Destination festival Merlefest has just announced it’s artist lineup for 2007. The event is scheduled to be held April 26-29, 2007. Tickets will go on sale Tuesday November 14, 2006 at 2:00 PM EST.

Remember that this line up is subject to revision between now and next April. Personally I’m glad to see a nice collection of strait up bluegrass represented at next year’s festival.

WILKESBORO, N.C., Oct. 19 — Ticket sales for MerleFest 2007, the Americana Music Celebration Presented by Lowe’s, will begin on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 2:00 PM EST. Wilkes Community College will present MerleFest 2007, the 20th annual festival in celebration of the music of the late Merle Watson and his father Doc Watson, on its campus in Wilkesboro, NC on April 26 - 29, 2007. Those joining Doc Watson and Merle’s son Richard Watson for MerleFest 2007 will include Blue Highway; Sam Bush; Cherryholmes; Elvis Costello; John Cowan Band; Donna The Buffalo; Jerry Douglas; The Duhks; Bela Fleck; Paul Geremia; John Hammond; Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver; Del McCoury Band; Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; Peter Rowan & Tony Rice Quartet; Darrell Scott; the Legendary Earl Scruggs with Family & Friends; Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives; Pam Tillis; The Waybacks; and many others. Starting on November 14th at 2 PM EST, those with Internet access may acquire their tickets easily by visiting http://www.merlefest.org and, if purchasing assigned seats at the Watson Stage, actually pick their seat location on line.

If you don’t want to order online you can call 1-800-343-7857 (US only) or 336-838-6267 (non-US) weekdays. Or, if you’d prefer, you can mail order your tickets at this address:

MerleFest
P.O. Box 120
Wilkesboro, NC 28697

Additional info:

Full Press Release
Volunteer for MerleFest
Vendor info
Sponsorship Inquiries
General information

Flatpicker Mo Canada has a new CD, released appropriately enough on Flatpicking Guitar Magazine’s label. Entitled Grassoline, it features 12 instrumentals that highlight Canada’s celebrated guitar playing, with assistance from some of the most skilled pickers in bluegrass. Tony Rice, Randy Kohrs, Phil Leadbetter and Scott Vestal contribute, along with Darrell Webb, Ed Canada, Raymond McClain and Wyatt Rice, who engineered and produced the project

Canada, 25 years old, studied in the bluegrass music program at East Tennessee State University. He is also joined on Grassoline by Raymond McClain, director of the prgram at ETSU, and former bandmates there, JP Mathes and Taro Inoue.

Mo’s web site contains a powerful endorsement from the reigning IBMA Guitar Player of the Year, Bryan Sutton:

“What a great recording. Mo Canada shines in this collection of mainly new tunes. He really does a great job showcasing his personality as a guitarist here. To me, one of the hallmarks of a great bluegrass instrumentalist is playing with drive without overpowering the sound of the band as a whole. Mo certainly doesn’t let me down. I’m impressed with his wonderfully mature sense of melody and groove. If this weren’t enough, Mo’s got one of the best tones I’ve heard in a long time. Anyone interested in Bluegrass guitar should give this recording a serious listen.”

There are no audio samples up on the FGM Records site, but one track plays on Mo’s site, which also contains a nice gallery of photos taken during the Grassoline recording sessions.

Express, a blog belonging to the Washington Post, has a short article up about Chris Thile. They quote Chris on the topic of bluegrass tradition. Chris expresses his viewpoint in words similar to those he used in our recent GrassCast interview with him. Chris is obviously on a mission to let people know that bluegrass is really a young music and that it’s still growing. But he opens up a controversy with his comments. Some in the bluegrass world would like to prevent the music from changing because they fear it will no longer be bluegrass if it changes from it’s present form, or the form it had in the ’40s, or whatever. Here’s Chris’ exact comment.

“The community treats it like … it needs to be preserved and put in a glass case,” he said. “I’d like to help dispel this feeling that it’s this old American form that’s a relic.”

I see his point, but at the same time I have a great love for traditional bluegrass and don’t want to see it dissolve into a featureless amalgam of music with or without a banjo in it. I have confidence that it won’t. I think there are plenty of fans who will look for and purchase different styles of bluegrass, I will. Chris’ music and Del’s music can sit side by side on my iPod without conflict.

What do you think?

We just got word from the folks at WAMU/BluegrassCountry.org that one of their wayward show hosts has returned to the roost. Bill Foster, who was a host on the popular Bluegrass Overnight show broadcast in the DC area from 1985 to 1998, is back on staff.

He will once again be a host on Bluegrass Overnight, with his return debut scheduled for this Sunday, October 22. He’ll be on live on WAMU.org from midnight to 6:00 a.m., and the show will be rebroadcast on BluegrassCountry.org throughout the following week.

Bill is a great friend to bluegrass music and an active contributor on many levels.

We join Bill’s coworkers at BluegrassCountry.org in welcoming him back to Virginia (after an eight year ex-pat existence in Florida), and to broadcasting bluegrass at WAMU.

Noted bluegrass mandolinist Mike Compton has two new videos up on YouTube. Both are simple productions, and feature Mike playing through a fiddle tune.

The first has Mike playing a somewhat obscure Bill Monroe tune, Frog On A Lilly Pad. It is one that Monroe wrote later in life, and though it was played a bit in the 80s, never reached the popularity of some of his other great tunes, a good many of which are jam session standards.

The other video is Mike playing Jenny Lynn, an old time tune that became associated with Monroe as well, through it being mentioned in the lyrics for Uncle Pen, and for being included as the outro for the song when he recorded and performed it.

Mandolinists interested in Mike’s distinctive style, or anyone who likes good mandolin playing, will certainly enjoy giving these clips a look see.

Well…almost.

The new release from bluegrass legend Curly Seckler is now available, but not in the ways with which you may be accustomed. The folks at Copper Creek Records have decided to release this project almost exclusively for download.

A limited pressing of manufactured CDs were made, for distribution to radio and for Curly to sell at shows, but no audio CDs will be sold through record stores or other common CD sources.

Bluegrass, Don’t You Know is the name of this new release, which includes 14 tracks. 7 are Seckler originals, and Curly reprises some of his classic offerings from the days with Flatt & Scruggs as well. You’ll find new versions of Some Old Day, Why Did You Wander, Bouquet In Heaven, That Old Book Of Mine and Brother I’m Getting Ready To Go.

Helping out are such bluegrass luminaries as Larry Sparks, Russell Moore, Larry Cordle, Dudley Connell, Rob Ickes, Herschel Sizemore, Tater Tate, Larry Perkin and more.

You can hear samples from each track, or purchase the “CD” for download at Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Audio CDs can be obtained from Curly directly, via his web site.

There’s something plainly fascinating about seeing a member of bluegrass music’s first generation embracing new distribution models. Kudos to Curly, and Gary Reid at Copper Creek for giving this a try.

That’s the question that’s answered in the final installment of Wichita Rutherford’s IBMA video clips. It’s one of Wichita’s great True or Rumor podcasts. If you just can’t stay out the personal life of a bluegrass celebrity and have to know what Alison called her grandmothers, then you’d better click over to Wichita’s Blog, watch the video, and find out the truth from Alison herself.

Sadly, Wichita is saying this is the last of the video clips in the series. That saddens me because I was cheering him on in his Ricky Skaggs impression and really wanted to see him nail it. I just know he can do it.

To watch him try, and fail, a couple times you might want to watch those clips as well while you’re on his blog.

For those of you desiring to learn old-time banjo, or frailing banjo as it’s sometimes called, here is a resource you might want to check out. Patrick Costello has a book available called The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo. If you want a print edition, you can order it from Amazon, or if you’d prefer free, you can read it online or download it here.

In addition to the How and Tao book, which is aimed more toward beginners, Costello also offers a book for more advanced banjo players entitled The Book of Five Strings. It is also available online as a free download.

Hat Tip: Fretboard Journal Blog

This one probably should have been filed under celebrity gossip or something, but we don’t have a category for that. Anyway, according to the PR Inside website, Brad Pitt is learning to play the mandolin. And not for a role he’s playing. He’s doing it for a role Angelina Jolie is playing. She’s playing Mariane Pearl, wife of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl in a movie titled A Mighty Heart.

Brad, who is a producer on the movie, is helping her immerse herself in the role by attempting to emulate Daniel in almost every way, including learning to play the instrument he was accomplished in.

Brad - who has no acting part in the film - spends hours discussing the relationship between Daniel and Mariane with Angelina while strumming his mandolin.

The role of Daniel is actually being played by Dan Futterman, who starred in ‘Shooting Fish’ and ‘The Birdcage’. I haven’t seen or heard anything to suggest that Mr. Futterman is learning mandolin or fiddle. Speaking of which, wasn’t Daniel Pearl more of a violin/fiddle player than a mandolin player? But I guess asking Brad Pitt to learn fiddle might be a bit much, mandolin will do.

Gibson’s bluegrass division introduced three new limited edition models recently - one each in their banjo, dobro and mandolin lines.

The new banjo is a vintage RB-4 re-issue. Like the style 4 banjos made prior to WWII, this re-issue will be made with a walnut neck and resonator, and chrome (rather than nickel) plated hardware.

Gibson will only make 40 of these Retro 4s, and they will carry a list price of $5443.

In the dobro line, Gibson has just introduced a limited edition Phil Leadbetter signature mahogany model. Only 50 guitars will be made in this series, and Phil will inspect, play and sign each one before it is shipped.

The body and neck are made of solid mahogany, and employs a hand-spun Quarterman aluminum cone, with bound, open soundholes in the body. I have not been able to find the price for this dobro, but will post an update when I do.

Gibson is also creating a new mandolin in their signature artist series, this one for Ricky Skaggs. It will be a Master Model F5, with a distressed finish and a neck shaped to exactly match his Loar. Ricky will inspect each instrument before it is shipped, and sign the label when he is satisfied that the mandolin is set up properly. Only 30 of these mandolins will be made.

The Skaggs Master Models will ship with both a standard Gibson case, Small Dog case cover and a tone guard. List price is set as $25,554. There is no information up yet on the Gibson site about this mandolin.

IBMA and the Minnesota Bluegrass & Old-Time Music Association will jointly host a Bluegrass In The Schools workshop in Minneapolis, MN early in November. It will be held in conjunction with the Harvest Jamboree festival (11/3-4), and is designed to offer bands and individual bluegrass artists help in developing educational programs to present in schools.

All festival events, including a number of other band development workshops, will be help at the Marriott Minneapolis West. Nancy Cardwell and Tom Kopp of IBMA, and Bob Bovee and Gail Heil from MBOTMA will lead the Bluegrass In The Schools training session.

You can find the entire list of artist training sessions on the MBOTMA web site.

We just got word that Chris Thile is shooting a music video today in New York in support of the new How To Grow A Woman From The Ground CD. It’s for the song, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, and will feature all the members of his How To Grow A Band unit.

The video is being shot by noted filmaker and photographer, Danny Clinch.

No word yet on when it might be finished and released.

There are two detailed festival reports recently posted in The B.

The first comes from a user who goes by Lynyrd Banjovy, describing the Jerusalem Ridge Bluegrass Celebration in Kentucky. The other is from Ted Lehmann, and it’s about the Farmpark Bluegrass Festival in Denton, NC.

Find both posts in The B, where any of our registered users can submit a post to be considered for publication.

The folks at Bluegrass Guide will host the first Songwriter Chat session of their new season this evening (10/17). It will be with Eric and Leigh Gibson, and take place at 8:00 p.m. (EDT). Rick Lang of Haley Anna Music will host the session.

All are welcome, and there is no cost to join the chat. To participate (or merely lurk), you need to visit the Bluegrass Guide chat room, and click the “Live Chat” link.

This morning I was surfing around the net and discovered that Rounder Records has a video online about Bradley Walker. They’re calling it an ecard, but it’s more like a mini-documentary. It contains some obvious promotional elements, but that’s ok. It also features some great background info, pictures, old video footage, and comments from other artists and producers. Of course it centers around Bradley himself so you get to hear him talk about where he grew up and what his dreams are for the future, and of course, you get to hear him sing. In fact, it starts out with him sitting on a front porch and singing with no accompaniment.

If, like me, you are a fan of Bradley’s music, then the video is worth the time it takes to download it. It’s available in Windows Media and Realplayer formats, sadly no Quicktime version is available. I was able to open the WM version in QT and give it a watch. It is a 30 MB download so be prepared for it.

I should note that I discovered the video thanks to Craig over at String Theory Media. He produced the piece for Rounder and blogged about it recently.

Watch it.

The official web site for The Recording Academy, formerly The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, who distributes the annual Grammy Awards, has a nice piece up on the 40th Anniversary issue of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine. It was written by Dave Helland, and includes a brief overview of the magazine, and how it came into existence in 1966.

Helland includes quotes from founder, Pete Kuykendall, and from newgrass legend, Sam Bush.

“No one loves traditional bluegrass more then Pete does,” says Sam Bush, who bought his first issue of Bluegrass Unlimited at the second Roanoke Bluegrass Festival in Virginia. “At the same time, no one has been more supportive of young bands that come out and try to make their own sound.”

Doyle Lawson is also quoted. Read the full article at grammy.com.

Brad Davis called me the other afternoon just to say hi, but as always I asked him what he had been up to. Brad is a busy guy. He produces a TV show, does his own touring, performs with Earl Scruggs, records and performs with Billy Bob Thornton, and produces. Like I said, he’s busy. After I asked, he told me about a couple new projects he’s involved with and I got his permission to share them with you here.

First, Brad is the co-writer for every song on a new CD by Billy Bob Thornton. Not only did Brad co-write all the material, he also plays and sings on the record. It’s not really bluegrass, but it can’t help but have some grass hidden in there somewhere when Brad is involved.

The other project he’s worked on recently is a bluegrass tribute to Tim McGraw. This is another CMH Records project similar to the Strummin’ With The Devil tribute to Van Halen. On this particular CD though, it’s really all Brad. Brad played guitar, mandolin and bass. He also sang all but one tune on the record. That one was sung by Billy Bob. Joining Brad on the CD are his brother Greg Davis on banjo, Rob Ickes on dobro, Hoot Hester on fiddle, and Larry Marrs on harmony vocals.

Brad produced this CD as well as being the principle musician on it. So, for all you Brad Davis fans this will be a must have I’m sure.

Interestingly, the CD is finished and I believe it’s already shipped to distribution, but I could find no info about it on the CMH website. Brad was calling me from the CMH parkinglot where he was picking up a box for himself. He promised to send me a copy, so I’ll be sure to share with you what I think after I receive it.

Country music superstars Alabama have a new CD set for release on October 24, their first in more than five years. It will be a Gospel project, entitled Songs Of Inspiration, and will contain both familiar Gospel favoriates like Old Rugged Cross, Rock Of Ages and Amazing Grace, along with two new songs by Randy Owen.

We don’t expect that this will be a bluegrass recording, but both Ralph Stanley and The Isaacs are listed as guest artists. Stanley adds his vocals to I Am the Man Thomas, and The Isaacs join Alabama for a version of I Need Thee.

Songs Of Inspiration will be released jointly on RCA Records to traditional music retailers, and by Provident Music Group to Christian bookstores and resellers.

The recipients of this year’s Charlie Derrington Memorial Scholarship to attend the Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend have been announced. Four young musicians (aged 13-24) were selected, each of whom will attend the three day instructional weekend with their full tuition, accommodations and some travel costs paid by the scholarship.

The 2006 recipients are:

You can see photos of these young pickers, and hear audio samples from their scholarship applications on the Roanoke Bluegrass Weekend web site. The recipients are chosen based on their playing ability, and on an essay which is part of the application process.

The Charlie Derrington Memorial Scholarship is sponsored by Gibson, who donates a new Gibson instrument each year to be offered in a raffle to fund the scholarship. It is named in honor of Charlie Derrington, a long-time Gibson employee who was tragically killed in an auto accident in August, 2006.

This year, a Gibson RB-250 banjo is being offered in the raffle, and the $10 tickets can be purchased online up until November 1, 2006.

Congratulations to these terrific young bluegrass musicians.

We had mentioned Rhonda Vincent’s new Christmas recording, Beautiful Star: A Christmas Collection, when it was announced during the summer. The CD is set to be released tomorrow (10/17), and Rounder has audio samples from all 12 tracks up on their web site.

Rhonda talked about this new project during her recent GrassCast interview, which can be heard online. She described how this was the first time she had recorded an album in her new home studio, and what a difference it made in the way she approached the the work.