We heard yesterday from Art Blackburn with Monroe Crossing that they are in need of a banjo player, as Jeff Whitson has decided to move back home to Arkansas. The band is based in Ramsey, MN and works close to 100 shows each year. Art describes this is a full time, year round job and a great opportunity to make bluegrass a career, but says that the successful candidate has to be a killer 5-string player first and foremost.

Requirements for consideration include:

You can reach Art by email, or call 763-213-1349.

CMT.com is reporting that legendary fiddler and former Bluegrass Boy Gordon Terry passed away on Sunday (4/9) after lengthy battles with multiple illnesses. We will post more information and any obituaries or tributes we find in the next few days.

UPDATE: Here is the tribute that ran in today’s Nashville Tennessean, and a brief report that has been carried by the Associated Press. Gordon’s hometown paper, the Decatur Daily, also carried a nice tribute yesterday.

We just heard from Casey and Chris Henry that their new CD, Get Along Girl, is to be released May 7th, 2006 on Arrandem Records. The CD features a total of thirteen tracks, eight of which were written by Casey and Chris. Their band, The Two Stringers, consists of Casey on banjo, Chris on mandolin, and Tyler Grant on guitar.

Here are a few words from Casey.

Audio clips from all the songs are up on our site twostringers.com. The CD has a lot of original material–Chris wrote seven of the songs, I wrote one. It will be available to order through our website and, of course, at personal appearances.

Here’s the full press release: (more…)

When I Find The Ocean is the title of an independently produced feature film by Tonya Holly, starring Diane Ladd, Lee Majors, Graham Greene, and George (Goober) Lindsey. It is billed as a family feature about an eleven year old girl who comes to believe that a creek that runs behind her home in rural Alabama will lead her to the ocean. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights struggles of 1965, the film follows the young girl as she runs away from home with her dog to find the ocean.

We mention it here for the soundtrack, which will feature at least one bluegrass song. Stan Daily, our friend with Cornbread Red, recently recorded the vocal for A Place Where Time Stands Still, which also featured Cornbread Red’s Dennis Clifton on mandolin. The soundtrack will also include performances from such diverse artists as Little Richard and Marty Rabon.

The film is the first project from Cypress Moon Productions, who have set up shop in Muscle Shoals, AL. Cypress Moon purchased the old Muscle Shoals Sound facility which recorded some major pop hits in nearly every imaginable genre, with Paul Simon and Lynyrd Skynyrd being notable examples.

When I Find The Ocean was shot primarily along the Gulf Coast of AL, using local and regional talent for as much as 70% of the crew. Cornbread Red is based near Muscle Shoals, which is also Marty Rabon’s home base. It was debuted at the 2006 Reel WomenInternational Film Festival in late March, where it won an honorable mention.

You can see the trailer on the Cypress Moon web site, but none of the music in the trailer is bluegrass. No word yet on a theatrical release, but we will stay in touch with Cypress Moon and update as details are announced.

Sam Bush has a new CD expected on June 13th from Sugar Hill Records. The project is called Laps In Seven, and includes guest appearances from Emmy Lou Harris, Jean-Luc Ponty and Tim O’Brien.

No audio samples yet on the Sugar Hill site, but we’ll be sure to update when they appear.

A popular release for Sound Art Recordings was last year’s Happy Land - Musical Tributes to Laura Ingalls Wilder, which featured an overview of traditional string and folk music that figured in the various Wilder books. One of the touches of realism in the books was the author’s method of incorporating bits of songs she recalled from her childhood growing up on the American frontier territories in the mid-nineteenth century.

The books, of course, have delighted generations of youngsters and were the basis for the popular television series, Little House On The Prairie. We have heard from Sound Art’s Butch Baldassari that they have another Ingalls Wilder-inspired CD in the works, this time featuring all of the music mentioned in the first book.

Entitled, appropriately enough, Little House On The Prairie, this new project will contain a few tracks that are repeated from last year’s release, but will be primarily new recordings of these wonderful old melodies and lyrics. Baldassari will be a co-producer, and has already obtained commitments from Riders In The Sky, John Cowan, Elizabeth Cook, Pat Enright, Bob Carlin, Matt Combs and Mike Bub to be a part of the recording.

No release date announced at this point, but we will be sure to pass along details as they are announced.

We just heard that WIVK’s Americana Highway with Jack Ryan will be giving away one pair of 4-day General Admission passes to MerleFest 2006. For details on how to register to win, visit AmericanaHighway.com or tune in at 10:45 pm (EST). The show can be found on your dial at 107.7 FM in Knoxville, TN. You can also listen online at wivk.com The winner will announced on the show April 16, 2006.

Episode #23 of The GrassCast features John’s interview with bluegrass banjo player and author, Bob Black. They discuss his book Come Hither to Go Yonder. The book is full of Bob’s remembrances of the time he spent playing banjo with Bill Monroe.

This GrassCast is 13 minutes in length and the file download size is 12 MB.

Below is our usual mp3 file for you to listen here or download. The GrassCast is also available in the iTunes music store and this episode marks our second enhanced podcast. The version available through iTunes contains photos and hyperlinks relative to the subject matter being discussed in the interview.

Listen now:
Direct Download: ep23_Bob_Black.mp3
Subscribe with:
Free Download: The GrassCast iPodder software

To subscribe with your own podcatching software, copy and past this url into the appropriate entry box in your software: http://www.thegrasscast.com/rss

We’ve told you in the past about Brad Davis’ new TV show Commerce County Line. This weekend his guest on the show is Jon Randall. Jon has played guitar and sung with such bluegrass greats as Earl Scruggs and Sam Bush. He’s also an award winning songwriter, which is what the show is all about. I was able to catch up with Brad and ask him about his history with Jon. Here’s what he had to say.

I met Jon around 1979 hanging at a bluegrass festival. He was the small kid that was hanging around with my brother Greg and I. We picked together at many festivals in Texas. I moved to Nashville to pick with Ricky Skaggs and Jon’s dad asked if he could move in with me and he did around 1987. He delivered balloons in a gorilla suite and then onto Holly Dune, Sam bush, Emmylou Harris. He is also writer of Whiskey Lullaby written with Bill Anderson and this song was recorded by Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley, and won song of the year award.

Each episode of the show also includes a nationwide amateur songwriting contest. If you are interested in entering the Commerce County Line Songwriting Contest. Click here for details.

I was just reading up on the latest in digital downloads and devices and I came across this Gizmodo.com review of the new Nokia N91 Music One phone. What grabbed my attention is that the reviewer was using the phone to listen to the Kenny and Amanda Smith Band!

Go check it out to see the photos, and to read about the phone.

Bryan Sutton will be the in-studio guest on this week’s Goin’ Across The Mountain show on WNCW 88.7 from Spindale, NC. Bryan and his dad, Jerry, will join host Dennis Jones to pick a few tunes and talk about the newest Sutton release, Not Too Far From The Tree, on Sugar Hill Records. The CD’s format is all duets, putting Bryan together in the studio with some of his favorite guitarists for a flatpick tour de force.

If you live within the WNCW broadcast area (southwestern NC, northwestern SC) you can catch the show over the air on 88.7 FM starting at noon on Saturday, April 8. The show is also simulcast online via streaming audio from the WNCW web site.

Wednesday night (April 5), the Gospel Music Association held their annual awards ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, TN. Alison Krauss & Union Station won the Bluegrass Recorded Song Of The Year award for Living Prayer, from their Lonely Runs Both Ways CD, written by Ron Block. The Lewis Family won Bluegrass Album Of The Year for One Rose.

You can see the complete list of winners on the GMA web site, along with a list of air dates and times when the awards ceremony will be telecast over the next few weeks.

This week’s GrassCast episode - which usually is available on Thursday - will be delayed this week owing to Brance being down with the flu. If his voice recovers and he feels better in the morning, we hope to get it uploaded sometime on Friday.

Thanks to everyone who has been downloading our weekly podcast - and our apologies for the delay!

Cherryholmes will appear on The Grand Ole Opry radio show this Saturday, as will Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top Express. You can hear Cherryholmes during the 8:00-8:30 p.m. and 11:30-midnight slots. Bobby will be on during the 8:30-9:00 p.m. segment. All times are eastern.

You can catch WSM 650 AM over the air, or listen via online streaming, to hear the entire Opry broadcast, which runs from 7:30 p.m. until 1:00 a.m.

The Grand Ole Opry Live program on GAC TV is a repeat this week, but it does include Ricky Skaggs. It airs at 8:00 p.m., both eastern and pacific.

Next week’s show on GAC will be live from The Opry, and will feature Mountain Heart.

We’ve previously mentioned the new CD from Three Ring Circle, a side project for Blue Highway dobro man Rob Ickes, Kentucky Thunder fiddler/mandolinist Andy Leftwich, and Nashville studio bass session stalwart Rob Pomeroy.

Rob emailed yesterday to let us know that they recently appeared on the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour, and that both high quality audio and streaming Windows Media video of the entire show can be found on the show’s web site. They are featured on show #390 and perform a gypsy jazz-inspired piece called Made In France and Rob’s lovely take on Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely, both from the new CD. They also spend some time discussing the new project and their “regular” jobs with host, Michael Jonathon, and jam a bit with the other show guest, Stray Cat’s bassist Lee Rocker.

Rob mentioned that he played his new Wechter/Scheerhorn Rob Ickes model resonator guitar on the show’s opening song with Michael Jonathon.

If you scroll through the list of shows in the Woodsongs archive, you see a number of other bluegrass and bluegrass-related acts, such as Wildfire, Cherryholmes, Alison Brown Quartet, The Duhks and many others. It is recorded and webcast each week from the Kentucky Theater in Lexington, KY.

This past weekend in Pascoag, RI, a new regional bluegrass organization took flight. The recently formed Rhode Island Bluegrass Music Association (RIBGMA) hosted what they expect will become an annual bluegrass festival, staffed by volunteers and supported by a number of local businesses.

This first event was perhaps humble by the standards of large, multi-day festivals - turnout was just over 200, and entertainment was provided by three area bands. Still, it was a great success as measured by the Board of the new 501(c) organization formed to promote the music and educate the public about bluegrass in Rhode Island and surrounding states.

RIBGMA was incorporated in January 2006, spearheaded by native Rhode Islander Richard Guilbault, to help combat negative stereotypes about the music, and to promote a wider understanding and awareness of this uniquely American musical style. The new organization got a needed boost when The Call, the daily newspaper in Woonsocket, RI, ran a story about them and their festival in mid-March.

They will soon begin publishing a thrice-yearly newsletter, Hooked On Bluegrass, and will report news of both the organization and of bluegrass events in Rhode Island on their web site.

Guilbault is hopeful that this new organization will take root, and establish itself as an engine for supporting bluegrass in RI. He mentioned that another attempt of this sort was made in the 1980s, but the effort foundered. The RIBGMA membership is still small, but Richard urges anyone in the area with an interest in the music to contact them.

Membership is open to anyone with a desire to promote, educate, research, or just to enjoy bluegrass music in any of its many incarnations.

The last of five free audio tracks from Lonesome River Band is available for download on the band’s web site. Sammy Shelor decided to put these full length tracks up on the site in February of this year as a way to introduce the band’s new lineup when Barry Berrier and Shannon Slaughter came on board. All five are re-recordings of songs that had been cut and released by previous editions of LRB, and Sammy figured that making the comparison plain was the best way to show that the new lineup was as powerful as what had come before.

This newest track is the recut version of Raleigh And Spencer, which had originally appeared on their Head On Into Heartache CD. The other free tracks are re-recordings of Pretty Little Girl, Tears In My Tracks, Perfume, Powder and Lead, and Down The Line. There is no charge to download these tracks, but a quick, free registration is required.

Sammy also mentions on the LRB site that they have begun work on the band’s next studio release, which they hope to have by August of this year.

The April 2006 issue of Banjo NewsLetter has been mailed, and most subscribers should have it in the next few days if they haven’t seen it already. Editor Donald Nitchie tells us that this issue contains Greg Cahill’s interview with Robby Boone of Lonesome Road, and Bill Evans’ tab of J.D. Crowe’s backup on Your Love Is Like A Flower.

There is also a lengthy review of the new Gibson J.D. Crowe Black Jack banjo, written by Mike Kropp, which includes an interview with Erik Sullivan of Gibson, and the reactions of a number of pro players to this newest addition to the Gibson banjo line.

The Old-Time Way section (edited by Dan Levenson and Bob Carlin) features a profile of clawhammer player Rebekah Weiler, a review of Diane Jones” instructional DVD, a profile and review of the Field Recorders” Collective, and a review of Jimmy McCown”s new CD.

MP3s for the tabs in the April issue are already posted on the Banjo NewsLetter web site.

Nitchie also asked us to pass along that The Banjo Hangout is now hosting a number of forum categories especially for the magazine, allowing subscribers to discuss the regular columns and features of the print version online.

We mentioned a few weeks ago that The Gibson Brothers’ music video for I Got A Woman had been released, and was showing on CMT.com. It has now also been made available on YouTube - great news for Mac computer users, who can not access the video portions of CMT’s site.

YouTube was founded just over a year to allow an easy way for members to upload and share videos over the Internet. There is no charge to become a member (required to upload video), and membership is not required to view videos posted on the site.

See the Gibson Brothers” video here.

In addition to the Pickin’ On Kenny Rogers CD we mentioned yesterday, CMH released two compilation projects on April 4. Both feature reissued tracks that had appeared previously on CMH projects, and include some of the most prominent and heralded acts - and songs - in the history of bluegrass music.

Totally Bluegrass contains 20 tracks from The Osborne Brothers, Lester Flatt, Merle Travis and Jim & Jesse along with Benny Martin, Mac Wiseman, The Heights Of Grass and Don Reno & Arthur Smith. The songs chosen range from bluegrass mega-hits like Rocky Top, Orange Blossom Special and The Ballad of Jed Clampett to grassified covers of Paradise, House Of The Rising Sun and Midnight Flyer.

The CD carries a bargain-oriented retail price of $11.98, and several audio samples are available on the CMH web site.

Hallelujah - A Bluegrass Gospel Celebration features 12 new and previously released tracks from artists like Lester Flatt, Carl Story, Mac Wiseman, The Osborne Brothers, The Bluegrass Cardinals, and Don Rigsby. Song titles include I’m Using My Bible For A Roadmap, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Leaning On The Everlasting Arms, and Angel Band along with 8 other Gospel favorites.

Audio samples for this one are also available online.