Music

May 19-23, 2010 -- Pickin' & Strummin' in the High Desert -- For four days, enjoy the magnificent red rocks and yellow cliff walls in northern New Mexico's high desert. Learn tips and tricks on your instrument, vocals and harmony, ensemble and performance... and songwriting, too. Saturday evening celebration with open air concert and jam session. Visit Ghost Ranch Banjo Camp web page ...

Nashville, TN -- The International Bluegrass Music Association is proud to announce the graduating class of Leadership Bluegrass 2010. Leadership Bluegrass, now in its eleventh year with more than 250 alumni, is an intensive, three-day program of interactive learning experiences that invites participants to examine the challenges and opportunities facing our music, along with related leadership issues. ...

Introducing David Grindstaff performing with an all-star lineup of bluegrass power hitters. Produced and engineered by Daniel Boner, Here and Now includes thirteen tracks, featuring David on mandolin and bass along with performances by Adam Steffey, Tim Stafford, Hunter Berry, Jim Van Cleve, Josh Swift, Daniel Boner, Will Parsons, Haley Stiltner, Colby Laney, David Babb, Andy Blevins, Daniel Salyer, and Jason Crawford. ...

Sierra Hull is having an eventful freshman year in college.

She entered the Berklee College of Music last fall with the promise and pressure that comes with Berklee’s prestigious Presidential Scholarship, and found herself juggling the arduous first year class load with a busy touring schedule. She was gone for 25 days in October/November on the American Revival Tour and a week at the IBMA World Of Bluegrass, but managed to keep up with her studies.

This next week Sierra will see the release of her AcuTab mandolin instruction DVD, Secrets Songs & Tunes, on Tuesday (3/16) while she begins tracking for her next Rounder CD in Nashville.

Barry Bales will be producing for this project, and tells us that he is excited to get to work next week.

“We are tracking at Brent Truitt’s studio with a great line-up of musicians. Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, Randy Kohrs, and Ron Stewart, as well as all the members of her band – Clay Hess, Cory Walker, Jacob Eller and Christian Ward – on various tracks. It was a wonderful surprise to get a bunch of great original material from her. Probably 9 or 10 will be from Sierra herself. I think she has all the potential in the world to do whatever she wants to in this business, so I’m just thrilled to be involved.

There’s no definite time set for finishing up, but hopefully we can wrap up everything by the end of April.”

Rounder won’t even think about discussing a potential release date until the album is completed. 2010 is shaping up as a big one for Ms. Hull.

Bales will have a bass DVD from AcuTab in the near future as well.

Slate.com recently ran an article about Steve Martin entitled: Late-Period Steve Martin. The subtitle proves helpful in understanding what the piece is about: How to understand the actor, novelist, essayist, playwright, banjo player, crotch-centric variety show performer, and Oscar co-host.

The author’s concern is to answer the question of how? While his more recent efforts in film, music, comedy, and the arts seem to be haphazard, with many proving commercially and critically unsuccessful, while many of his contemporaries have faded from the entertainment limelight, how has Steve Martin managed to remain popular, successful, and in demand? The author maintains that the answer lies in Martin’s unique comic style which relys on the collision of nostalgia with the modern world.

He is a nostalgia artist. From the years of his first wild ascent, his signature has been to reach toward a lost cultural moment and remake it in his own time. The collision of those two worlds, past and present, gives his comedy its distinctive flavor.

While closing his argument that such is indeed the case, the author mentions Martin’s foray into the world of bluegrass music as an element of nostalgic in which the artist has indulged himself.

Let’s be honest: What’s more quaint, and out-of-time, and culturally beside-the-point than bluegrass?

This comment has stirred up quite a fervor among the online citizens of our little corner of the cultural landscape known as bluegrass. At first glance, it does seem offensive to those of us who value bluegrass music as being very much in time and culturally relevant. But before we get out the pitchforks and head off to find the author of this piece, I suggest we think about this statement carefully.

The author is only expressing his understanding and viewpoint of bluegrass music. He finds it “quaint” and “culturally beside-the-point” but that doesn’t make it so, it means that is his perception of our beloved genre. And it’s a perception he does not hold in isolation. There has been, in recent years, an increase in the number of young people playing bluegrass, but still, any teenaged boy will tell you that publicly admitting to playing the banjo won’t have a positive outcome on your dating life.

Like it or not, the perception held by this Slate.com author is held by many. What we need to do is learn a lesson from Steve Martin. If the author is correct, Martin makes a very good living by causing people to see, and laugh at, the collision between our modern world and the one they remember from days gone by, and sentimentally long for as a better place. I believe bluegrass music can do one better. Bluegrass music does carry with it deeply rooted historic virtues that people do long for in our modern world.

These historic elements of the music are not beside-the-point. They are quite applicable to the world we live in today. Hay bales? Probably not, for a lot of people. Feelings of grief and sorrow? Love and loss? Longing for a simpler life? Loyalty to family and friends? These are very much experienced and valued by people regardless of culture or time period.

If audiences can be given an understanding of bluegrass music, not as irrelevant, “culturally beside-the-point” nostalgia, but rather as very much to-the-point cultural art, which yes, carries elements of nostalgia but which also intersects with our modern lives in a relevant and entertaining (that’s what music is after all) way, then perhaps misunderstandings such as this one will no longer occur.

Chris Pandolfi, the multi-talented banjo picker with The Infamous Stringdusters, has added yet another clever stop action video to his oeuvre.

This one is plugging the band’s next CD, Things That Fly, set for an April 20 release on Sugar Hill. You’ll hear a few pieces of audio and find out how the new album will make your life even better than it is today.

You can also get a preview of Things That Fly here on The Bluegrass Blog. We posted three tracks last month along with some comments from the band.

Bill Miller, host and producer of Bluegrass Gospel USA!, is pleased to announce several new affiliates for his weekly radio show. It is offered at no charge to commercial and non-commercial stations looking for non-denominational Gospel music programming.

Miller has worked in radio most of his life and also hosts The Bill Miller Show each week on WAMU’s Bluegrass Country. He is proud to welcome these four new stations to the BG USA fold:

• WJFC – Jefferson City, TN (classic country format)
• WNRV – Narrows, WV  (bluegrass format)
• WKGX _ Lenior, NC  (bluegrass format)
• WELB – Elba, AL (southern Gospel format)

Bluegrass Gospel USA! can also be heard online on a number of affiliate stations. Find those details and more at www.BluegrassGospelUSA.com.

Donna Ulisse and her band The Poor Mountain Boys will be performing at the Top of Georgia Bluegrass Jamboree this Saturday, March 13, 2010 at the Dillard House Conference Center in Dillard, Georgia. Ulisse and her band will take the stage for the first time at 1:30 p.m. and then return for their final show at 9:30 p.m. ...

"These days, "chops" is a given for the Young Lions entering the bluegrass arena- to stand out from the crowd, the young musician must also have deep musicality and a balance of adventure and tradition... The future is now!” -John McGann, Associate Professor, Berkelee College of Music ...

Audie Blaylock and Redline hit the fast lane with a brand new album, Cryin' Heart Blues releasing March 30, 2010 on Rural Rhythm Records. This new release comes on the heels of their successful debut album on the label last year that yielded a #1 album and two Top 10 singles. The band was also honored with a selection as a 2009 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Artist Showcase plus a 2009 IBMA Award Nomination for Gospel Performance of the Year. ...

Fred Robbins has spent many years chronicling bluegrass music, as a photographer and audio recordist starting in the 1960s, and more recently as a videographer as well. He has had articles published in Bluegrass Unlimited and is an active member of the Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association where he lives in eastern New York state.

Fred has graciously granted us permission to publish a number of his classic photos this past few years on The Bluegrass Blog, and he maintains a tremendous archive of these images on his web site.

Over the past few months, Fred has been videotaping Bluegrass In The Schools presentations sponsored by the HVBA at the Poughkeepsie Day School in Poughkeepsie, NY. He has videos online for the banjo, resonator guitar, fiddle, bass and mandolin sessions.

But the one that has him especially psyched is the video of Greg Cahill and Special Consensus doing their presentation to the school.

“After living in this area for 40 years, I finally got involved with the Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association thanks to longtime friend, banjo player Jerry Oland, currently with Buddy Merriam & Back Roads. I caught up with Jerry a few years ago and he encouraged me to join the HVBA. I enjoy shooting bluegrass video, so when the project came up I was asked to help out. I actually shot the pilot program over a year ago. It’s also on my Picking Page. Thanks to HVBA jams, I’m slowly getting my rhythm guitar chops and runs back too.

We’re so thrilled and honored that Greg Cahill approved my video sampler of Special Consensus’ school program. It’s the first time ever that SpecialC has authorized any web video! What a pleasure to work with such a terrific guy like Greg.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

See the rest of Fred’s Bluegrass In The Schools videos on his web site.

The new CD from Audie Blaylock and Redline, Cryin’ Heart Blues, is set for a March 30 release on Rural Rhythm.

We wrote last year during the IBMA convention about what an impressive showcase Audie and the boys delivered during their Wednesday brunch showcase. It was a very impressive performance, even

“Blaylock is a singularly powerful vocalist, and this group blends with him perfectly. Their trios were matched breath for breath, and the quartet number they did, Goodbye – from their self-titled debut CD – was stunning. And it was no fluke… I heard them again this evening and they nailed this song both times.”

At the time, mandolinist and tenor vocalist Darrell Webb was transitioning out of Redline and into his own band, but he was with Audie during IBMA week.

For Cryin’ Heart Blues Audie had his crackerjack road band in the studio with him: Patrick MacAvinue on fiddle and mandolin, Evan Ward on banjo, and Matt Wallace on bass. Audie handles guitar and lead vocals, with all of the band members helping out on harmony with Audie handling most of the tenor.

The title track, written by Joe Brown, will be released as the first single next week on the 7th edition of Rural Rhythm’s Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks CD sampler. As you would expect, it’s an uptempo, hard-driving song in the inimitable Audie Blaylock style. It’s the first song up in this sampler from Cryin’ Heart Blues, which also includes pieces of Matches (Keith Stegall and Charles F. Craig), You Can Keep Your Nine Pound Hammer (Pete Goble and Leroy Drumm), Drink Up And Go Home (Freddie Hart), He Is Near (Don Parmley) and Can’t Keep On Runnin’ (Harley Allen).

Cryin’ Heart Blues sampler     

Other tracks include Bill Monroe’s Stay Away From Me, Red Allen and Frank Wakefield’s Troubles Round My Door and Jimmy Martin and Paul Williams’ Pray The Clouds Away.

Audie tells us that he is still looking for a mando guy who is a “perfect fit,” and since McAvinue is solid on both madolin and fiddle, they are working as a four piece for the time being. You can find their tour schedule online.

We posted a sneak peek last week of the upcoming Doyle Lawson Gospel CD, Light On My Feet, Ready To Go. It was in the form of an audio sample from the first single – the title track, written and sung by new Quicksilver guitarist Corey Hensley.

The new album will be released March 30 on Horizon Records, a Crossroads Music imprint.

Crossroads has also released a pair of video teasers to give fans a taste of what to expect from Light On My Feet, Ready To Go. In this first we see the guys working up an arrangement for Mountainview Missionary Baptist Church.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Then, we hear the recorded version as Doyle works on final mixes with engineer Van Atkins.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And yes, folks…. that is Dale Perry on banjo, looking hale and healthy. Of course Doyle is on mandolin, Jason barrie on fiddle, and Jason Leek bass. Reso man Josh Swift is playing guitar in teh first video as they work up the song. Hensley is not pictured in that first clip.

The BBU is pleased to welcome Blue Highway on Saturday, March 20th for a concert at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA. We last presented the band in 2009 at Joe Val, but this time they'll have the evening all to themselves for a big evening to celebrate the band’s 15th anniversary. ...

Nashville, TN -- The songs country music fans love most are set to take the stage in the return of Opry Country Classics each Thursday beginning March 25 for a 13-week run, in this, the show's second year. This year's shows will emanate from the historic Ryman Auditorium, where many of the songs performed on the show were first heard by national audiences. ...

...

/CMA/ Washington, DC -- The Library of Congress and the Country Music Association hosted a day-long program for the CMA Board of Directors at the nation's library, including a comprehensive tour of the historic Jefferson Building; an extensive orientation to the Library's music, sound recording, and folk collections; a recepton with members of the House of Representatives, Senate, and invited dignitaries; followed by a concert in the Coolidge Auditorium featuring some of Country Music's finest hitmakers. ...

The bluegrass world has been abuzz since the end of 2009 when it was announced that Adam Steffey, Ron Stewart, Harold Nixon, Keith Garrett and John Bowman had assembled a new band.

Billed as The Boxcars, the band has as of early Spring 2010, played only a very shows and the anticipation of hearing them live or recorded is palpable. Nixon tells us that they have completed several tracks for a debut CD, with plans to finish it up in the next few months.

“So far we’ve cut three tunes for that IBMA showcase deadline. One is called December 13th that Keith wrote and sings…another is In God’s Hands sung by John (I can’t remember who wrote it)…and the last on is a tune Ron wrote called I Went Back To My Old Home Today.”

Harold says that most of the material has been chosen, and that they just need to get everyone’s schedule together and get at it.

Mandolinist Adam Steffey is psyched about the new group, and suggests that some major Boxcars news is in the offing…

“We should be able to announce a label affiliation soon as we are in contract talks right now.

The response that the band has received thus far has been very exciting. Anytime that you form a new group I think that you have the underlying question, ‘how will this go over with the fans?’ It’s all been very positive and inspiring.

We are very encouraged by the response from both the fans and promoters who have booked us to come and perform. It’s going to be a fun year and all of us in The Boxcars are excited to get out and play!!”

Class Act Entertainment is managing the band’s booking, and lead agent Mike Drudge hasn’t seen this sort of buzz about a new group in quite some time.

“I can say that we’re thrilled with the level of interest in this band already, even before having an album or even a band photo available! They are already booked at Gettysburg, Three Sisters Festival in Chattanooga and a bunch of others.”

The Boxcars have a web site which Harold is in the process of updating now, where they keep the schedule posted. Here are their show dates as of March 10.

03/06/10 Hiltons, VA Carter Family Fold 03/20/10 East Tawas, MI Tawas United Methodist Church 03/21/10 Ann Arbor, MI The Ark 05/13/10 Gettysburg, PA Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival 05/14/10 Roanoke, VA Kirk Avenue Music Hall 05/24-27/10 Branson, MO Silver Dollar City 06/11/10 Kodak, TN Dumplin’ Valley 06/18/10 Waldron, AR Turkey Track Park 06/30/10 Morganton, NC Downtown Morganton 07/10/10 Carlisle, PA Dickinson College 09/04/10 Snow Camp, NC Little John’s Mountain Music Fest 09/18/10 Bristol, TN Rhythm & Roots Reunion 10/02/10 Chattanooga, TN 3 Sisters Music Festival 10/16/10 Farmers Branch, TX Farmers Branch Historical Park 11/13/10 Springfield, IL Crowne Plaza Hotel 11/20/10 Milton/Ona, WV Mountaineer Opry House 02/26/11 Hamilton, OH Parrish Aud. – Miami Univ.

You can get a taste of the band’s sound in this clip of them performing Pretty Polly at The Down Home in Johnson City, TN last month.

Click here to view the embedded video.

..and catch an interview with the guys from the dressing room of The Bijou Theater in Knoxville prior to their appearance on Tennessee Shines.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We have been made aware of the theft of a number of left-handed instruments that may show up within the bluegrass community.

In what may have come as an unpleasant surprise to the thief, all of the instruments taken were left-handed models, making them not only harder to sell quickly, but also much easier to identify on the secondary market.

These were stolen within the jurisdiction of Botetourt County, VA and include:

• Michael Kelly Dragonfly mandolin
• Taylor acoustic guitar
• Morgan Monroe mandolin
• Dobro guitar, round neck

All are lefties.

Any information about these instruments should be sent to David Dillow with the Botetourt County Sheriff’s Department. (540-473-8631, 540-473-7920, 540-793-1353)

AcuTab Publications has announced March 16 as the release date for their newest instructional DVD, Secrets Songs & Tunes by Sierra Hull. It offers four hours of insight and instruction from this young mandolin prodigy on two DVDs, with a printed booklet.

If you are plugged in to the bluegrass scene, you may have been hearing about Sierra for the past 6 years, well before the release of her debut CD, Secrets, on Rounder Records in May of 2008. She had been featured on stage with Alison Krauss at age 13 and was recruited by Rounder as she entered high school. Sierra said that she was very flattered by their early interest, but wisely decided that she need to be artistically prepared before putting herself forward on a major release – so she waited until the ripe old age of 16.

She was similarly recruited by the prestigious Berklee College Of Music, who offered a full, four year scholarship to attend the school in Boston. At the IBMA convention during her senior year, then new Berklee President Roger Brown tailed her like a college recruiter chasing a star tailback. Though initially uncertain about college with an active touring schedule in the offing, Sierra ultimately accepted a Berklee Presidential Scholarship and began her studies there in the Fall of 2009.

In her AcuTab DVD, Sierra teaches 7 songs and solos from Secrets, plus two tunes from a limited-release CD she recorded at age 13. She goes into great detail demonstrating the solos, putting even the more complex pieces (like Smashville and Hullarious) within the reach of intermediate level mandolinists. There is also a wealth of wisdom – wise well beyond her years – imparted as the material is presented, whether it is fingering, attack, arrangement advice or suggestions about pick direction.

Watching the video, it becomes clear that she is not only a poised and confident musician, but also a natural teacher and a charming young lady. Here’s a glimpse from the video trailer.

Sierra is assisted in the studio by Kenny Smith on guitar, Ron Block on banjo and Zak McLamb on bass.

Secrets Songs & Tunes will be available from AcuTab and wherever instructional DVDs are sold on March 16. Pre-orders are being accepted now from both AcuTab and Sierra’s web site.