success with the video for “Hurt” from his most recent album, the music of Lost Highway isn’t a natural fit for much of commercial radio. Lewis said “adult alternative” format stations as well as some public radio or “stout college stations” provide the most natural outlet.

And in L.A.? The new show had hoped to catch the attention of KCRW-FM (89.9), the potent public radio tastemaker, but as of Friday, that station’s music director, Nic Harcourt, said through a station spokeswoman that “Lost Highway” was unlikely to make the cut for KCRW’s already dense schedule.

That was dismaying news to Ray Di Pietro, senior director of programming for Lost Highway. “Well, we have a few other ideas for L.A., too. We will try some of the rock stations and others that have a place for this kind of programming. Would we love to have a station in L.A.? Of course, but we also don’t think it’s direly necessary for the success of what we see for this project.”

If there is no L.A. outlet, there will be other options for local fans: Sirrus and XM, two players in the satellite radio game, have expressed interest in the program, and Di Pietro said the show also will probably be offered at some point as streaming content on the Lost Highway label Web site.

“We are happy to say we had success at creating a brand with this label,” he said, “and if we put this music out there, we think people will find it.”