WARNING: Inside baseball follows. If you aren’t an IBMA member or don’t work in the business in some capacity, much of this lengthy post may not hold much interest for you.

IBMA 2005 is now over. Most of us are home and sleeping in our own beds again. John and I had a lot of conversations throughout the week about the event, and people’s impressions of it. Overall, it seems that attendees found a lot of good things that happened with this year’s move to Nashville. There were also a few downsides that were mentioned.

Perhaps the biggest positive we saw was the increased focus on the “business conference” aspect of the event. That was a point raised repeatedly by exhibitors and folks who work in the industry, and as a business person in attendance myself, I appreciated the increased security and the clamp down on unregistered persons crashing the event. There are festivals all year long where a focus on jamming and hanging out are part of the scene, but the IBMA Trade Show is not meant to be the place for that. Nothing wrong with jamming, I enjoy it myself. It’s part of the music and should be facilitated, but might perhaps not be the primary reason people attend during the week. The increased focus on this being a business conference made it eminently easier to conduct business. (more…)

Here, with our apologies for tardiness, is another gallery of photos that Dan Loftin took at the IBMA Awards Show last Thursday evening.

The recent IBMA Awards have been covered in the mainstream press here in the US, and we have posted links to a few stories that we found.

This morning, we found one on the BBC News web site, originally posted on Friday October 28. What a marvelous thing to see our IBMA covered in so many areas of the new media, and so soon after the awards were announced.

We would love to post any other links that people may find, especially any additional coverage in the US entertainment-specific media. Please send us anything you may find via our Response Form.

Well, it’s Sunday morning, and Brance and I will be headed back home sometime today. We still have a great many photos to pore through, and get the best of them up on the site, but we have to tear down our exhibit booth and pack everything for the return trip, and won’t be back online until sometime on Monday morning. We have some more news and information that we picked up here in Nashville that we’ll report once we are back home and get some sleep!

This has been a terrific week for The Bluegrass Blog. The positive response we have received from artists and businesspeople in the bluegrass community has been very encouraging, and the dramatic increase in site visits and your comments to us via our Response Form have been a shot in the arm as well.

We have recorded several hours worth of interviews here at IBMA which we will soon begin releasing in the form of a weekly podcast. We still have some technical and administrative details to conclude, but hope to have our first podcast with IBMA week interviews available next week.

Thanks to everyone who spent some time with us online this week.

The Business Conference portion of the IBMA World Of Bluegrass is over and we are firmly into the Fan Fest. I’m pretty tired from a full week of activities, but I did make it out to several of the shows yesterday.

After all the speculation and rumor about the Lonesome River Band was dispelled by Sammy, I was curious to go hear LRB. (more…)

We found a few more articles in the online versions of print papers covering the IBMA events this past week.

The Nashville City Paper had a story earlier in the week about the IBMA Business Conference, and a new one yesterday about the Fan Fest.

The Herald Dispatch in Huntington, WV has a story about Don Rigsby being recognized as producer for Larry Sparks’ Recorded Event Of The Year and Album Of The Year awards for 40

Here is a link to the story filed by John Gerome of The Associated Press, with whom we shared the makeshift “press room” at The Ryman on Thursday night. It’s from The Washington Post’s online side.

Billboard.com, the online version of Billboard magazine, has a brief article about the IBMA Awards, written by Deborah Evans Price. It doesn’t contain any news for readers of The Bluegrass Blog, but it is worth noting that the larger music industry finds our Awards Show newsworthy.

Here are some of the terrific photos Tami Roth took at the Ryman last night.

Last evenings award show brought a few surprises, to most of us I’m sure. Of course the big surprise was Cherryholmes winning Entertainer Of The Year. I’m glad they won, though I had really expected them to win Emerging Artist Of The Year, as did the readers who voted in our poll. My last post was a side by side comparison of the official winners and our poll winners. We’ve talked to a lot of people who have expressed surprise, and in some cases delight, over the awards. We received one email from a reader who did a great job of expressing his view of the awards. Here is his email: (more…)

Here are the IBMA 2005 Awards Winners, side by side with the winners of our poll.

Instrumental Performers of the Year

Special Awards - These are awarded by special committee

• Bluegrass Broadcaster of the Year - Cindy Baucom; “Knee Deep in Bluegrass” syndicated program; Elkin, N.C.


• Bluegrass Event of the Year - WinterGrass; Tacoma, Wash.; Feb. 2005
• Bluegrass Print Media Person of the Year - Stephanie P. Ledgin, author of Homegrown Music: Discovering Bluegrass (Greenwood Publishing
  Group)


• Best Graphic Design for a Recorded Project - Wayne Brezinka (designer),Various Artists, The Unbroken Circle: The Musical Heritage of the Carter Family, Dualtone Records


• Best Liner Notes for a Recorded Project - Jon Hartley Fox (liner notes), Red Allen, Lonesome and Blue: The Complete County Recordings, Rebel Records

Over the past few days here at IBMA, we’ve had occasion to speak with a number of the people who have been affected by the closing of Koch Record’s Nashville division. What we are being told is that of the three bluegrass-related acts in question (Jerry Douglas, Ronnie Bowman and 3 Fox Drive), Jerry Douglas is the only one whose projects will be untouched by this closure. His releases were always viewed by Koch as being serviced by the New York office, working in conjunction with Koch Nashville.

Ronnie Bowman’s CD, the just released It’s Gettin’ Better All The Time, seems to be mired in the greatest level of uncertainty. It was officially released on October 4, and Ronnie received a few boxes of CDs for his release party, but the label closed its offices just two weeks afterwards, and the ownership of the CD seems to be stuck with a non-existent entity. Ronnie’s people understand that he will be able to obtain product to sell, but that no promotion or distribution of any kind will be done.

It’s Gettin’ Better All The Time, can be ordered from the Ronnie Bowman web site, and Ronnie indicates that he will autograph copies ordered online.

3 Fox Drive is still not sure what their status may be, other than that they won’t be held to the terms of their contract with Koch.

Well, the Awards Show has come and gone. We had a great time live blogging the event. We did have a few problems with the server last night and some people may have experienced difficulty accessing the site for a time. It seems we had so many people on the site at once that we temporarily overwhelmed the server. We’ll be looking into upgrading our server capabilities as soon as we can.

We are working on getting some photos up from last night. We have a LOT of photos and we are trying to choose the ones that best represent the spirit of the event. Dan Loftin and Tami Roth both worked hard last night, as they have all week, to capture essence of the Awards Show in photos, and they did a wonderful job.

We will also be publishing an analysis of the winners, with some thoughts and opinion, as well as a comparison of last night’s awards to the winners of The Bluegrass Blog Awards Poll.

The exhibit area opens in about 2 hours, and we’ll be heading down to record some reactions from the fans and performers alike.

Stand by…

Here are a few more of the photos Dan Loftin has taken during IBMA week. We actually have more - dozens more - that we will pore through and post over the next few days, but some may not get up until next week. Brance and I are committed in the exhibit hall all day for this next three days, but will be posting as we can in the evenings.

Well, we’re done, folks. What a great show!

Sorry for the server problems. That is first thing on the list when we get back to the hotel - as soon as we grab some dinner!

We hope it wasn’t a major annoyance, and thanks for spending Awards Show night with The Bluegrass Blog. We have a ton of photos which we will get uploaded as soon as we can.

The following awards are determined by special procedures and committees are enlisted to review recommendations, consider nominations related to the criteria and determine recipients. Finalists were recognized and winners announced at the Special Awards Luncheon, earlier today at The Renaissance Hotel here in Nashville.

The Bluegrass Broadcaster Of The Year for 2005 is:

The Best Graphic Design for a Recorded Project for 2005 is:

The Best Liner Notes for a Recorded Project for 2005 is awarded to:

Ricky Skaggs is leading the Finale performance of the evening. As the show winds to and end they sang It’s Mighty Dark For Me To Travel with Doyle Lawson hitting the high part and Ricky singing lead. The stage is filled with some of the best talent in bluegrass music, most of them in tuxedos.

Del McCoury then rendered I Hear A Sweet Voice Calling with Alison Krauss cutting the tenor part.

For their final number the ensemble tore into a rousing rendition of Bluegrass Breakdown.

Congressman Jim Cooper on the show with the presentation of a bronze plaque to be displayed forever on the wall of the Ryman auditorium, where people once stood in line to get into The Mother Church. The plaque is given to Ryman manager Pam Matthews.

Jere Cherryholmes accepts for his family: “We can’t believe it!” Thanks the Lord for talent, energy of youth and their safety on the road. Thanks for getting to meet people like Rhonda and Darrin Vincent, Allen Mills, James King and everyone who has supported them at the start.

“One more thing… YES!!!”

This award is for a performing act who displayed the greatest competence in all aspects of the entertainment field. Voters should give consideration to recorded and in-person performance, public acceptance, attitude, leadership, and over-all contributions to the bluegrass music image. The award goes to member(s) of the performing act.

The Entertainer Of The Year for 2005 is:

Review past recipients of this award.

The Bluegrass Blog Awards Poll Entertainer Of The Year for 2005 is:

Presenting the Entertainer Of The Year Award is Sam Bush and Bela Fleck. They’re singing!