Episode #42 is a follow up to the recent IBMA press conference announcing this year’s award nominees. John speaks with Rhonda Vincent, Doyle Lawson and Cia Cherryholmes concerning the announcements. Following those clips is a full length interview with David Crow, the president of IBMA, about IBMA itself and this year’s World of Bluegrass and Awards Show.

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Bluegrass songwriters have been quick to embrace the newer technologies and distribution methods available to small companies and even hobbyist or part time writers and publishers. We have heard from several who, like Mark Brinkman of Brinksongs, regularly post demo recordings of new material on his web site.

We just received a note from Tim Corbett that demos of material of his, and that of Kelly Davis can be sampled on the Union Ridge Publishing Company site.

Both of them are members of the bands, Rush Hour and Union Ridge, and invite any recording artists or producers searching for new, original songs to visit their site and sample the demos.

In the rush to get all the news from the IBMA Awards press conference this past Tuesday, it seems that we neglected to include the information about this year’s Distinguished Achievement Awards. Boy is our face red!

The recipients of the 2006 IBMA Distinguished Achievement Awards are:

Review past recipients of this award.

IBMA describes the criteria for these special awards as follows:

IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award program exists to honor those in bluegrass music who have:

” proven to be forerunners in their particular field of endeavor, and/or” fostered bluegrass music’s image with developments that will broaden the music’s recognition and accessibility.

Candidates for the Distinguished Achievement should be judged on the degree to which they have contributed to or influenced bluegrass music in general or to a specific part of the industry. Their contributions should be unique given the relative period of time in which they were made and should embody the spirit of one who “pioneers” or open new possibilities for the music. The selection committee is also urged to consider significant recent influences on the music as well as historic ones.

Our pal Wichita Rutherford, the host of 5 Minutes With Wichita and the first podcaster to sign a deal with SIRIUS Satellite Radio, or any form of major media for that matter, now has a blog entitled Wichita’s Blog, wherein Wichita describes the world as seen through the eyes of the everyday Bluegrasser. Enlightening and well penned, this “Hillbilly Savant” comes across with the vernacular of an uneducated yard worker and the intellect of a physicist.

Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, featuring Audie Blaylock will be featured on The Grand Ole Opry this Saturday, August 19.

They will appear during the 7:30-8:00 and 10:30-11:00 p.m. segments, eastern daylight time. This new group has attracted a great deal of attention in a very short time, including a nomination as Emerging Artist Of The Year from IBMA for 2006.

The Grand Ole Opry Live program on GAC TV is running a repeat this week, but you can hear the Opry program live over the air (650 AM out of Nashville) or via online streaming. The Opry broadcasts between 7:30 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. Saturday evening (EDT).

After looking over some of the old posts I just mentioned in the last post, I thought it would be interesting to bring you an update of our first news post. It was July of 2005 and we reported to you about the prevalence of blogs in the online world. See that post here.

At that time 27 percent of internet users read blogs, and only 38 percent of internet users even knew what a blog was. A recent study concluded in April of 2006 shows that the Blogosphere has grown since then. Now it is reported that 39 percent of internet users read blogs, and 8 percent have their own blog. That is a respectable growth rate in the size and scope of the blogosphere. Here’s some more info from the study concerning the topics of all these blogs.

Among the report”s findings was that while many well-known blogs are political in nature, 37 percent of bloggers use them as personal journals. Among other popular topics were politics and government (11 percent), entertainment (7 percent), sports (6 percent) and general news and current events (5 percent). Only 34 percent of bloggers considered blogging a form of journalism, and most were heavy Internet users.

Another interesting quote from the article is this.

Mr. Anderson, the author of the book “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More” (Hyperion), said that the Pew report shows how the blogosphere is unlike traditional media. “It”s narrow, niche subjects,” he said. “It”s a granularity of media that we in the commercial media could not scale down to. Niche media is “me” media, and the blogosphere is the ultimate manifestation of that.”

We’ve known all along that bluegrass was a niche market, and blogging about bluegrass even more so. We do consider The Bluegrass Blog to be journalism, but we also think it should involve you. As we head into our second year of blogging we are preparing to launch some new features that will allow you to participate and become part of the experience. Stay tuned in, we’ll be telling you more about the new features very soon.

A quick note for any organizations, associations, artists, agencies or companies sponsoring events during the IBMA World Of Bluegrass in Nashville next month:

We will again this year be compiling and posting the full IBMA week schedule on The Bluegrass Blog. This will include the official IBMA events (seminars, workshops, meetings, exhibit hours, after hours showcases) as well as any being sponsored by individuals or other organizations, during the day or in the evenings. This schedule will be accessible from The Bluegrass Blog during IBMA week, and will be searchable by day, sponsoring organization, performer, location, time, etc. If you will have a computer with you that week, you’ll be able to see what’s on tap anywhere, anytime.

If you will be hosting any special events that week, either on site at the Convention Center/Renaissance Hotel, or at an off-site venue in the immediate vicinity, we would like to include it in our schedule. Please send us the date, time and location of your event, the name of the sponsoring organization, and any performers who will appear. If there will be multiple performers, please also include performance times.

It will greatly assist us in setting up this database if you can send information as soon as possible. It is far more efficient for us to edit or update listings as changes are made than to be faced with adding dozens of events a few days before things get cranking in Nashville.

We will have access to this database while we are at IBMA, and can enter last minute changes at almost any time. This allows us to provide the most accurate, complete and user-friendly schedule of events available to attendees at WOB. Of course, we will depend on the folks hosting these many events to contact us, both with their initial schedules, and with on-site updates as well.

Please use our Contact Form to initiate communication, and we will respond with an email address where you can send your schedule(s) and any updates that may be required.

Mandolin Cafe is reporting that Rigel Mandolins has ceased production and is going out of business. Rigel was noted for unorthodox design and construction techniques, and their instruments were championed by a number of mando-enthusiasts who embraced the sometimes radical Rigel way.

Rigel’s President Pete Langdell didn’t offer much in the way of detail in his announcement of their closure (reported by Mandolin Cafe), and we will pass along any other information we are able to obtain.

That’s right folks, we’ve been blogging for over a year now. It’s hard to believe really. As I was thinking about it this morning I went back and looked at some of the first posts John and I drafted for the blog. Our first post was made on 7/17/2005 and was simply background information on who John and I are. A series of posts followed for the next few days explaining what our purposes for starting the blog were, what we hoped to accomplish, and how you could participate. Our first news post wasn’t even about bluegrass, but about blogging! The first post with bluegrass news in it was about IBMA 2005. As the 2006 event approaches we are once again looking for ways that we can make the blog useful both to those in attendance and those who cannot attend. Posts concerning our efforts at this year’s IBMA event will be forthcoming very soon.

This morning was just a short stroll down memory lane for me and I thought I would share it with you. Thanks for reading all this time, and for telling others about us. We look forward to another year of bringing you the News at the speed of bluegrass!

Brance and I are motoring back to VA from Nashville today, so posting will be a bit light. That means we will also be slow to respond to email or approve comments, but we will attend to it as soon as we can late this afternoon or evening.

We hope everyone enjoyed our coverage of the IBMA Awards nominations announcements from Nashville this week.

Before we leave for our long trip home here’s a video of the IBMA press conference. As John has previously posted we had some issues with the internet connectivity here at the hotel, but we’ve got those straightened out and I was able to upload the video this morning. The video is 10 minutes in length but contains the essence of what happened at the press conference yesterday.

*NOTE: If using IE on Windows you will need to “activate” the video by clicking once, then play it by clicking a second time. The Bluegrass Blog is best viewed using a fully standards compliant browser such as Firefox.*

When we first got to Nashville on Monday afternoon, Brance and I were able to stop by the studios of XM Satellite Radio’s Bluegrass Junction at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and meet with host Kyle Cantrell. We have corresponded many times with Kyle, and enjoyed having a chance to meet face to face, and speak in person for the first time.

If you were tuned in to Bluegrass Junction on Monday afternoon, you may have heard us on XM with Kyle - a number of readers have written to say that they did. He was kind enough to play several tracks from the new Acoustic Endeavors CD, On A Farm, which he has featured a good bit on XM this year. Kyle also talked with Brance and I about The Bluegrass Blog, and prompted us to decribe the site and what we do here us to his listeners.

Thanks to Kyle and XM Nashville Executive Producer, Joyce Rizer, for their hospitality. See you guys next month at IBMA!

The following is a Guest Contribution from Mike Wagner and Patrick Skerrett, who up until quite recently ran the popular live audio file trading site, Bluegrassbox.com. Their site has been discussed a good bit of late, starting with a Guest Contribution from Megan Lynch, followed by one from Brad Harper, both of which received a good many (mostly) thoughtful comments from readers of The Bluegrass Blog.

We trust that any comments our readers may contribute will be offered in the same spirit as were these from Mike and Pat.

Bluegrassbox, in its recent form, is no more.

From the beginning of Bluegrassbox, Pat and I had only the best intentions toward all things bluegrass. We love the genre and hoped to preserve and spread its lonesome sound to new and old audiences. Save for relatively small bursts of popularity now and then, Bluegrass has remained a niche genre. A vocal minority seems intent on keeping it that way… perhaps, unfortunately, to their own ultimate demise. We certainly hope bluegrass doesn’t fade away as so many other once strong genres seem to have. Long live bluegrass!

As to why we shut the Bluegrassbox door, it was more a lack of time, energy and funding (rest easy; Megan Lynch’s crusade played a peripheral part at best). Pat and I have been considering shutting Bluegrassbox down for some time mainly due to relatively diminished user interest and personal reasons. Both of our jobs had begun to consume more time and we’d both become involved with great gals who like to have some of our attention now and then. In addition, Bluegrassbox had become redundant in a field of other music archiving/distribution sites. Only the continued joyful emails and sign-up comments of folks discovering Bluegrassbox (both old-timers and new-comers alike) kept us from pulling the plug. Without a doubt, we know Bluegrassbox generated tons of general bluegrass interest, show attendance and commercial merchandise purchases (all benefitting performers and writers alike). Believe as you will.

The aspect of songwriter compensation did arise recently. Concerned agencies did contact us seeking to negotiate artists and songwriter compensation. To this day, Bluegrassbox has not generated a penny of income and, with a huge monthly operating expense (for two mere bluegrass fans and computer hobbyists!), we had to weigh if we were able to afford this additional cost on our own. Ultimately we could not justify the additional cost or time demand for data gathering/delivery on our own. (more…)

One other set of award nominees were announced at today’s IBMA press conference, the ones officially designated as "Special Awards."

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 will be recognized and winners will be announced at the Special Awards Luncheon, scheduled for Thursday, September 28 at The Renaissance Hotel in Nashville.

The nominees for Bluegrass Broadcaster Of The Year for 2006 are:

Review past recipients of this award. (more…)

In addition to the nominees for the International Bluegrass Music Awards, this morning’s press conference also announced the two inductees into the IBMA’s Hall Of Honor this year.

First to be announced is The Lewis Family, widely described as “America’s First Family of Bluegrass Gospel Music.” It is rare to find a performing outfit such as this, who manage to exist as both pioneers of the genre and an active touring act at the same time. They have been doing shows for 45 years, originally with Roy “Pop” Lewis, and his children Miggie, Polly, Janis and “Little Roy,” and eventually including “Pop’s” grandchildren and sometimes their spouses.

WSM’s Eddie Stubbs pointed out during the announcement what a major contribution The Lewis Family made to both the musical and professional sides of bluegrass entertainment. Through a rigorous schedule of performances, they have brought the music to a great many places where it could be enjoyed and discovered. They also demonstrated the power of marketing and presentation to their fellow bluegrass groups as the festival scene was developing in the 1960s, perhaps even defining the way that artists now sell recordings and merchandise at their shows.

Also being inducted this year is Syd Nathan, founder of King Records, who signed Reno & Smily in 1952 and The Stanley Brothers in 1958. Their King Recordings are almost all legitimate classics, and Stubbs again credited Nathan’s marketing savvy for getting these bluegrass acts into jukeboxes all over the country where new fans could be made.

Both inductions will occur during the International Bluegrass Music Awards show at The Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on September 28.

Our good buddy Dave Carney was with us this morning at the IBMA Awards Nominations press conference, and shot some photos of the proceedings. He got a few of The Grascals and Alecia Nugent performing, of Doyle Lawson and Rhonda Vincent announcing the nominees, and a few shots of me conducting interviews with bluegrass celebrities for future editions of The GrassCast.

Sorry for the delay in getting these posted. If you are staying in Nashville, and need WiFi connectivity, Comfort Inn on Demonbrien may not be your best choice.

Brance is editing the video we shot at the press conference now, and we’ll upload it here shortly.

Click either of the thumbnails below to see all the photos we have from the press conference, each of which will then open as a larger image when clicked. All photos taken by Dave Carney.

The International Bluegrass Music Assocaiation has announced the nominees for the 17th Annual International Bluegrass Music Awards.

The nominations are more evenly spread among prominent acts this year, with no one running away with the lead. Repeating as last year’s most nominated artist, Alison Krauss & Union Station leads the pack with 7, followed by Blue Highway with 6. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver and Rhonda Vincent & The Rage each garnered a total of 5, followed by last year’s surprise Entertainer Of The Year Cherryholmes with 4.

The awards will be presented on Thursday September 28 at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, TN, in an awards show and gala hosted by Marty Stuart. The IBMA is excited about finally being able to hold the awards show in a larger hall this year, and tickets should be far more widely available to the general public than had been the case in years past.

The Bluegrass Blog is providing expanded coverage of the nominations for these awards, with posts that include the names of each nominee, along with links to their web sites, bios and audio, in each of the 17 award categories. We hope that this coverage will aid members of the press who will be reporting on the awards, as well as IBMA members who want to do some research before casting their votes.

The list of nominees for the Special Awards will be posted shortly.

To view the nominees, click on the (more…) link at the end of this sentence, or click on the title of the post. (more…)

This morning John and I find ourselves in Nashville for the IBMA press conference announcing this years award nominees. We’ll be covering the conference in some depth and will publish a post immediately following the conference with the full list of nominees including links to their respective websites, bios and audio clips (when available). We hope this feature will allow voting members of IBMA to make informed decisions about this year’s nominees.

Following the conference we’ll be recording a couple of interviews with artists who are in attendance. As soon as we finish up with that task we’ll start work on getting a photo gallery uploaded along with a video podcast of the announcements.

Marty Raybon will be releasing two new CDs later this month. The Grass I Grew Up On is a bluegrass CD and When The Sand Runs Out will be simultaneously released as a country project. Singles from both projects have already been released to radio. I had the chance to converse with Marty about these projects recently and ask him a few questions. My concern was mainly with the bluegrass project, but we did discuss the country release some as well. Here’s the interview.

Marty can you tell me about the players on this CD? Who they are, and why you wanted them involved in this project?

Well, the band that I had together at the time of the first initial recording was Patton Wages on banjo, and after having a baby, he decided to stay at home and has gone to work land surveyin’. Patton played banjo on all of the cuts except for Tall And Tough, the Paul Williams number from the album. I replaced him with a young man by the name of Derrick Dillman who played with Mr. Good ‘N Country, Jimmy Martin and he was one of the Sunny Mountain boys the last 4 years of Jimmy’s life. He has the attitude to work and the willingness to play it right. I felt like it was essential to have Derrick be apart of this album. When you feel a part of something then you become one of the guys and that is very important to me.

Ashby Frank in my best definition is one of the finest mandolin players and stylists this music has ever known. Shane Blackwell plays all the lead guitar work and is an individual, because of his character, that anybody would want workin’ for him.

Edgar Loudermilk is a fine young man. He is very enthusiastic and cares about his job a great deal. What I truly personally enjoy about Edgar is that he is a people person, a bass player and a tenor singer.

Glen Harrell played some of the finest twin fiddle work that I have ever heard. He has a knack to find the right part to play and what makes his playin’ so well, is he knows when to play and when not to. That is a very wonderful trait for a musician to have.

Andy Hall helped out on the dobro and done an absolutely fine job on the Pete Goble and Leroy Drums “Dixie In My Eye”.

This album is an attempt to prove my heart and the love that I have for music is bluegrass. I decided to get back into bluegrass music because of the fellowship with the fans and the pickers. My goal, which is definitely a labor of love, is to do everything that I absolutely can to bring this music and the approach and the vision to as many people as I possibly can. To quote Helen Keller, when asked what would be worse than being blind, she said “to have sight with no vision”.

(more…)

We posted last month about the new CD by Don Rigsby & Midnight Call, Hillbilly Heartache. CMT.com did a nice feature on Don over the weekend, where they discuss his career in bluegrass music with such headliners as The Bluegrass Cardinals, J.D. Crowe & The New South and Lonesome River Band before striking out on his own.

Don also spoke of his early exposure to the music:

For his sixth birthday, his parents took him to Ashland, Ky., for a Ralph Stanley concert. Rigsby’s father happened to know the band’s singer, Keith Whitley, who hoisted the child on his shoulders and took him backstage to meet the man himself.

“I’ll never forget that,” says Rigsby, now 38. “Ralph was so gracious and kind, and he’s always been my friend ever since. He never forgot me! Ralph’s nearing 80 years old, and I’m going to be 40 in a couple of years, and we’re friends from the time I was 6. Never did he forget me, never ever, ever. That’s pretty profound.”

Read the whole article on CMT.com, where you can also hear some audio samples from the new CD - unless you are on a Mac.