What sort of talent must it take to convince bluegrass legends like Earl Scruggs and Little Roy Lewis to participate in the label debut release for a 23 year old artist?

Or generate praise like this from Mr. Scruggs?

“I have been traveling for many years, but it is seldom that you see such a talented newcomer as Elizabeth Long. She’ll be a household name among bluegrass fans.”

The talented newcomer, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Long, has her first project with Nashville’s Vine Records set for an April 16, 2007 release. The young fiddler and singer actually has four CDs she has released on her own, and they show her at home with both old time fiddle favorites and songs with a country feel.

The official press materials from Vine describe the new CD, Lifetimes - Lewis, Scruggs and Long, in this way:

Listeners can look forward to traditional bluegrass favourites and instrumentals on this release, as well as original compositions written by Long, Haun, and a list of award-winning writers, including Barry Dean, Don Poythress, Joel Lindsey, Wayne Kirkpatrick, and Mac Wiseman.

The CD is produced by Wayne Haun and Kevin Ward, and will be distributed by Crossroads Marketing.

Thanks to our friend Richard Thompson, who first brought this new project to our attention.

This Saturday, January 27, 2007, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver will join host Garrison Keillor on NPR’s Prairie Home Companion.

The show will be broadcast live from the Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, PA. The show is already sold out, but you should be able to listen to your local NPR station or tune in online from 5-7 PM CT.

Our friends at The European Bluegrass Blog have noted that Claire Lynch has scheduled a one-week European tour for the first week of May ‘07.

She’ll perform in Austria, Holland and Germany, and promoter Karl Heinz Siber indicates particular excitement about the final show, at the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater in Oldenberg, Germany. It has received corporate sponsorship and he is hopeful of having an annual bluegrass concert in this classic hall designed and built for superior acoustics.

These European shows are not yet listed on Claire’s site, but more details can be found on The European Bluegrass Blog.

Our friend Dan Ruby has just launched a completely overhauled and updated version of his site Festival Preview. The site is designed to be a one-stop source for news, opinion, and comment on festivals of all genres happening anywhere in North America.

Portions of the site are dedicated to Roots music (includes Bluegrass, Folk, and Americana), Rock, R&B, Jazz, and Classical. Each genre page includes information about upcoming festivals, a featured artist, news aggregated from around the web via RSS (the Roots section includes news from The Bluegrass Blog), featured articles, and festival reviews.

Another feature you may find of interest is the group blogs for each genre. These blogs consist of festival reviews written by a core group of fans that have partnered with Festival Preview. They are still seeking additional bloggers at this time.

If you attend multiple festivals and want to share your thoughts and experiences with Festival Preview readers, we invite you to apply. We can’t pay but will help you secure press credentials for festivals you wish to attend. Apply to join our blogging team.

Festival Preview should prove to be a great asset for those who enjoy attending music festivals. You’ll be able to find all the festivals you might be interested in, Preview them, and then review them after you attend thereby helping others make decisions in the future.

BBC Radio 4 FM carried a 30 minute program yesterday on the history of the banjo. It is set to air again on January 29 from 11:00-11:30 p.m. (GMT), but it can also be heard on the BBC web site in its entirety.

The perspective is decidedly British, as one might expect, and the approach is serious and academic - aside from lauching the show with a typically smug banjo joke, not the only one, I’m sad to report.

They discuss the downstroke and minstrel styles that were popular in Britain during the Victorian era, and trace the history of English banjo players of that day, through modern times. Some prominent British banjoists are interviewed, along with a current builder.

The BBC describes the show thusly on their site:

Julian Vincent from Bath University presents a history of the banjo, a much-maligned instrument which enjoyed enormous popularity in bygone days.

From its African roots via the American slave trade, the banjo became the prime instrument of popular entertainment, particularly in Britain, from the minstrel shows featuring blacked-up whites to the drawing rooms of fine young Victorian ladies.

In the last third of the program, they focus on bluegrass and clawhammer banjo, showing just how truly international the interest in this music has become.

The show is entitled Syncopatin’ Shuffle, and it is currently available online in Real Media format. It’s a great listen.

The 3rd annual Midwest Banjo Camp is set for June 1-3, 2007 on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. The faculty includes many of the biggest names in bluegrass and old time banjo, such as Alan Munde, Bill Evans, Murphy Henry, Ken Perlman, Mike Seeger and Clarke Buehling.

The camp sets up a large number of highly specialized classes, with tracks for beginning, intermediate and advanced players. The instruction is designed to offer a mix of hands-on workshops and demonstrations of specific styles and techniques. Two faculty concerts are also on the schedule.

The full list of instructors is quite impressive:

• Old-time: Cathy Barton-Para, Clarke Buehling, Cathy Fink, Joe Newberry, Michael Miles, Ken Perlman and Mike Seeger.
• Bluegrass: Danny Barnes, Janet Beazley, Greg Cahill, Bill Evans, Murphy Henry, Gerald Jones, Ned Luberecki, Alan Munde and Mike Sumner
• Accompanists: Peter Knupfer (bluegrass fiddle) and Ron McKeever (bluegrass guitar)

Midwest banjo Camp is operated under the direction of Ken Perlman. Full details can be found on the MBC web site.

Be on the lookout for The Grascals on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Monday, February 12. They’ll be on with Dierks Bentley, with whom they recorded for his new CD.

Bentley is a long-time friend of The Grascals’ Terry Eldridge, and he sang a duet with Terry for their latest release, Long List of Heartaches on the song Being Me. Terry returned the favor for Dierks’ latest CD, Long Trip Alone, and they will perform this duet, Prodigal Son’s Prayer, on The Late, Late Show.

The show airs at 12:35 a.m. (ET/PT) on 2/12 (technically 2/13 for those who are sticklers about such things).

Mark your calendar - and set your TiVo if you’re early to bed - to see Dierks and The Grascals on TV.

Since it’s inception in 1989, The Larry Stephenson Band has been a four piece ensemble. Now, in 2007, the cast has been expanded to include a fifth member, Jason Barie, on fiddle. Jason’s background includes classical, bluegrass, gospel, and country music. He is a 6-time winner of the Florida State Fiddle Championship., and has played on over 20 albums.

With the addition of Jason, the line up of the band is now:

• Larry Stephenson - mandolin
• Dustin Benson - guitar
• Kyle Perkins - upright bass
• Kristin Scott Benson - banjo
• Jason Barie - fiddle

Having performed as a four piece for such a length of time, one might wonder why Larry decided at this point to hire a fifth member. The answer it seems is two fold. Apparently he felt the addition of a fiddle would bring a new dimension to the band sound that would engender a change for the better. Secondly, it seems they were in need of another vocalist to complete the quartet.

A quartet of vocals would be important considering the band is currently putting the finishing touches on a brand new gospel album due out sometime late spring or early summer 2007 on the Pinecastle label.

We posted last month about a week of club dates in New York for Bill Evans’ Soulgrass. This is Bill Evans the jazz sax man who has been recording and performing an interesting jazz/bluegrass fusion, not our friend Bill Evans the bluegrass banjo player and instructor.

The shows will be at the fabled Blue Note starting tonight (1/23-28), and will feature Tony Trischka and Sam Bush along with the other members of Soulgrass.

Craig Havighurst, who blogs at String Theory Media, wrote a piece for today’s Wall Street Journal as a preview for the Evans shows this week. In addition to his overview of the Soulgrass sound, and comments from Evans and Trischka, Craig discusses some of the reasons why bluegrass and jazz aren’t such distant cousins as they may seem at first glance.

In fact, bluegrass and jazz, particularly bebop, are musical contemporaries and cousins—progressive departures from the dominant sounds of their day, forged during World War II. Both drew a line between the traditional and the modern in their respective forms. Even musically there were similarities, beginning with common roots in the blues. Both were inclined toward blazing tempos, rhythmic intricacies and intense, even competitive improvisation, suggesting that these schools, despite coming from cultures as distant and disparate as 1940s New York and 1940s Nashville, might one day meet and mingle to good effect.

The Journal site can not be accessed without a subscription, but the entire piece can be found on Craig’s site.

I know Pandora.com has existed for a while now, but I’ve just recently given it a try and thought I’d share with the rest of you. If you don’t know, Pandora.com is a website where you get to set up your own radio channels. The idea is that you tell it what you like and Pandora will find other things it thinks you might also like. You can also tell it if you don’t like something, but I’ve only had to do that once so far. It’s pretty amazing actually.

How they come up with suggestions is based on research conducted by the Music Genome Project.

It’s the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics … and more - close to 400 attributes!

(more…)

Blind Man Walking, the Skaggs Family Records debut from Cadillac Sky, is officially released today. Their sound is decidedly modern, but grounded in the roots of both the early pioneers of bluegrass, and seminal newgrass artists as well.

The band is fronted by mandolinist, vocalist and songwriter Bryan Simpson from Fort Worth, TX. He started the band there in 2002 with young banjo prodigy Matt Menefee, guitarist Mike Jump, fiddler Ross Holmes and Andy Moritz on bass.

Skaggs Family has been high on this bunch since they were signed in May 2006, shortly after they placed second in the ‘06 SPBGMA International Bluegras Band Championships.

Audio samples from Blind Man Walking are available on the Skaggs Family site, on their MySpace page and in the iTunes Music Store.

Pete Seeger and co-author Paul DuBois Jacobs were awarded the Schneider Family Book Award this week for their 2005 book, The Deaf Musicians. It is a story about a young musician who loses his hearing, and forms a band of deaf children at a school for the hearing-impaired.

The award from the American Library Association is for “books that embody the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.”

The awards were announced yesterday (1/22) at the ALA annual meeting in Seattle, WA.

Some further details about the awards can be found in this 1/23 AP story.

Next month I’m heading to Nashville for a day to record a live concert DVD with three fantastic young guitar players. They play in some of today’s top bluegrass bands. Here they are.

• Chris Eldridge - The Infamous Stringdusters / Chris Thile and How To Grow A Band
• Andy Falco - Alecia Nugent
• Josh Williams - Rhonda Vincent & The Rage

The show will be held at the world famous Station Inn (It’s not on their calendar yet, but it was just confirmed.) in Nashville, TN on February 19, 2007. That’s a Monday night, so if you’re in Nashville that week, be sure to come out. Who knows, you might end up on video!

We’ll be recording two shows that evening, one at 7PM and the other at 9PM. Tickets are $10 per show or $15 for both. I don’t believe there is any advance ticketing, it’s just pay at the door and first come, first serve.

The concert is being produced by Dan Miller at Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, and is the fourth in a series of concert DVD productions he and I have done together. The first three are available from Flatpicking Mercantile and feature the “A list” of bluegrass flatpicking guitarists. Here’s a clip from the last one in the series, Live In Kansas City, featuring Cody Kilby, Brad Davis, and Tim May.

Rob Ickes has announced a four day resophonic guitar summit in Nashville this fall. Billed as ResoSummit, it will include workshops and performances, and a hands-on experience is promised for all students.

Instructors tapped to participate in addition to Rob are Mike Auldridge, Phil Leadbetter, Randy Kohrs, Michael Witcher, and Andy Hall, plus luthiers Tim Scheerhorn and Paul Beard.

Things kick off on Thursday (11/8) with a concert at The Station Inn by The Infamous Stringdusters. Classes then run from Friday (11/9) through Sunday (11/11). Here’s how Rob describes the weekend’s activities:

From Friday through Sunday, we’ll have a full menu of workshops, jams, “dobro speed dates,” faculty fave song deconstruction, and other creative approaches designed to ramp up your playing rapidly and enrich your creativity. We’ll be tapping some truly gifted teachers and players to make all this happen, and we’re going to make sure everyone has lots of fun in the process. We’ve found a great campus right off Music Row - The Scarritt-Bennett Center - for all our daytime activities. This beautiful Gothic campus will make you think you’re in college (except no exams!), and will put you in just the right mood for a high-energy learning experience. And a nearby recording studio will be available for a hands-on recording experience, for those who dare!

Each night during the ResoSummit, we’ll head back to The Station Inn for some great performances by bands featuring faculty members, including Three Ring Circle. And for the grand finale on late Sunday afternoon, we’ll have a closing performance at the Harambee Auditorium at Scarritt-Bennett.

By the end of the Summit on Sunday evening, you’ll be loaded up with enough inspiration and “homework” to keep you busy for the next year!

There is no web site for the event, but Rob encourages anyone with an interest in ResoSummit to contact him by email for registration forms. Full tuition is $350, which includes all workshops and evening concerts.

Larry Cordle will the guest on Tuesday evening’s songwriter chat at bluegrassguide.com, the web site for the Bluegrass Guide, a print periodical published by Mountain High Bluegrass Association.

The format is intended to be one where songwriters have an opportunity to pose questions and interact with prominent practitioners of the craft. While everyone is encouraged to participate in the discussion, lurkers are welcome as well.

Cordle, of course, has seen success as a songwriter in both the bluegrass and country music worlds, penning hits for Ricky Skaggs (Highway 40 Blues) and Alan Jackson (Murder On Music Row). He has had a long career recording and performing his own compositions with his band, Lonesome Standard Time.

The chat starts at 8:00 p.m. (EST) on January 23, and you can find a link to the chat room on the Bluegrass Guide web site.

The Tony Trischka piece on NPR’s Weekend Edition which Brance mentioned on Saturday can now be heard online. It ran earlier today on most NPR radio affiliates.

Tony appeared along with Steve Martin and Bela Fleck to discuss his new Rounder CD, Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular.

Hear the segment on the Weekend Edition site.

Here’s an update on the status of the concert DVD of IIIrd Tyme Out’s Round III at the Mac. When the CD was released last August, we posted that the DVD was expected to be released not long afterwards.

The August ‘05 performance at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonburg, KY - site of two previous IIIrd Tyme Out live recordings - was captured for both audio and video release. After experiencing several delays, the band has obtained the services of a new video production company to complete the editing and DVD mastering, and expects to see the finished DVD within a matter of weeks.

Russell Moore added this note on the band’s web site:

“I want to mention that neither Keith Caudill (director at the MAC) nor any of the staff at the Mountain Arts Center were responsible for the delay in the production of this DVD. They have always been, and continue to be, our friends and a joy to work with!”

We’ll be sure to update here when the DVD is available.

Entries are now being accepted for the 2007 Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk contest for emerging songwriters. The contest was instituted in 1972 at the suggestion of Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary), and has been held each year since.

The final competition will take place during the 36th annual Kerrville Folk Festival (May 24-June 10, 2007), one of the largest folk music events in the southern United States.

The first 800 entries received prior to March 15, 2007 will be entered in the competition, and there were 225 entrants as of this morning. 32 finalists will be chosen and invited to perform at the festival on 5/24, with six winners selected to perform again on the 25th.

The contest is for new material, so only songs written after January 1, 2005 are eligible.

Entries can be submitted by mail, or via sonicbirds, and a $20 entry fee is required. There is an additional fee of $29.95 to register with sonicbirds, which also includes a six month subscription to their electronic press kit service.

We just received an update from Randy Kohrs regarding the new CD he is currently working on. The project, Old Photograph, will be released March 13, 2007 on the Rural Rhythm record label.

The first single, Rockwell’s Gold, from this upcoming project is now online at Randy’s Myspace page. The tune features the stellar singing we’ve come to expect from Randy, and the band sounds great.

Rockwell’s Gold will be released to radio as the second track on the current edition of Prime Cuts.

Kohrs wrote, or co-wrote, nine of the twelve tracks on the new CD, including Rockwell’s Gold. The musicians on the disc include members of his touring band The Lites as well as guests Scott Vestal, Tim Crouch, Jim Hurst, Stephen Mougin, and Rhonda Vincent.

Can’t wait to hear this CD in it’s entirety!

If you are a mandolin player, or lover, here is a great opportunity for you. SoundArt Recordings is giving away several Apple iPods along with your choice of five CDs of mandolin music from the SoundArt Catalog as part of a giveaway hosted by the Mandolin Cafe.

SoundArt Recordings is the mandolin focused recording label of Butch Baldassari in Nashville, TN. Butch and Mandolin Cafe are giving away one iPod each to three lucky winners, including a 4GB iPod nano (retail $199.00, pictured here) and two iPod Shuffles (retail $75.00 each).

Starting February 1, 2007 visitors to the Mandolin Cafe will be able to sign up for a chance to win. The winning entries will be selected randomly on February 15, 2007. No purchase is necessary to register.

Butch says the idea for the give away originated with Mandolin Cafe’s owner Scott Tichenor.

The i-pod idea was Scott Tichenor’s….we gave away cd’s last year….so this year it’s something different.

Butch added that he didn’t have much experience with the iPod, but had thought about the device and had several significant questions about it.

I wonder how many mandolin notes it would take to fill up an iPod?

Do they make a BlueGrass iPod…..you know, one that only plays songs in B? (that’s what i hear walking the halls @ RBW)

Or maybe a DAWG iPod….only plays tunes in a Minor Key….back in the day i used to tell some of my old girlfriends that my car radio only picked-up Country Music…..some of them believed me!!!

Hmm…maybe we should suggest these things to Apple!