Yesterday’s edition of The Washington Post included a brief review of the new release from Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby, which Brance mentioned earlier this year.

It features both Skaggs and Hornsby as vocalists and instrumentalists, with Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder band as the primary rhythm section. The music includes mostly new compositions from the pair, plus reworked versions of Hornsby hits - including a minor key rendition of Mandolin Rain. The CD is spirited and stylistically diverse, though the most talked-about track, a up tempo bluegrass cut of Rick James’ Super Freak, may not amuse after the first listen.

Audio samples are available in the iTunes Music Store.

Hat tip to Katy Daly at BluegrassCountry.org.

John Prine and Mac Wiseman have teamed up for a set of great country music classics on a new CD from Oh Boy Records. Standard Songs For Average People was officially released on Saturday (3/24), and features the two legends (from different genres) sharing songs that the chose together when the project was initially being discussed.

The idea for the duets project was presented to Prine by Nashville producer Jack Clement, which led to an invitation for Mac to join him for a meeting and song swap session. They each then produced a list of songs they might want to record, with no stipulations as to peiod or style, and when they compared lists and saw that they had both suggested several of the same songs, they knew the project was a go.

Included are classics like Saginaw Michigan, Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine, as well as more obscure songs to which one or the other was particularly drawn. Mac wanted to feature Where The Blue of the Night, a Bing Crosby number which he had loved as a child. They also chose Blue Eyed Elaine, an Ernest Tubb track from the 1940s that never made it to the charts.

Our friend Craig Havighurst, who publishes the blog String Theory Media, shared some information and thoughts about Standard Songs For Average People in a press release for Oh Boy Records.

“The singers recorded the tracks facing each other across a dining room table set up in a basement studio near Nashville’s atmospheric and semi-renovated Neuhoff meat packing plant. Co-producer and engineer David Ferguson (Johnny Cash) assembled an extraordinary group of sidemen, including guitarists Pat McLaughlin and Jamie Hartford, drummer Kenny Malone, bassist Dave Jacques and pedal steel legend Lloyd Green.

It’s no stretch to call the final product a masterpiece. Standard songs, yes, but extraordinary choices and performances. Average people these aren’t, but the title carries the message that music like this, timeless and gentle and humane, is not for music snobs or insiders. It’s not only for the old or the young or for a demographic or psychographic. It is, across generation and persuasion, for all of us.”

I found a complete track listing at Amazon.com, but no audio samples. You can order the CD from either Amazon or Oh Boy Records.

Terry Herd first began his bluegrass radio show, Into The Blue, on KUMA in Pendleton, Oregon. That was in May of 1992, now in March of 2007 Into The Blue has added it’s 200th affiliate station, making Into The Blue easily the largest bluegrass radio show in syndication.

Commenting on his show’s success, lays the credit squarely on the music itself.

It’s been impressive to see the demand for bluegrass build on virtually every level. I think our success on commercial radio shows that high quality bluegrass music is not only accepted by the mainstream country fan, it is rapidly becoming part of the culture of successful commercial country radio.

Among the 200 stations currently playing Into The Blue are the legendary WSM AM in Nashville, WMC Memphis, KVOO Tulsa and WBKR Owensboro. I’ll relate to you here, that KVOO was were I first heard contemporary bluegrass music that made me want to be in this industry. I was living in Wyoming at the time and heard Ronnie Bowman’s cut Cold Virginia Night. That changed the course of my life and I now live in Southwest Virginia and attempt to make a living in bluegrass!

The Into The Blue website features a page where you can select a station in your area that does not currently carry the show and send them an email requesting that they do so. Click Here.

A reminder and a correction regarding Blue Highway singing the National Anthem before this afternoon’s NASCAR Busch race in Bristol, TN…

Look for Shawn Lane,  Tim Stafford and Wayne Taylor to kick off the race with the Star Spangled Banner shortly after the telecast begins at 3:00 p.m. (eastern) on Saturday, March 24.

When we first mentioned this about a week ago, we passed along some bad info. The race is being broadcast on ABC, and not Fox as we had it originally.

The numbers are in for the first quarter and they don’t look promising, at least not on the surface. Nielsen SoundScan reports that 89 million CDs were sold from January 1 through March 18. That’s a drop of nearly 20% from last year’s number of 112 million. This is the latest in a series of declines that began as early as 7 years ago. Year after year the industry has seen declines in the 5-10% range. This year could bounce back somewhat, but many analysts are suggesting we’ll continue to see sales of physical units slip.

The first follow up question you want to ask is “Did digital sales make up the difference?” The short answer is “no.” The longer answer is “somewhat.”

Breitbart.com reports that online sales of “digitized albums” fell from 119 million (during the first quarter of 2006) to 99 million. That’s a 17% decrease. What exactly is meant by “digitized albums” in unclear since later in the article they indicate that physical CD sales still account for 90% of sales.

Individual digital track sales did increase from 242 million tracks during the same time period last year to 288 million this year. That’s an increase of 16%. Industry wide though, estimates place total revenue at 25% less than it was a year ago.

So how is this to be viewed as good news? Michael Arrington, author of the popular technology blog Techcrunch, thinks it’s a good thing because it will force the industry to face the facts. (Story here)

The faster music labels realize their massively profitable days are over, the better it will be for them, as well as the bands they represent and us, their customers. Digital music sales are not going to make up for lost revenue. Suing their customer base is not going to make up for lost revenue. In fact, absolutely nothing is going to make up that lost revenue. The industry, revenue-wise, is going to continue to shrink.

As the marginal price of recorded music continues to fall towards zero, its natural price, bands will need to make money elsewhere. Live concerts will become more and more popular, and will be the largest source of revenue for many artists. Recorded music will be used to promote those live events.

I agree with him (more…)

When Brance reminded us last week about the debut of The Tensions Mountain Boys at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall), I was hoping to see at least one review in the New York press over the weekend. But no…

I’ve been on the lookout for reviews, and have found but a few - surprisingly, given the amount of anticipation that Chris’ new through-composed piece, The Blind Leaving The Blind, had been generating in advance of its coming out party on March 17.

Here are three that I’ve found online, for anyone curious about the new Thile music:

• Classically Hip
• Terry Teachout at ArtsJournal.com
• Mandi Bierly at Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com

If we find any more, we’ll post an update.

If you’ve not yet tired of the discussion about the newly announced royalty rates for Internet radio (now apparently being reconsidred), you might be interested in this post from Wired magazine’s blog.

It contains the full text of the testimony that Bob Kimball, Senior VP of RealNetworks, gave to the US House of Representative’s Subcommittee on Telecomunications and The Internet in early March. Kimball was testifying specifically on behalf of RealNetworks and The Digital Media Association (DiMA), but also with an eye to effect of the new rates on smaller webcasters.

Read the full text of his testimony at Wired Blog Network.

DiMA also has some resources on its site that may be worth your attention if these new rates are of concern.

• DiMA request for reconsideration of flaws in Internet radio rates
• Radio and Internet Newsletter reacts to new rates
• New rates threaten Internet radio
• WebCastersUnite.net
• SaveNetRadio.org

We welcome your comments on this issue, either to this post, or to the ongoing comment discussion here.

Claire Lynch and her talented band will be the guests on Friday morning (3/23) with Carole Beaugard on Lonesome Pine RFD. The show airs from 10:00 a.m. until noon (eastern) on WFDU FM, broadcast from the campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey.

The band will perform live in the WFDU studio, and will also join Carole for a group interview during the show. You can catch them over the air at 89.1 FM in the New York city metropolitan area, over on the Internet via live streaming.

The Claire Lynch Band features Missy Raines on bass, Jim Hurst on guitar and Dave Harvey on mandolin and fiddle.

Lonesome Pine RFD airs each Thursday from 6:00-9:00 a.m., and on Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to noon.

The recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) to restructure the way royalties are calculated for internet broadcasters, has lead to heated discussion here on The Bluegrass Blog as well as in the halls of Congress. It appears as if Congress is not inclined to act at this point to overrule the CRB, but the CRB itself has agreed to a rehearing on the matter.

We’ve documented the efforts of NPR and others to reopen negotiations with the CRB on this issue and it seems their efforts were not in vain. The CRB was petitioned by a number of parties including the NPR, Radio Broadcasters, Digital Media Alliance (DiMA), Intercollegiate Broadcasting System Inc., Small Commercial Webcasters, and others. Written arguments on the issues raised in the motion for rehearing must be filed with the court no later than April 2, 2007.

Commenting at a recent protest of the ruling, DiMA group executive director Jonathan Potter expressed the feelings many have about the rate structure imposed by the ruling.

We do not believe that the Copyright Royalty Board intended to shut down the vast majority of legitimate online radio services immediately when it issued its decision, yet that is the sober reality facing many services

This rehearing basically reopens the negotiations over the fee structure and amounts. Many are hoping this will lead to a more reasonable rate structure resulting in less damage to the growing webcasting industry.

Hal Ponder, the Legislative Director for the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), circulated a message by email yesterday to the union membership with regard to the brewing controversy over the recent Copyright Royalty Board rate structure.

It presents the union’s take on the rate increase, which it describes as “pro-musician,” and urges its membership to be vocal in response to the challenge coming from NPR and other sources.

A recent pro-musician decision of the Copyright Royalty Board has sparked a lot of adverse press. Even worse, webcasters and broadcasters have instigated a “grass-roots” campaign urging music fans to complain to Congress about the decision. The purpose of this e-mail is to make sure that musicians are informed about the facts - and to ask you to send your own pro-musician message to your representatives in Washington!

The Background. The Copyright Act requires webcasters and broadcasters to pay royalties when they stream sound recordings on the internet. By law, 50% of the royalties for streaming go to performers. SoundExchange collects the royalties and pays 45% of them directly to individual featured performers. SoundExchange pays 5% (the share set by statute) to the AFM and AFTRA Fund for distribution to session musicians and vocalists. The remaining 50% goes to the sound recording copyright owner - which is usually a record label but in some cases is also the performer.

The Decision. The judges heard 48 days of testimony and reviewed thousands of pages of evidence about the webcasting business and about the businesses of performers and record labels. AFM Vice President Harold Bradley and member Cathy Fink testified about the creative work musicians do in the recording process, and about how important this new income stream is to musicians. President Tom Lee testified about the ways SoundExchange works for musicians. And then the judges carefully considered all they had heard - and got it right. They wrote a careful, 115-page decision that acknowledged the value of musicians’ creative work and the importance of fairly compensating us when businesses use our product.

The Webcaster Backlash. Although the webcasters and broadcasters presented a complex and detailed case to the judges - and although the hearing process is one that they asked Congress to create - some don’t like the result and are seeking a Congressional override. This makes no sense. What is worse is that large (and wealthy) webcasters like AOL and Yahoo are hiding behind a few small webcasters who complain that as “small businesses,” they can-t afford to pay the royalties. Webcasters made similar complaints the last time rates were set in 2002 - and since then, webcaster revenues overall have jumped from $50 million to $500 million per year.

Performers Need to Be Paid for Use of Our Work. Most musicians need to patch together lots of income streams in order survive - including royalties for the use of our recordings. Please let Congress know how important this money is to musicians! Urge your representatives to resist the pressure to override the rates set by the CRB.

Bluegrass multi-instrumentalist Ryan Holladay, a veteran performer at 14 years old, will be performing tomorrow, Friday March 23, 2007, at the 18th Annual Savannah Music Festival in Savannah, Georgia. Ryan is performing as part of the Gulfstream Music Education Series sponsored by Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. This performance series provides free concerts for more than 17,000 students from 13 counties.

Personally I can’t think of a better person to represent bluegrass to these kids than Ryan. He’s been involved in the IBMA Bluegrass in the Schools project as well as the Discover Bluegrass DVD. Ryan is a great player, and as a nice a guy as you’ll meet in and around this music. I’m thrilled to see him representing our music at an event like this.

The Savannah Morning News had a nice write up about Ryan yesterday.

The Savannah Music Festival began on March 15th and will continue through April 1st, presenting nearly 100 performances from a variety of music genres and includes artists such as Wynton Marsalis, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Marty Stuart, Dianne Reeves, the Jerry Douglas Band and Anoushka Shankar.

Tickets to all events are available online at savannahmusicfestival.org. Tickets range in price from $15-85 per performance.

Jayme Stone is a banjo player whose music is hard to categorize. In fact, you might say that it has no boundaries. You could say the same thing about his whereabouts.

With a new CD, The Utmost, due for release in May, Jayme is currently in Mali doing research and field recording for another upcoming project of African banjo music, to be produced by Lee Townsend. Jayme received a Chalmers Arts Fellowship grant for his west African trip, and he should be back in his native Canada by the time The Utmost is released.

Stone also has a recently revamped web site, where you can hear audio samples from the new CD and find information on his efforts as a banjo instructor - and some free banjo tabs of both traditional tunes and his own more progressive compositions. Jayme offers private banjo instruction and has an instructional DVD as well.

Jayme shared a few thoughts on The Utmost.

“It’s a gathering of my favorite jazz and bluegrass musicians from both sides of the US/Canadian border including Ross Martin, Matt Flinner and Kevin Turcotte. It’s something of a grand project, featuring 10 musicians in 3 cities and co-produced by David Travers-Smith. I’m in discussion with a record label and it will be released in May, followed by a significant touring in the US and Canada.”

Visit Jayme’s web site to find out about all his various musical endeavors.

Here’s a fun site with images of vintage music show posters. It’s run by Mitch Diamond, who calls himself The Kardboard Kid.

Mitch has been collecting these posters and hand bills since 1970, and has amassed a substantial number of these classics of advertising art. He is also something of a celebrity in the world of poster collectors, having established the record for the highest price ever paid for a show poster when he purchased an original 1966 Beatles Shea Stadium poster, now on display at The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.

In addition to an assortment of rock and roll, blues and jazz posters, Mitch also has a good many early country and bluegrass posters displayed on his site. I found original posters of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Reno and Smiley, The Osborne Brothers and The Stanley Brothers.

Mitch buys and sells in addition to collecting, and invites people with an interest in his collection - or who may have articles to sell - to contact him by email.

See all the posters at The Kardboard Kid site.

We’ve told you before about the proposed merger of the two satellite radio providers, Sirius and XM. Previously the House of Representatives had inquired into the deal, now the Senate is doing so. The main objection to the action is the creation of a monopoly resulting in increased costs for consumers.

Chief executive of Sirius, Mel Karmazin, has testified, saying that he feels the combined satellite provider would still face robust competition from other sources, such as terrestrial radio, iPods, and internet radio (despite recent efforts involving the satellite providers that appears to be directed toward killing, or at least severely crippling, that industry’s ability to compete in the marketplace). Karmazin went on to promise there would be no increase in price due to the merger. In response to that argument, Senator Herb Kohl, D-Wis, said the following.

We must view these claims with a healthy degree of skepticism…Over-the-air radio does not come close to duplicating the impressive array of program offerings of satellite radio.

The National Association of Broadcasters has testified at the hearings to the effect that they feel they would be unable to compete with a monopoly in the satellite market. MercuryNews.com has the full story.

Even though they are holding hearings, neither house of Congress has announced plans to prevent the merger at this point. Assuming they don’t, (more…)

Alison Krauss & Union Station have announced that tickets for dates on their summer tour will go on sale March 23, with some pre-sale opportunities in selected markets. The tour is being billed as A Hundred Miles or More Tour - An Evening with Alison Krauss and Union Station Featuring Jerry Douglas.

As the title suggests, the tour is in support of her upcoming Rounder compilation CD, A Hundred Miles Or More, due for release on April 3. This project features songs Alison had recorded for or with other artists, but which have never been featured on one of her releases. Four new, unreleased tracks are included as well.

The ‘07 summer tour starts on June 13, shortly after their month long tour with Tony Rice concludes. They expect to feature stops in 30 or more cities over the summer.

Info on the current dates can be found on the AKUS tour page, where new dates will also be found as they are added.

The live set from The Infamous Stringdusters is now up at the AT&T blue room. They pick and sing in the studio (over a single microphone) and discuss the new CD and their musical influences in six video segments.

Two songs from their debut CD, Fork In The Road, are performed, including the title track, a rollicking modern bluegrass romp, and Poor Boy’s Delight, a lovely ballad with a mildly Celtic vibe. They also feature a new instrumental called Pronto.

There are also three interview segments where they discuss where they found some of the songs on the new CD, some praise for producer Tim Stafford and how the band got together.

To view their videos, click on the blue Live Performances tab in the upper left portion of the AT&T blue room main page, which will display the various artist segments currently available. Click on the band’s name and their videos will be available in a new pop up window.

Mandolin teacher and performer Butch Baldassari, has written in to let us know that he is now offering live online video lessons. The technology he’s using is Skype. Skype allows you to make video calls to other Skype users provided you have a webcam installed. You’ll need audio input and output as well. Butch is recommending the use of a headset of some kind to prevent audio loops from forming.

What material is Butch offering instruction for through Skype?

I’m willing to teach whatever you’re interested in learning….Bluegrass, Fiddle Tunes,Classical etc. I can go over materials that are covered in various books…16 Gems, ACUTAB, Tune books published by Homespun, Mel Bay.

Butch is charging $60/hr for this instruction. 30 minute blocks can also be purchased for $30. You can contact Butch via his website to arrange lesson times and material.

Skype is a free download available for both Windows and Mac. Video conferencing is cross platform so you will have access to Butch’s instruction regardless of platform. Based on personal experience I would suggest you have a high speed connection such as DSL or cable if you intend to use this service.

Tonight (March 20) will find bluegrass singer/songwriter Bob Amos as the guest on The Bluegrass Guide’s monthly Songwriter Chat. Bob is a founding member of Colorado’s Front Range, and has a new CD with his Bob Amos Band, Reels Of Life, recently released.

This will be an interactive online conversation, where songwriters are encouraged to ask questions and discuss their craft with each month’s featured guest.

To participate in tonight’s Songwriter Chat, simply visit the Bluegrass Guide Chat Room at 8:00 p.m. As always, the chat will be hosted and moderated by Rick Lang.

Bluegrass photojournalist and author Stephanie P. Ledgin has been asked to show her work at this year’s Rutgers University Faculty Authors Exhibition at Alexander Library in New Brunswick. Ledgin, who currently serves on the IBMA board, is a former part-time faculty member at Rutgers. 2007 will mark the third year in a row that she has been invited to participate in this event.

The paperback edition of her book Homegrown Music: Discovering Bluegrass, will be the focal point of her exhibit this year.

The exhibition opens today with a reception and runs through the end of April.

The topic of the newly reconstituted royalty rates for cybercasting - Internet radio - has been covered here on The Bluegrass Blog a good bit, and generated some discussion in the reader comments to one of these posts as well.

For those with an interest in following this story, and what these new rates could mean for the future of “niche market” online radio, there are two pieces we found this morning that may be of interest.

First is an Associated Press piece from Seth Sutel, an AP business writer, which describes the formal challenge to the new Copyright Royalty Board fee structure which was filed on Monday (3/19). The filing was made in the names of National Public radio (NPR), The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Clear Channel Communications and a number of other industry groups involved in online music streaming.

The motions filed Monday covered relatively technical aspects of the ruling and mark the first of what is likely to be other legal challenges to the decision.

NPR said in its filing that it also intended, in due course, to appeal the overall decision by the copyright judges to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington.

Read the full AP article online.

Also of interest for those with a legal bent is the posting of the text of the NPR motion, which is available on their web site.

Some of our earlier posts on this topic:

• Copyright Royalties and Internet Radio
• Folks, the future of Internet Bluegrass Radio is in jeopardy
• Death of Internet Radio?
• Save Our Internet Radio
• Internet Radio Fights Back