This week’s Musicians Tip from BluegrassCountry.org comes from banjo man Bill Emerson. Bill earned his reputation as a solid picker with Jimmy Martin and The Country Gentlemen, and then served as a musician in the US Navy Band, Country Current where he played banjo and led the group.

Bill shares his thoughts about stage presence in his brief (1 minute) audio presentation. Find it at BluegrassCountry.org, where you can listen to each of their Musicians Tips segments. A new segment is added each week, with bluegrass music professionals sharing their wisdom and experience.

Emerson has a new CD due out next month, Bill Emerson & The Sweet Dixie Band, which will feature Bill with his new group, and guest appearances from Paul Williams and Randy Waller.

CDBaby has long been the entry point for independent artists longing for digital distribution. Creating a CDBaby account would give you the channel for getting your music in iTunes and other online digital download services.

Now CDBaby has launched a new feature that allows for all CDs distributed digitally through them to be available for download directly from them on the artist’s CDBaby page.

This new arrangement does not allow for individual track downloads however. Only full CDs may be purchased for download from CDBaby. The cost is variable depending on the price set by the artist. The download price is the same as the physical CD price.

Even with the lack of individual track downloads, there is much to recommend this new service. A digital CD is downloaded as a zip file containing all tracks in unprotected, high quality (200kbps) MP3 format, a high resolution cover image, and a text file containing the liner notes.

Even better, for the artist who is selling, is that CDBaby only keeps their standard 9% for digital sales. That means an album selling for $9.99 will net the artist $9.09 when sold on CDBaby.com. That same album distributed by CDBaby and sold via iTunes would result in an artist payment of only $6.37.

As an example of what this looks like on the CDBaby website, I’ve chosen On A Farm. It’s the latest CD from the band Acoustic Endeavors, of which our very own John Lawless is the banjo picker.

If you are itching to join the digital download game as an independent artist, CDBaby is making it easier than ever.

Last year around this time, we told you about Lonesome River Band banjo picker Sammy Shelor’s side business when fall rolls around. He and his wife Sue plant a field of corn each spring, not to bring to market, but as the base for their annual Corn Acoustics corn maze.

Last year’s maze was cut in the shape of the Crooked Road logo, a southwest Virginia tourism and music project with which Sammy has been involved. This year’s maze isn’t cut into so intricate a design – though it does honor the 25th Anniversary of Lonesome River Band – but Sammy says the maze is a bit more challenging to navigate.

“We’ve got some tricky trails cut. I was mowing in there the other day and got lost myself!”

The Grand Opening of Corn Acoustics is over this coming Labor Day Weekend (9/1-3), and will include bluegrass entertainment each day at no additional charge.

Find out more on the official maze web site.