Larry Stephenson is on the cover of the May/June issue of Bluegrass Music Profiles. The accompanying article has Larry talking about his latest release, Life Stories, an upcoming Gospel project, the members of his touring band, and his recent induction into the Southern Legends Entertainment & Performing Arts Hall Of Fame.

He also discusses dealing with the loss of his mother, who passed away earlier this year.

Publisher Kevin Kerfoot details some of the other items to be found in the new issue.

The May issue also includes the Top 20 Singles and Top 10 Bluegrass CDs charts, a DJ Profile on Cindy Baucom, a two-page Q&A with John McEuen, a conversation with Tut Taylor, Shop Talk with Mike Bub, Lorraine Jordan’s Bluegrass Favorites, an Instrument Profile on Saga’s Lonesome Pine Fiddlers 70th Anniversary Acoustic Guitar, an interview with The Circuit Riders’ Greg Corbett, a jam-packed Festivals section, a Promoter Profile on Nancy and Olen Bittinger’s Country Stage Music Park in Nova, Ohio, three pages of Fresh For The Pickin’ CD reviews, and a Songwriter Profile on Jerry Salley.

Subscription and and single issue purchase information can be found on the BMP web site.

The Listen Up feature in the April 17th edition of USA TODAY lists the author’s top ten music picks for the week. We don’t often see straight up bluegrass featured in such lists, so it’s nice to see Randy Kohrs on the list this time around.

Randy came in at #10 on the list with the song Shallow Grave. The song was written by Walt Aldridge & Kate Campbell, and is on Randy’s new CD, Old Photograph.

Here’s what the author of the article had to say about Randy, and the tune.

Shallow Grave, Randy Kohrs: One of Nashville’s finest Dobro players accompanies himself on this mournful tune of a love that’s dead but hardly laid to rest.

The print edition is long gone, but you can access the story online at the paper’s website, where you can also listen to the song in Windows Media format.

As we could have predicted, a video capture of the recent triple banjo performance on The Late Show with David Letterman has made its way to YouTube. The clip is taken from Wednesday’s program (4/26) and features Steve Martin, Tony Trischka and Bela Fleck playing Martin’s The Crow, one of 14 double banjo pieces on Trischka’s latest release, Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectatcular.

The clip also features Michael Daves on guitar, Brittany Haas on fiddle and Skip Ward on bass.

You can watch the Letterman video on YouTube, where you can also find a clip of Steve and Tony performing this same song on The Ellen DeGeneres show.

If you want more, there is an hour long video shot in January 2007 on the Kennedy Center site featuring Tony and Noam Pikelny on banjos with the same supporting cast (guitar, fiddle, bass) as the Letterman and Ellen shows.

We’ve reported several times this year about the many personnel changes going on within Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, with both Terry Baucom and Mike Hartgrove leaving, and Jamie Dailey announcing his departure by the end of 2007.

But to paraphrase the old Timex watch commercial, Doyle takes a lickin’, and keeps on pickin’. Chris Warner has come on board to play banjo, and Alan Johnson on fiddle.

Who better to make the announcement of the newest member than Doyle himself?

"I’m happy to announce that the new member of Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver (replacing departing member Jamie Dailey) will be Ron Spears. Ron will be playing bass and handling lead and harmony vocals. Ron is a longtime student and fan of Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, and he understands the style‚Äîwhen we got together, the vocal blend with the trio and quartet was extremely pleasing to my ear. I’m looking forward to his vocal input as well as having another songwriter in the band."

One of Ron’s songs, Ocean Of Teardrops, was included on Doyle’s latest release, More Behind The Picture Than The Wall.

Ron had been playing mandolin with Special Consensus, and will start working with Quicksilver some time this season, at a yet-to-be-determined date.

Doyle and the boys have a busy schedule this next few weeks. They are heading for Merlefest for an appearance on Sunday (4/29), and then off to California’s gigantic Stage Coach country music festival a week later (5/6). Then it’s the Doyle Lawson festival in Denton, NC (5/10-13), and a trip to New York City for a show at Brooklyn’s Southpaw on June 1.

We’ll update with news about Ron’s start date with the band as that is announced.

UPDATE 4/28: Greg Cahill asked us to clarify that Ron will continue to peform with Special Consensus until he starts with Quicksilver, and that he will be with Special C for their upcoming trip to Switzerland in July.