The Walk of Stars in Hollywood is now going to have a counterpart in Nashville, a thoroughfare offering a constellation of five-pointed stars honoring the city’s achievers “? the singers, musicians, songwriters, producers and executives who’ve put the music into Music City.

Installation of the stars will begin in November. The Walk of Fame will travel down Music Mile ending on Music Row at the Musica statue. This route will take star gazers past such things as the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Gaylord Entertainment Center, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, and eventually the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and Museum (it hasn’t been built yet).

The press announcement event was attended by several prominent Nashville music stars including our very own Mr. Earl Scruggs who will, of course, be honored with his own star on the walk.

We have posted previously about some faculty changes for this year’s Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend, and about the scholarship program for young bluegrass pickers. The instructor shakeups have caused a delay in printing and mailing the RBW brochure, and the deadline for scholarship applications has been extended as a result.

Young pickers aged 13-24 have until September 15 to submit an application, which covers tuition at the 3 day workshop weekend, plus food and accommodations. A travel allowance is also available for scholarship recipients who live some distance from the event, held in Roanoke, VA November 10-12.

The scholarship is funded by an annual raffle for a professional quality instrument donated by Gibson. This year’s drawing is for a new RB-250 banjo. RBW and Gibson urge everyone to consider supporting the scholarship fund by purchasing a raffle ticket. Who knows - you could end up with a brand new banjo!

Full application details can be found on the Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend site.

Previous posts on RBW ‘06:

Michael Cleveland joins RBW faculty
Charlie Cushman joins Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend faculty
Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend ‘06

You can find a list of the winners from this past weekend’s Old Fiddler’s Convention in Galax, VA on the official festival web site. This year was the 71st annual event held in Galax, a convention that draws thousands of pickers from all over the world to pick and compete.

Photos from each year’s event are also posted on the web site, and some from this past week should be up there soon.

I just discovered a new release from David Grisman. It’s The David Grisman Bluegrass Experience. I don’t have much information about the recording other than the list of musicians who are featured on it.

• David Grisman: mandolin, vocals
• Keith Little: banjo, guitar, vocals
• Jim Nunally: guitar, vocals
• Chad Manning: fiddle
• Samson Grisman: bass

The CD is only available at a live performance of the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, or via download from livedownloads.com

BillBoard is reporting that legendary rock act the Byrds will be in the spotlight again with the release of a four-CD/one-DVD boxed set There Is a Season, on Sept. 26 via Columbia/Legacy. The project was personally overseen by group members Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn. There are a total of 99 tracks on the 4 discs. The first 50 tracks feature the Byrds’ original lineup of Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, David Crosby, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke. The remainder of the tracks, including five previously unreleased live tracks, come from later versions of the band which feature bluegrass guitar legend Clarence White.

While this in no way qualifies as a bluegrass release, I felt it was bluegrass news due to the involvement of Clarence. The influence of his playing can still be felt today in such players as Tony Rice and David Grier. If you are a guitar player and you aren’t familiar with Clarence White, I suggest you do a little research.

Episode #41 features an interview with banjo player Barry Crabtree of the band Wildfire. John sat down with Barry recently at the Roanoke Fiddle Fest. They talk about Wildfire, Barry’s history in the music including his time with Larry Sparks, learning to play with a band, and more.

This GrassCast is 18 minutes in length, with a download size of 21 MB (for the MP3 file).

Below is an mp3 file which you can hear now, or download to your computer. The GrassCast is also available in the iTunes music store as an enhanced podcast containing photos and hyperlinks relative to the subject matter being discussed in the interview.

Listen now:
Direct Download: ep41_barry_crabtree.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

The IBMA will announce the nominees for the 2006 International Bluegrass Music Awards on Tuesday (8/15) at 10:00 a.m. Brance and I will be covering the press conference in Nashville, and will post a complete list of nominees, along with links to their web sites, bio, audio, etc as soon as the press conference is concluded.

Look for our nominees list at approximately 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday.

We will have more from the press conference later that day, including photos and hopefully video coverage. The nominations and the Awards Show will also be the topic of next week’s edition of The GrassCast, our weekly audio podcast.

Carrie Hassler has plenty to celebrate these days. The debut CD with her band, Hard Rain, is being produced by Mountain Heart’s Jim VanCleve, and the first single, Seven Miles From Wichita, is being distributed to radio via Prime Cuts Of Bluegrass. She has signed with Rural Rhythm Records who will release the self-titled project on September 26.

We don’t have a lot more information about Carrie or her band, but she does have several audio samples up on her web site. These are full downloads, but not of the finished track that will appear on the CD when it is released.

Her band is made up of Josh Miller on banjo, Kevin McKinnon on mandolin, Keith McKinnon on guitar, Josh Swift on resophonic guitar and Travis Anderson on bass. They are all featured on the new CD, along with guest artists (and Rural Rhythm labelmates) Jim VanCleve and Clay Jones, as well as Adam Steffey and Darrin Vincent.

Many students of the folk and old time music boom of the 1960s will note that the growth of interest in the music really exploded when it caught the attention of big city audiences, and the media writers and television/record company producers who lived there. Bluegrass fans consider the Flatt & Scruggs live recording of their 1962 performance at Carnegie Hall to be a fine example of the band in their hey day, but many newer fans may not recognize what a milestone it was for a rural, southern folk act to be invited to perform in this venue.

In that same period of time, a group of folk revivalists launched a concert series in New York City, designed to expose the urban audiences to the folk, bluegrass, old time string band, blues and traditional Appalachian music styles that helped shaped the modern folk sound that was currently so popular. This group, which called themselves Friends Of Old Times Music, included such folk scene luminaries as Ralph Rinzler, Mike Seeger, Jean Ritchie and John Cohen, with concerts co-produced at times with Alan Lomax. They put on a total of 14 concerts between 1961-65, many of them recorded and preserved.

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is now set to release a 3 CD set on September 29, which will include 55 tracks from these landmark shows. Entitled Friends Of Old Time Music - the folk arrival, 1961-1965, this new box set features the music of 24 different performers. In addition to live cuts from Maybelle Carter, and Mississippi John Hurt, the CDs include offerings from Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, The Greenbriar Boys, Dock Boggs and the New York debut of Doc Watson.

There is no information about the NYC concerts CD on the Smithsonian Folkways web site as yet, but they are likely to have audio samples up for each track as the release date nears. Their many folk and traditional music recordings are widely available from retailers and online sources, and they have their own download site, Smithsonian Global Sound, where their many releases can be purchased as MP3 or FLAC files.

This morning as I was browsing the comments I realized it would be difficult to refer to a specific previous comment. To assuage this I modified the way comments are displayed. Now when viewing comments you will notice the comment author’s name along with the date and time posted have been moved to the top of the comment rather than the bottom where they were before. I also added an identifying number to each comment. So now you may refer to comment #whatever when referencing someone else’s comment in your own.

Enjoy…

Rhonda Vincent has been described as the Queen of Bluegrass Music on more than one occasion, but on September 1, it will become official. The folks who put on the National Old Time Country & Bluegrass Music Festival in Missouri Valley, IA have arranged for a crowning ceremony to take place during their event, at which time they will declare Rhonda to be The Reigning Queen Of Bluegrass Music.

Bob Everhart, who directs the festival, finds the honor to be well-deserved:

“Rhonda is an incredible person, and her talent is beyond belief when it comes to not only playing and performing the music she loves, but producing and promoting it as well. We haven’t had a figure in this style of music so powerful since Hank Williams Sr., left us the last of traditional country music when he passed away. There isn’t any doubt in any bluegrasser’s mind about who the reigning Queen of Bluegrass Music is, it’s Rhonda Vincent.”

In addition to receiving her crown, Rhonda Vincent will be inducted into America’s Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame, along with her parents, Carolyn and Johnny Vincent, and her two brothers, Brian and Darrin Vincent.

When we contacted Rhonda to get her reaction, she was understandably floored.

“I just heard about this. WOW….an actual crown. Just like Miss America?

I’ve never had an actual crown before. I can’t wait to see it. This should be a fun event!”

The 31st National Old Time Bluegrass& Country Festival is held August 28-Sept 3, 2006, at the Harrison County Fairgrounds in Missouri Valley, IA. They have shows scheduled with over 600 performers on 10 stages, with special Grand Ole Opry celebrity appearances expected from Jim Ed Brown, Jimmy C. Newman and Carlene Carter.

If you follow the music industry or country music news, you may have noted that country music superstar Vince Gill has some mighty ambitious plans for his next CD, These Days. It’s a four CD set to be released on October 17, but not as a greatest hits or career-wide retrospective. This multi-disk project contains 43 new tracks, each of them written or co-written by Gill himself. We were impressed when Tim O’Brien released two CDs simultaneously last year, but this really wins the prize!

Long time bluegrass fans know that Vince got his start playing bluegrass, including stints with Bluegrass Alliance, Boone Creek, and Byron Berline’s Sundance before moving towards country rock as a member of Pure Prarie League. The new project indicates that the material will be a mix of styles, with bluegrass included. The Del McCoury Band are listed as guest performers, and with Vince’s own demonstrated ability as a picker and singer, one imagines that the bluegrass that’s featured will be solid stuff.

Gill recently announced a tour in support of the CD, and the press release also mentioned that bluegrass music would be featured on the show. When we learned last week that Nashville banjo man Charlie Cushman had been hired for the tour, there was no doubt that it was true.

The tour dates can be found on the Vince Gill website.

We posted last month with news about the soon-to-be-released instrumental project from Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder. Entitled, Instrumentals, it features 11 tracks with Skaggs and his band, on a set of tunes authored by Ricky himself.

CMT.com has a nice feature on the CD up today, written by Edward Morris which captures Skaggs’ thoughts about releasing his first all-instrumental project after so many years in bluegrass and country music. Here’s a taste:

Taking a bunch of instrumentals from the recording studio to the concert stage can be tricky, Skaggs admits. He recently previewed the album to a group of music industry people and found the whole experience a bit awkward.

“Honestly, it felt strange to me as a bandleader to stand there and play six songs in a row with no singing,” he explains. “It’s kind of odd because you don’t really know how to set up the song. It’s not like you can say, ‘Here’s an old Stanley Brothers song that I grew up listening to and me and Keith Whitley sang together,’ or, ‘Here’s one I used to sing with Ralph [Stanley],’ or, ‘Here’s one of Monroe’s classics.’ How often do people want to hear you say, ‘Well, I wrote this one on the bus’?”

You can read the whole article online on CMT’s site, where they also have a photo gallery from the CD release show in July.

Audio samples from all 11 tracks can be found on the Skaggs Family web site, where special pricing is currently available for online orders.

On the heels of the heated discussion on this site about trading live shows, comes this story about sites that share tablature.

Major music publishers are continuing to pursue unauthorized music sites, including those offering tablature (mostly rock guitar tabs). The practice of sharing tabs online has existed for years, but publishers are now targeting destinations that are profiting from the use of copyrighted material. During a recent interview with National Public Radio (NPR), National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) attorney Jacqueline Charlesworth pointed to a campaign against,

sites that have hundred of guitars tabs, sheet music, often with lyrics, especially those running ads and making money off of other people’s copyrights.

One site that has been targeted by this campaign is Guitar Tab Universe, a massive destination that recently received warning letters from both the NMPA and Music Publishers’ Association (MPA). Owner Rob Balch complied with the requests, though he questioned the logic of the legal threats.

At what point does describing how one plays a song on guitar become an issue of copyright infringment? This website, among other things, helps users teach eachother how they play guitar parts for many different songs. This is the way music teachers have behaved since the first music was ever created. The difference here is that the information is shared by way of a new technology: the Internet.

Apparently, the NMPA/MPA believes that the Internet may be on the foul side of the legality line they would like to draw here. For me, I see no difference. It’s teachers educating students and covered as a ‘fair use’ of the tablature. The teachers here don’t even get paid nor do the students have to pay this website to access the lessons.

What he says is true, no money is changing hands between the people downloading the tabs. But a quick visit to his site reveals that he has sold advertising on the site. That is, he is making money off all the visitors to his site who are coming for the purpose of finding tablature to copyrighted songs. At least that’s the argument the publishers are pursuing.

I would suggest that it makes no difference whether he is “making money” or not off the site. If it is copyright infringement then it’s wrong, regardless of any income stream that may or may not exist. So the question really is, “What are the copyright laws regarding sheet music, lyrics, tablature, and fair use?” As far as I can tell, and I’m no lawyer, making a “copy” or reproduction of any “performable” portion of a piece of music is not considered fair use.

I do know this, John (AcuTab) has printed a number of books of tablature, and produced instructional DVDs of bluegrass artists teaching the solos they themselves played on a CD or recording. Most of the DVDs have contained somewhere between 7 and 15 songs and I know that John has always made a good faith effort to pursue and obtain licenses for each copyrighted song on those DVDs and in those books. And I might add that doing so has cost him a good bit of time and frustration, but it’s the right, and legal, thing to do.

We’ll open this thread to comments in case anyone wants to discuss the legal issues involved in the instance of websites sharing lyrics and tablature for copyrighted songs. Let’s hear from you…

John adds: Not only is researching (and paying!) copyright royalties to songwriters cumbersome, time-consuming and almost always incomplete, the explosion of growth in free tab sites has all but killed the market for the sort of authorized tab transcription books that AcuTab was created to publish. That, and the surge in the use of instructional DVDs, has created a market where we are not likely to ever publish another tab book companion to a bluegrass CD release. If bluegrass consumers prefer free tab sites online to authorized, artist-approved tab books (for which the artist is compensated), that’s what they will get.

Most of you should be familiar with Disc Makers, the company that provides CD replication services to unsigned artists. Recently they held the Disc Makers Independent Music World Series (IMWS) West showcase in Los Angeles. This showcase was open to bands of all genres and so it’s very pleasing to see the bluegrass/rock band Rose’s Pawn Shop walk away as the grand prize winner. The total prize value for all winners was $250,000 and RPS got a good share of that including recording gear, instruments, CD manufacturing services, and more.

Fiddle and mandolin player Sebastian St. John commented,

We don’t know what to say or where to start; we didn’t expect to win on account of the great competition thanks to the talented ears of TAXI and Billboard Magazine…With an upcoming, self-funded three-month tour only a month away, the timing couldn’t be better. Armed with this win, some new gear and CD manufacturing from Disc Makers we feel as though we can do anything.

Rose”s Pawn Shop was one of six finalists competing before a panel of fourteen judges that included Bobby Borg, the author of The musicians handbook: A Practical Guide to Understanding the Music Business and instructor at UCLA, Rob Hoffman, a producer and songwriter who has worked with legendary artists like Michael Jackson, The Temptations, Etta James and Christina Aguilera, and entertainment lawyer Owen Sloane, who currently represents Rob Thomas, Matchbox Twenty, The Pink Spiders and the American Idol finalist Chris Daughtry.

IMWS showcases are held in each of four regions throughout the country (Midwest, Southeast, Northeast, and West). The regional focus of IMWS helps independent musicians make an impact in their own backyard and make connections that can help advance their careers. The competition is open to musicians of all genres not currently signed to a major record label. Professional music screeners from TAXI select 100 semi-finalists from the entries and the editors of Billboard Magazine choose the six finalists.

Rose”s Pawn Shop is a band of 20-somethings who play bluegrass infused rock with banjo, guitars, mandolin, fiddle, pedal steel, upright bass and drums. Their sound is that of the jam bands on the fringes of bluegrass. While it would have been more exciting had a strait ahead bluegrass band won this competition, it is still encouraging that a band with this much bluegrass in their sound was found acceptable by the main stream.

We have posted a few times recently about the upcoming release from The Grascals, Long List of Heartaches, due on August 29 from Rounder Records. There are no audio samples available yet online, but starting today, XM Radio subscribers will have a chance to hear the entire album on satellite radio.

The show will run on XM’s Bluegrass Junction (Channel 14), and debuts today (8/9) at 3:00 p.m. (EDT). It runs just over an hour and will include a spin of all 13 tracks, along with interviews. Terry Eldridge and Terry Smith from the band will join Bluegrass Junction host Kyle Cantrell for this exclusive presentation.

Airtimes for the Long List Of Heartaches preview broadcasts are:

All times shown are Eastern. The 24/7 bluegrass feed can be found on XM Channel 14, DirectTV channel 812, and also on AOL Radio. Pre-orders for the new CD can be placed on the Rounder web site.

Here are a couple of earlier posts we ran about the new CD:

New Grascals CD due 8/29
Grascals interview available online

The new Chris Thile project, How To Grow A Woman From The Ground, won’t be officially released until September 12, but Chris is now accepting pre-orders online. Anyone who orders in advance will also be entitled to two free digital downloads of songs Chris recorded on his computer. The CD won’t be shipped until next month, but the downloads (More Pretty Girls Than One and Stony Creek) will be available immediately.

There is a track listing and a pre-order link online. You can hear two more samples from the CD on Chris’ MySpace page, where he has been previewing tracks from How To Grow A Woman From The Ground for several weeks, a few at a time.

Here are links to some of our earlier posts about this new CD, which marks Thile’s return to recording with a bluegrass ensemble, though the music they cut is as daring, adventurous, and genre-defying as any he has released to date.

New tracks from upcoming Chris Thile release
Chris Thile trivia contest on MySpace
New Thile CD samples up
Chris Thile touring this summer

Alan Dalton wrote in recently to let us know about a DVD release of the last recorded performance of fiddle legend, Vassar Clements.

The recording took place in Athens, Georgia on December 18, 2004. The performance featured Clement’s Holiday Band; Mark Van Allen, Bobby Lee Rodgers, Ted Pecchio, Tyler Greenwell, Count M’Butu, David Blackmon, Carroll Clements, Alan Dalton and Joe Craven. Violinist and vocalist from Nashville, Ms. Andrea Zonn, made a special appearance and performed with the Holiday Band for a couple of tunes and an amazing ‘three-fiddle jam’ with Clements and Blackmon.

Before Clements passed in August 2005, he had expressed his wish to preserve this live performance on DVD.

Says Farley Daniel, producer and longtime friend of Clements’:

The December show recording was to add songs for a compilation CD we had been putting together to benefit Nuci’s Space. Everything fell into place after Vassar agreed to do it. At the last minute, I asked a friend to film it. Little did we realize then, the significance this show would have in the long run. Vassar was really pleased to help Nuci’s Space. After his tour of the facility with Linda Phillips, the founder, he told me, “This is wonderful what they’re doing here. They should have these all over the place!”

The film isn’t one of those high rolling, top notch tapes…we hadn’t planned on it. And it doesn’t matter. It was V-MAN’s last recording, last filmed performance, and this is what he wanted to do. Several times he said, “I love that little town [Athens]. Let’s get me back there.”

When asked about the nickname ‘V-MAN’, Daniel says,

That started off as an ‘inside joke’ with Vassar years ago. Something to do with super heroes. He became one to many. He certainly was one to me. His absence is sometimes very profound and his impact in music is may still be immeasurable.

A DVD release/tribute concert is scheduled for Saturday, October 14, 2006 at The Melting Point in Athens, Ga. The band performing at the concert is comprised of Joe Craven , The Codetalkers; Bobby Lee Rodgers, Ted Pecchio, Tyler Greenwell, pedal steel player Mark Van Allen, Ralph Roddenbery Acoustic Funk Trio & jazz pianist Buzz Clifford.

Commenting on the tribute concert Daniel adds,

It’s been a little trickier, getting these folks together again for the DVD release, but they have gone out of their way to arrange their schedules. We may have a few more guests to come sit in. We just have to wait and see how it unfolds.

David Russell with The Bluegrass Journal reports that this past weekend’s benefit concert for Ernie Thacker was a great success. It was held in Flat Rock, MI.

The show kicked off at 2:00 PM and carried on through to 9:00 PM. There was a great turn out of local bands, fans, and bluegrass newbies. There was non-stop grass from bands like The Harris-Ellis Band, Run For Cover, Fulton County, The Coachmen, New Memphis Express, as well as an all star kids band with a roster of up and coming talent (Dr. Banjo would have been proud). I’d like to thank all the bands that showed, and all the fans as well. Your donations will be put to good use for Ernie and his family. Keep Ernie in your thoughts and prayers.

Regular readers of The Bluegrass Blog know that Ernie was quite seriously injured in an accident this past April. Read our several reports on Ernie and his recovery here.

Ernie’s web site is regularly updated with news of his rehabilitation, and the various benefits held to assist him and his family as he regains his health and mobility. The site also includes information on how friends and fans can contribute to the Ernie Thacker Fund.

We hope to have an interview with Ernie available here soon.

Yesterday afternoon I made a couple little changes to the site and things got funny for a few minutes. Here’s what I changed.

I updated the Hot Topics box in the sidebar (just below the second ad) to be automated. Instead of being manually updated it is now running off a script that determines which topics are Hot based on a number of factors including: page views, feed views, comments, and trackbacks. All from the last 30 days so it stays current.

The result of this is that you can now see which topics are being read and commented on the most by other readers. I hope this proves useful and interesting for you.