The Southern Arts Federation (SAF), a non-profit arts organization based in Atlanta, is currently presenting it’s first ever touring exhibit in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The exhibit is dedicated to the music and musicians of the South and is appropriately titled Rhythm & Roots.

Utilizing text panels, artifacts, fieldwork, photographs, and sound recordings, the exhibit provides context for music traditions and their relationship to community. The exhibit features an audio component that allows museum visitors to experience the voices and music of Southern music traditions.

Rhythm & Roots is currently on display in Huntingdon, TN, at the Dixie Carter Performing Arts & Academic Enrichment Center. The exhibit covers a wide range of music genres found in the south, and as one would expect bluegrass is well represented.

Rhythm & Roots showcases key Southern musicians and the instruments they play. Thus, there is a part of the exhibit dedicated to the mandolin and the Father of Bluegrass Music, Bill Monroe. Other bluegrass greats recognized with a place in the exhibit include Snuffy Jenkins, Earl Scruggs, and Wade Mainer. The exhibit also includes a great number, and variety, of instruments.

Rhythm & Roots will remain in Huntingdon, TN through August 14, 2007. It will then travel to the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, NC and be on display there from August 22 through December 31, 2007. The exhibit is then scheduled to make it’s first 2008 stop at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon, GA, with other 2008 locations to be announced soon.

The 100th anniversary of the birth of Bill Monroe is still four years away, but long term strategic planning is already underway to commemorate the occasion. This morning’s (6/25) edition of the Owensboro, KY Messenger-Inquirer has a story about this effort, and the collaboration among a number of entities to bring it all together.

The article notes that the centennial efforts hope to tie together the Birthplace of Bill Monroe in Rosine, KY (and the nearby site of the Jerusalem Ridge festival), The International Bluegras Music Museum (IBMM) in Owensboro and the Bean Blossom festival which Monroe started more than 40 years ago in Indianna. The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) is also expected to be involved.

From the article by Keith Lawrence:

“We need a commission to work on this,” said Gabrielle Gray, executive director of the bluegrass museum. “This has enormous potential for Kentucky - if we’re unified in our approach. In one short weekend, you could walk the paths Bill Monroe walked as a boy, visit his boyhood home and grave and explore the whole history of bluegrass music at the museum.”

“I strongly suspect it will be big,” said Dan Hays, executive director of the Nashville-based International Bluegrass Music Association. “Some folks are already talking about what needs to be done. It is, and rightly should be, a big deal. We’ve got it on our long-range planning agenda.”

The article doesn’t seem to be available online from The Messenger-Inquirer without a paid subscription, but it is posted at PopMatters.com.

Noted mandolin teacher and transcriber, John McGann, has a new instructional DVD. Sound Fundamentals: Tone, Touch and Technique for Mandolin uses a number of crucial bluegrass mandolin techniques to help players find a wide range of pleasing tones, all the while stressing efficiency and comfort.

McGann has an impressive resume, with a long list of performing, recording, arranging and transcribing credits. He has also recently been named an Associate Professor in the Strings Department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

As described on John’s web site:

Includes: getting comfortable: tone guards, straps, etc.; choosing the right pick; anchoring; open string exercises; downstrokes vs. alternate picking; crosspicking and tremolo: importance of the loose wrist: left hand fingering; the “duck web” and parallel thumb; synchronizing both hands & unlocking the fingerboard; speed, more plus bonus footage.

Sound Fundamentals does not come with a printed booklet, but the DVD has a printable PDF file with both tablature and standard notation transcriptions for much of the material shown on screen. You simply need to pop the DVD into your computer and find the PDF file before selecting the print command.

More details and online ordering can be found on John’s web site. The DVD is distributed to retailers through Mel Bay Publications.

Rebel Records has reissued two more classic out-of-print recordings as download-only releases.

First up is a Lonesome River Band album from 1988, one which many recent fans of the band may learn about for the first time. Saturday Night, Sunday Morning came out on LP several years before the band took the bluegrass world by storm with Carrying The Tradition, but featured the drive and agreesive style that later (and current) editions of the band perfected.

This release featured founding members Tim Austin on guitar and Jerry McMillan on bass, along with Brian Fessler on banjo and Adam Steffey on mandolin. As you might guess from the title, this project features a mix of secular and spiritual material, with Adam’s instrumental take on Daybreak In Dixie.

You can sample the tracks or purchase the music in iTunes.

Makin’ Tracks by The McPreake Brothers was first released in 1983 on County Records - the last of the three McPeake projects for Rebel/County. By this time, the three brothers (Dewey, Larry and Mike) had established themselves as one of the premiere bluegrass vocal groups of their day.

Living in Southwest Virginia as I do, there were many opportunities to see them perform live, but they never toured far from their homes near Wytheville, VA, and their fine harmony was kept a secret from many bluegrass fans around the world - other than from these fine recordings.

Check out this valuable reissue on iTunes.

We just heard from our friend Wichita Rutherford that Andy Hall, of The Infamous Stringdusters, will be his guest host this evening on his XM Radio show, The Grand Old Time Machine.

A couple weeks ago Wichita had Mac Wiseman, then Doc Watson, and last week Alison Krauss. He sure seemed excited about having Andy on the show though.

Each week Wichita and a guest host visit with each other, play some music, and get in The Grand Old Time Machine and travel back in time, stopping in the 30’s, 40’s, 70’s or where ever the guest wants to go. There they meet some bluegrass stars of yesteryear and hear some great music.

Last week, at the beginning of the show featuring Alison Krauss as a guest host, Wichita and Alison went over the rules for the audience about not taking pictures, recording, smoking, etc. I’m glad Alison straightened Wichita out and told him it was OK for the listeners to eat sausage gravy and biscuits, but she never did tell him the audience wouldn’t be able to take pictures since they were just listing to the radio!

The Grand Old Time Machine comes on at 5 PM EST every Friday and 12 AM EST every Saturday night. It can be found on XM Channel 14, Bluegrass Junction.

You can find more information about the show online at TheGrandOldTimeMachine.com.

We ran a piece earlier this week about the International Bluegrass Music Museum’s fourth annual festival, ROMP.

At the time we mentioned the names of several of the bluegrass artists who would be performing at the festival. Since that time another group has come to my attention and I thought the group was interesting enough to share with you here.

They call themselves the Professors of Bluegrass. No, they’re not music teachers. They are professors though, well most of them anyway. They hail from Connecticut’s Yale University. The band has been around since the early 1990’s and the only remaining original member, Peter Salovey, is now Dean of Yale College, the undergraduate program. Salovey plays bass and sings in the band.

Salovey is joined by Craig Harwood on mandolin. Harwood serves as Dean of Davenport College, one of Yale’s residential colleges.

Oscar Hills, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, plays banjo in the band. Josh Viertel, Director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project, plays guitar and sings. Doctoral student Katie Scharf is the band’s fiddle player and also contributes vocals. And local artisan woodworker, Sten Havumaki contributes guitar and vocals as well.

This group sure defeats the stereotype of bluegrass musicians being uneducated!

You can visit the Professors of Bluegrass online either at their website or their MySpace, where you can hear them perform Earl’s Breakdown. Or just stop by ROMP this weekend and check them out.

Bluegrass fans who turn to BluegrassCountry.org for their 24/7 bluegrass fix will be in for a shocker on Tuesday. The folks at BluegrassCountry, like their sister station WAMU.org, will participate in the Day Of Silence campaign on June 26 to protest the new royalty rates proposed for Internet radio by the Copyright Royalty Board. Their normal music stream will be interrupted for the day, replaced by a series of rotating announcements that explain why the music has gone silent.

This campaign is intended to demonstrate what its organizers believe will happen to the medium of Internet radio if the proposed rules go into effect as planned on July 15. This issue has been the topic of a number of posts on The Bluegrass Blog, and has divided members of the bluegrass community, many of whom feel quite strongly on opposite sides of the question.

Artists, songwriters and musicians lobbied the CRB to increase the royalties to be paid from Internet streaming services to allow them to receive what they describe as a fair share of revenue derived from the use of their work. Web broadcasters responded that the new rates would double and eventually triple their streaming costs, and in the case of some smaller webcasters, increase them ten fold or more.

Richard Cassidy, Director of Content Operations at BluegrassCountry and WAMU, explained why they became involved in this campaign, and how it got off the ground.

The event was started by number of large and small webcasters who will be adversely affected by the new royalty fees to be paid for streaming music. For public radio Internet stations like BluegrassCountry, the fees are inconsistent with the mission of public radio where we attempt to bring under-served audiences exposure to new artists as well as those who are well known, and to offer services to audiences that are under-served, like bluegrass music fans. This is fully explained on the website TellThePublicItMatters.org, which I urge all BluegrassCountry fans to read. Additional information on how the movement got started is explained at The Radio and Internet Newsletter site published by Kurt Hanson of AccuRadio, who has spearheaded this effort. More information is also available on SaveOurInternetRadio.org about the Internet Radio Equality Act that has been introduced in Congress to change the method of copyright fees computation.

I hope this helps bluegrass music fans understand the reasons we are participating in the Day of Silence.”

Don’t be surprised if you encounter music interruptions on other webcast audio streams on June 26. The Day Of Silence campaign was only announced on June 21, but it has picked up quite a head of steam.

Click here to read the many other posts we have published on this subject, several of which also have a good many reader comments.

UPDATE 2:50 p.m.: We just heard from Clyde Scott with BluegrassRadio.org. They will also be observing the Day Of Silence, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on 6/26.

Here’s a nice feel good story as we head into the weekend…

All Things Considered, on National Public Radio, ran a piece earlier this week about Roland Clark, a 12 year old fiddle phenom from Vermont. Roland has been playing for only four years, but has found himself performing with both bluegrass and classical ensembles of note, and generating a good bit of attention for his skill and artistry.

The six minute piece includes an interview with this impressive young man, and you can hear it on the NPR site.

Doyle Lawson will join host Kylie Harris on this weekend’s edition of The Edge of Country on GAC. It will air on Saturday (6/23) at 1:00 p.m., and again on Monday (6/25) at both 1:00 and 11:00 p.m. (EDT).

The interview (taped several weeks ago) will cover Quicksilver’s latest CD, More Behind the Picture Than the Wall, and Doyle’s plans for the rest of 2007.

If you’re planning a summer vacation trip to Nashville, you’ll want to consider a trip to the Ryman Auditorium. And what better day than a Thursday when you catch a bluegrass show?

Tonight, June 21, 2007, kicks off the season’s Bluegrass Nights At The Ryman series. Tonight’s show features American music legend, Earl Scruggs. Also performing tonight is the Nashville Bluegrass Band. Each Thursday night from now till then end of July will feature a bluegrass show with at least two acts.

All shows begin at 7:30 PM CST and tickets cost $22.50 each. Tickets are available online through Ticketmaster for each show individually, and series tickets are available through the Ryman box office for $125. Series tickets get you in to all 6 shows in the series for an average ticket price of just under $21.

Visit the Ryman website for information on the series, including a show schedule and list of performers.

UPDATE 2:25 p.m.: Earlier this week, Nashville’s hometown newspaper, The Tennessean, had a nice feature on Earl Scruggs’ return to The Ryman. The article includes a number of his remembrances from his many years of performing at the Opry. You can read the article online, where The Tennessean has also posted several classic photos of Earl.

Here’s something I had been expecting to see for some time - hoping, even. Bluegrass has long been intertwined with its Gospel music tradition, though that aspect is far less universal than it once was. As the appeal of the music has grown beyond its roots in the rural southeastern United States, the topical themes of newly-written material has grown as well.

It seemed certain that adherents of religious faiths other than the Christian Church would be drawn to mimic the sort of Gospel traditional that exists in bluegrass music, and apply it to the beliefs they hold as true. Given the numbert of Jewish people who have been drawn to perform in bluegrass and acoustic music, I had expected to see this coming from that camp.

And so it has.

Mare Winningham may be known to readers as an actress, having appeared in dozens of movies and television programs over the past 30 years, but not many may realize that she has also been pursuing a career as a singer and songwriter, with three albums to her credit. Though raised in the Catholic Church, Mare converted to Judaism in 2003, and that change is the focus of her newest CD, Refuge Rock Sublime.

Released this spring on the Craig & Co label, Winningham’s CD mixes folk, bluegrass and Gospel music influences with Jewish musical idioms and themes, It is not a bluegrass record in any understandable sense of the term, but Jewish fans of acoustic and folk styles might want to give it a listen - as might folks interested in such cross-cultural musical ventures.

Audio samples can be found online at Fonogenic.com and in the iTunes Music Store.

The Jewish press has noticed this project as well, with articles/reviews appearing in The Jewish Week, on the Hillel web site, and on YoYenta.com.

Perhaps we will eventually see a more thoroughly bluegrass recording that mixes Jewish faith principles with the sonic themes of bluegrass Gospel - or even Christian themes other than the predominant rural southern staples. My own private joke has been that someday my own Catholic faith might inform a bluegrass song about The Miracle at Fatima or The Feast of the Assumption.

Now that would clear a festival site in a hurry.

When it was first published in 1982, Scales And Arpeggios For Five String Banjo by Pete Pardee, was a groundbreaking effort. The book offered serious students of the banjo the sort of reference volume of applied music theory that had been common for some time on many other instruments. When the book sold through, financial considerations prevented Pete from a reprint, but he is now poised to offer it again.

The book has been completely reworked for a second edition, bringing it up to the standards of modern typography and music engraving, and legitimately laying claim to be “the most thorough study of five string banjo technique and theory ever written.” It runs to 254 pages, with six common scale forms shown in all 12 keys - one and two octave, and across the entire fingerboard. Arpeggios are similarly shown for 26 chord types, along with charts, diagrams and movable patterns.

Financial considerations still being a concern, Pete has devised a plan for measuring the interest in this reprint, which will ship for $60, by asking potential owners to advance him a mostly-refundable deposit of $5 towards an order of the book, with the reprint going forward if the demand justifies the costs.

This book won’t appeal to every banjo player, but anyone with an intention to become a true master of the instrument would find it to be a real time saver, as compared to compiling all this information yourself. Even those with only a passing interest in music theory for banjo should consider it as a useful reference you can draw on as needed.

Full details on the book and the pre-order process can be found on Pete’s site, The Banjo Man.

The state of Kentucky has a long history of association with bluegrass music, but this coming Monday, June 25, 2007, it will become official.

The state’s Governor, Ernie Fletcher, will be making a special appearance, along with banjo legend J.D. Crowe and IBMA Executive Director Dan Hays, for the signing of House Bill 71. The bill will make bluegrass music the offical music of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

The event will be marked by the performance of some bluegrass music by the bands Kentucky Sassafras and Cherryholmes. Most of you are probably familiar with 2005 IBMA Entertainer of Year, Cherryholmes, but you may not be so familiar with Kentucky Sassafras. This is a young band of teenage pickers from the Boston, KY area.

Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour will be on hand to film the proceedings. The Woodsongs Webcast due to air that evening from 6:55-8:15pm EST will feature performances from both bands as well as J.D. Crowe and The New South.

While all but one state have official state songs, as best I can tell Kentucky will be the first state to adopt an official state music. It’s quite an honor for bluegrass music to have that distinction.

Among the many reasons Alison Krauss has generated such a large and enduring following would have to include her ability to appeal to a widely diverse fan base. Bluegrass fans love her for her gritty, grassy tunes - and for her loyalty to the genre - while country and soft rock fans appreciate her delicate treatment of tender ballads.

This unique aspect of her career is the focus of her latest CD, A Hundred Miles Or More: A Collection, which includes a number of popular duets she has recorded with stars from well outside of bluegrass and acoustic music.

Be sure to mark the weekend of July 14-15 on your calendar to catch a one-hour special on GAC TV which will feature live performances of the music from the new CD. Alison will sing her duets with Brad Paisely (Whisky Lullaby), James Taylor (How’s The World Treating You) and John Waite (Lay Down Beside Me).

The members of Union Station (Dan Tyminski, Jerry Douglas, Ron Block and Barry Bales) will back the vocalists, along with guests Tony Rice, Sam Bush and Stuart Duncan. That lineup suggests that they will perform her stellar arrangement of Sawing On The Strings, also on the new release.

The show, Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles Or More, will air on GAC July 14 at 9:00 p.m., and on July 15 at 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. All times are eastern.

Country music superstar Kenny Chesney is climbing the charts right now with a song written by bluegrass favorite Ronnie Bowman.

Never Wanted Nothing More was written during a marathon writing session that took place between Ronnie Bowman and proven country writer Chris Stapleton. The two wrote a number of songs together during one extended informal writing session. The thing is, it was the first time the two had ever worked together. Ronnie remembers it this way.

Chris came over to the house and we started writing. A day later we had a handful of good songs, but this one just really stood out. We went right in and recorded a demo!

Ronnie tells me the demo was just the basics, the two songwriters with their guitars, that’s it. No frills, no fancy arrangement, just the song.

Ronnie writes for Sony Music Publishing and they took the song and started pitching it. It was just a short time later that Ronnie discovered Chesney was interested in the song. Then Chesney’s producer, Buddy Cannon, called and asked if Ronnie would like to stop by the studio and hear the track as they worked on it.

After I got off the phone, I just asked myself “Am I dreaming or is Kenny Chesney recording my song today?” As soon as I came back to my senses, I headed right over to the studio to check it out.

Once he got in the studio, Ronnie was in for another surprise. (more…)

The Murfreesboro Post in Tennessee had a story on Monday announcing Jesse McReynolds as the recipient of the Uncle Dave Macon Heritage Award for 2007. This honor is given annually in the memory of the great Uncle Dave, with past honorees including such luminaries as Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, John Hartford, Mac Wiseman and Rhonda Vincent.

The award is described by the Heritage Award web site thusly.

Each year the Board honors that individual who has spent a lifetime in the perpetuation and preservation of traditional, “roots” music.

Jesse will accept his award on July 14 at the Uncle Dave Days festival in Murfreesboro, TN. He will perform at the event, and serve as Grand Marshall for the yearly Motorless Parade through Murfreesboro.

Congratulations to Jesse for this much-deserved tribute, and thanks to our banjo pickin’ buddy Rick Briggs for the heads up.

Jim Lauderdale’s CD, Bluegrass, is one of my favorite releases of 2007. I wrote about the disc here when it first came out.

Lauderdale has just released a music video for the song Who’s Leaving Who. The video is airing on both CMT and GAC, but it can also be viewed online at Jim’s website.

The video features several bluegrass musicians from other bands, including Jesse Cobb from The Infamous Stringdusters, Randy Kohrs and Lites’ fiddle player Ashley Brown.

BluegrassCountry.org will be featuring music from a live show by The Infamous Stringdusters in a special program this next two weeks (June 18-July 2). The band is also interviewed during this segment, where they discuss  how they create their unique sound, and how they approach songwriting.

The live tracks were recorded at Jammin’ Java in Vienna, VA.

This show will air at a different time each day until July 2, usually once daily. For the rest of this week,the schedule is:

All times are eastern (US). You’ll be able to find the schedule for Special Programming for the next two weeks by clicking the Schedule Changes link on the BluegrassCountry.org web site - where they stream bluegrass music 24/7 on the web.

Fatherhood has a profound impact, and each man who experiences it feels the change in his own way. For Ronnie McCoury, it has called him to record bluegrass music designed to appeal to young listeners, and hopefully bring families together to enjoy the music as a group.

Little ‘Mo McCoury is due for release on August 21 on McCoury Music, featuring Ronnie and the Del McCoury Band on a set of both new and familiar songs with themes and/or lyrics that young children might appreciate, all performed in the unmistakable McCoury bluegrass style. They’ve included such classics as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Teddy Bear’s Picnic and I’ve Been Working On The Railroad with bluegrass classics like Jimmy Brown The Newsboy and Mama Blues - with Rob McCoury on banjo.

Audio samples from all 16 tracks can be found on the McCoury Music site.

Some touring in support of this CD is expected, with more details anticipated before long.

This post comes from our semi-regular correspondent, Richard F. Thompson. He writes from England, where he is also a longstanding contributor to British Bluegrass News, a quarterly print publication where he also briefly served as editor.

Although the actual signing took place a few months ago, Rounder Records has recently announced the signing of revered bluegrass singer, band leader and attorney Charlie Sizemore.

At the same time, Rounder has announced the August 14th release of Sizemore’s first album for the label, Good News (ROU 0591). The 14-track CD is the first new studio album from Sizemore in five years. As of today (6/19), there are no audio samples on the Rounder site, but one track from the new CD, I’ve Fallen And I Can’t Get Up, can be previewed on Charlie’s MySpace page.

A powerful songwriter whose songs have been recorded by Ralph Stanley, Jimmy Martin, Doyle Lawson and Dry Branch Fire Squad to name a few, Charlie Sizemore contributes four new original songs to Good News. Among them the tongue-in-cheek Alison’s Band, reflecting Sizemore’s dry sense of humour that fans have to come to love. Other highlights include songs by Dixie and Tom T. Hall, Harley Allen, and veteran songwriter Hank Cochran. While Sizemore considers the record a bit “rough around the edges,” this is only in the sense that the record was recorded pretty much straight-ahead and live in the studio. With Good News Sizemore and co-producer Buddy Cannon shared the common goal of wanting to make a record that feels like and sounds like the records Charlie heard and liked while he was growing up.

Sizemore’s vocals are as restrainedly powerful and as unique as ever, and he considers co-producer Buddy Cannon to be his equal as the moving force behind the record and its making. Though it was done “live and quick,” Silver Bugle is a song the idea for which, Sizemore has carried around with him for the last fifteen years. (more…)