Singers Christina Alexander and Elliot Simon of Mission Road – Support Our #creatives® podcast [Originally broadcast on February 10, 2025]

Originally live streamed via StreamYard on February 10, 2025. The Award-Winning Support Our #creatives® podcast, hosted by Alan Greenstein. Special guests are Christina Alexander and Elliot Simon, singer/songwriters of Mission Road, country music with influences that include pop, roots rock, and Americana. We will discuss their first album, “All I Want to Say,” awards, and other projects and plans.

**Christina Alexander’s BIO**

Christina Alexander was born in Silver Spring, MD to amusical family. Her father played keyboards, and her grandfather was a recording artist who played the organ and the piano performing in concert halls in northeastern OH. He also released recordings on both instruments.

Christina has been singing since she first learned how totalk. Her first love is country music, but she had to wander through the rock and roll wilderness to get there.

She started out singing in rock bands in Northern VA.After a while she found that to be a dead end. She took a break from music to get married and start a family. The family part never happened, and so she started singing again. First doing pop music and then rock and roll again. However, she longed for the country.

While at church in Northern VA she was introduced tothe keyboard player in the band. Years later, having moved to WV, she happened to run into a keyboard player, Elliot Simon, in a music venue on the mountain outside of Harpers Ferry. The timing was perfect, and the result was Mission Road, formed in 2021.

One of Christina’s prime influences is Patsy Cline, and thefinal cut on the album is her rendition of Crazy, her father’s favorite song. She also does Blue Kentucky Girl, her mom’s favorite, in a medley with Coal Miner’s Daughter – dedicated to Simon’s mom who was indeed a coal miner’s daughter.

**Elliot Simon’s BIO**

Simon was born in NYC into a musical family. His mother wasa singer, and his father was a songwriter with some chart success.

He left home as a teenager and moved to Chicago. There heplayed folk, blues and Americana in the local clubs and began to write songs.There was plenty of great songwriting to learn from there, including the amazing Shel Silverstein, Steve Goodman, Michael Smith and John Prine.

While in Chicago he met and teamed up with Lucy Kaplansky, while she was still in high school, and they formed Simon and Kaplansky. The duo played Chicago venues and then moved to NYC to play the clubs in Greenwich Village, which led to the recording of Simon’s songs for compilation albums, including the Cornelia Street Songwriters Exchange and later, Fast Folk—now issued on Smithsonian Folkways records.

After their breakup, Simon and Lucy went their separateways. Simon joining a rock band first and then moving on to where he finally found a home in country music.

After a time, Simon became disenchanted with the “musicbusiness” and took a break from it to follow other pursuits. He eventually settled in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. There he played keyboard for local singer songwriters playing in honky tonks. Despite his oncedisenchantment, Simon considers himself a songwriter first and foremost and has never lost his passion for writing.

In 2021, on the mountain outside of Harpers Ferry, WV he finally found a singer with raw talent that shared his love of country music: Christina Alexander. She also liked his songs.

Together they formed Mission Road.

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This is a recording of a live broadcast, so expect some imperfections during the show. There was some editing performed on the original recording.

Enjoy the show!

#StreamYard #SupportOurHashtagCreatives #podcast #Spotify #ChristinaAlexander #ElliotSimon #MissionRoad #AllIWantToSay #pop #rootsRock #Americana #country #singers #songwriters

***Notes:

"All I Want To Say" was played with permission of the artists, Christina and Elliot. The owner of this podcast, Alan Greenstein, has NOT been financially compensated for playing the song nor the Crystal Starnes message.

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