This Christmas memory comes from Paul Williams, one of bluegrass music’s true legends - both as a songwriter and a tenor singer.

The year was 1957, November… I had just gone to work for Jimmy Martin in Detroit, Michigan. I had been released from active duty in the U.S. Air Force in October, and received a phone call from “The King” to come and work for him.

That Christmas, 1957, Jimmy asked me to go with him and his family to Sneedville, TN to spend Christmas. It had only been about seven weeks since I had been home with my parents, so I accepted Jimmy’s offer and went along with him. I got to meet his family - his brothers and sisters, his mother and his step-father.

It was a snowy time, cold, and I noticed how much these folks enjoyed being together, exchanging gifts, great food and so much joy all around. That’s what prompted me to write a Christmas song that we later recorded. Old Fashioned Christmas was a big seller, very popular on the radio and juke boxes. It still brings in a few royalties today, and that will be fifty years ago come 2008.

Five years later I married Jimmy’s youngest sister and we celebrated our 45th anniversary this past year.

God has truly Blessed our lives. We have one son, four granddaughters, and a wonderful daughter-in-law. Merry Christmas to everybody.

This Christmas post comes from Cindy and Terry Baucom, our favorite bluegrass power couple. Cindy is the host of Knee Deep In Bluegrass, syndicated to 70 radio stations in the US, and Terry is one of the most widely celebrated bluegrass banjo pickers in the world with a new instructional DVD released a few months ago.

Christmas time is one of the most favorite times of the year for Terry and me. Every year we enjoy watching holiday movies, listening to our favorite Christmas songs, shopping, decorating and spending time with those we love most.

Christmas Eve is spent with Terry’s family in Monroe, North Carolina. His mother is a wonderful cook. We enjoy all kinds of treats from her kitchen. Terry’s favorite, though, is the coconut cake she always makes from scratch. I enjoy hearing stories from Terry’s Father about their rabbit hunting when Terry was young…and the first Christmas he asked for banjo in 1962. Terry has two sisters, who join us, with their families for this annual get-together on Christmas Eve.

Terry and I exchange gifts late Christmas Eve. He tells me one of his most memorable gifts from me, was the guitar my Father built for him a few years ago. He also surprises me with some cool things, too, however, the most important thing to us is reflecting on our blessings of the past year and spending this special time together.

Christmas Day is spent with my family. I grew up in Ashe County, in the mountains of North Carolina. We always had a real Christmas Tree and a Christmas Play at Church. These days, Christmas Day is filled with a great meal with my children, Mom, Dad, Brothers, Aunt and Uncle. An afternoon ‘Christmas Jam’ always follows with Terry, Dad, my Brothers and myself. The kids spend the afternoon playing the latest video games on the XBox. We are truly blessed with family, friends, music and health.

To all our friends in Bluegrass, we wish to send out a special wish for the happiest of holidays. We look forward to an exciting 2008!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!

We interrupt our Christmas programming for this final NGAB report comes from Casey Henry, a banjo player and writer living in Nashville, TN. She performed the past few years with her brother, Chris, in The Two Stringers, now disbanded.

The family with undeniable bluegrass roots took home the top place on Fox’s Next Great American Band. Their prize: a record deal with 19 Recordings, the label of the company that produced the show.

The finale of a light-hearted Christmas-themed show was the announcement of the top band. The last two standing were the Clarks and Sixwire. All three boys fell on the floor after their name was called. Ashley commented, “We just came from the house…playing from the living room to the stage and we’re freaking out right now.” Austin thanked their Mom and Dad, though you really couldn’t hear it over the roar of the crowd. Dicko said, “Week after week you brought the magic.” Sheila said, “I prayed for this moment,” and John quipped “ I knew it all along.” He continued in a more serious vein, “Your passion for what you do is so real. That kind of sincerity can’t be faked.”

We also got to see Cliff Wagner back, in all his glory, singing…wait for it…Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.

I’m so happy and excited for the Clarks. It just goes to show, you never can tell where someone is going to end up in life. When you’re playing Harry Grant’s Windgap festival with a family with eleven kids who sing gospel, pay attention, because they might be the next big reality show winners. Even though the music they play now is not bluegrass per se, they come from bluegrass, and anything that helps to raise the profile of bluegrass is good in my book.

And there was a brief shot of a sign someone held up in the audience that read, “We need more mandolin baby!”

Amen!

This Christmas message comes from Doyle Lawson.

As the song says, It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. It truly is my favorite time of the year. However, with the hustle and bustle of shopping for just the right gift, we sometimes lose sight of the true reason for the season.

This is the time of year we set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Savior, who gave us the greatest gift, the hope for eternal life.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas. May it be your happiest one to date.

This childhood memory is from Dale Ann Bradley, one of bluegrass music’s most cherished voices.

One of my Christmas Memories is maybe my first. My parents and I had just returned from Michigan to resume living in Southeastern Kentucky. I must have been about 3.

My parents had gotten me a doll called “BABY SECRET.” You could pull a string and of course it had the recorded voice inside the doll. This was about 1967 and my dad thought it was the coolest gadget, and couldn’t wait to see how I would react.

In the weeks before Christmas, he would hide in the house and pull the string and the doll would talk. I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from and, of course, reacted in the way a 3 year old would, which was really amusing.

When I got the doll that Christmas, I drove everyone crazy pulling the string constantly until eventually she talked in a warble. It was talked about all through the years of how Dad couldn’t wait to give me the doll, and how he had me wondering where the voice was coming from.

We still laugh about it.

What a treat to get an upbeat and positive message from Butch Baldassari this Christmas! As our regular readers know, Butch has been undergoing treatment for brain cancer, and until recently, had not had the strength to even pick up a mandolin.

Perhaps a Christmas donation to Butch’s Medical Fund, would be a nice gesture this time of year?

I always look forward to the Christmas holiday season. I’m especially fond of Lionel Trains and Christmas decorations, indoors and out.

I also can’t wait to put up the tree and decorate it with my wife and son.

Our house is always the first and the last to have up lights.

Here is a Christmas memory from guitarist Brad Davis. Brad has performed with Marty Stuart, Earl Scruggs, and Billy Bob Thornton, among others.

The most musical fun that I can remember during the Christmas holiday is when I got invited to the Earl Scruggs christmas party. Most of the folks there I knew, however there were a few that I didn’t. It all felt like family though.

With all of Louise Scruggs’ Christmas decorations the house had a wonderful holiday cheer about it. What I enjoyed most was jamming with Earl and the guests, and visiting with Louise, Gary and Randy Scruggs. Those are the moments that create wonderful memories.

Merry Christmas to all.

We just got a note from Jimmy Ross, resophonic guitarist with Frances Mooney & Fontanna Sunset about a new recording project sure to perk up the ears of sliders everywhere.

There is a CD in the works designed to showcase the fine resophonic guitars made by Tim Scheerhorn, and featuring many of the pro players who use his guitars.

“I’m working with Tim and Randy Kohrs at Randy’s studio. The proposed players are Tim Scheerhorn, Randy Kohrs, Rob Ickes, Andy Hall, Lou Wamp, Justin Moses, Sally Van Meter, Billy Cardine, Mike Witcher, Bruce Boughton, Jimmy Stewart and myself.

Also on the recording will be a lap steel, 5-string banjo and a dreadnought guitar all built by Tim. There are about six tunes being worked on now and the rest after the hoildays. It should be released in early spring.”

Happy Friday before Christmas, everyone!

Just a quick invitation to join us on The Bluegrass Blog for a special set of Christmas wishes, memories and reflections from a bevy of bluegrass personalities.

Starting tomorrow (12/22), we will publish several of these guest Christmas posts each day, running through Christmas Day. You’ll hear from The Grascals, Curly Seckler, Alan Bibey, Doyle Lawson and a good many others.

We hope you will find a few minutes each day to enjoy a bluegrass Christmas with us on The Bluegrass Blog.

Sirius Bluegrass will have a special program featuring Rhonda Vincent on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Rhonda Vincent’s Christmas Memories finds her in the studio with her family and several friends, discussing their Christmas memories - and playing her favorite bluegrass Christmas music as well.

The show airs on 12/24 at both noon and 9:00 p.m., and again on Christmas Day at 3:00 p.m. All times Eastern.

Tonight (12/21) is the final show in Fox’s Next Great American Band competition, and as we have been chronicling this past few weeks, The Clark Brothers are in the running for the big prize. While not strictly a bluegrass act, they have performed throughout on mandolin, fiddle, acoustic guitar and resophonic guitar, and the three brothers have a long history in bluegrass and old time music.

If the panel of judges is an accurate barometer of the voting public, they have an excellent chance to take it all, and receive a major label recording contract. A previous attempt for the guys as a more mainstreamed country act was a disaster, but they have refined their show and their sound, and could hit as a hunky reprise of the Dixie Chicks phenomenon if produced and promoted effectively.

And they would have loads more bluegrass parking lot cred…

Bands that were eliminated in previous episodes will be back for the final show, including bluegrass band Cliff Wagner and the Old #7. Our official NGAB correspondent, Casey Henry, passed along this tidbit:

Cliff Wagner’s wife Robin says, “He’s all dressed up like Bing and gets lots of camera time!” Might there be a little “White Christmas” action going on? I guess we’ll have to tune in and see!

The show airs at 9:00 p.m. (EST) on Fox, and the winner will be chosen by a phone vote, a la American Idol. The ratings for Next Great American Band have been disappointing, especially for a show in the Idol mold, but we hope that Clark Brothers fans - and anyone who would like to see a solid, acoustic/bluegrass band win the prize - will jam the phone lines tonight.

If you find yourself at home, or near a TV this evening, perhaps you could find a moment to cast a vote for these fine young musicians?

I managed to slide over to the Mountain Heart video shoot last night in Salem, VA. The guys had already spent part of the day shooting footage at a number sites in the Roanoke area, and had assembled at the Greystone Tavern to shoot the “concert” portion of the music video.

The video is for the title track of their new live CD, Road That Never Ends, so they had to recreate a live setting for the sake of the video presentation.

Many of the folks who packed the club may not have known what to expect, but after watching the band “stage” a live performance of the song for the sixth or eighth time, they began to see how it was done. I suspect that it was an eye-opener for many of the Mountain Heart fans in attendance, who stuck it out over the course of a shoot that ran several hours.

As I understand it, the video involved some staged segments, featuring vocalist Josh Shilling in his acting debut, as well as the live performance bits. Other than that, I just know that there was a hot car and an attractive young woman involved.

Here are a few photos I took during the shoot. It will be fun to see if any of this is recognizable in the final product.

When I saw Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder perform in 2005, they dedicated a portion of their show to reminding the audience that the following year (2006) would mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of bluegrass music.

It is widely held that bluegrass was born when Bill Monroe performed with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs at The Grand Ole Opry in 1946, along with Chubby Wise and Howard Watts. Though Monroe had named his group The Bluegrass Boys before these men joined the band, it was this combination of musicians who gave the music we now know so well its defining parameters.

Skaggs made a point of referring to this event, and the music that these pioneers made, before the band played a number of songs from that era, in a style remarkably faithful to the original recordings. I’m not sure if this is still a staple of his live show, but I’m sure it will be next year when his next CD hits.

Honoring the Fathers of Bluegrass: Tribute to 1946 and ‘47’ is scheduled for release on March 25, 2008. The 12 tracks are envisioned as a tribute to the Original Bluegrass Band, comprised of songs they recorded over that seminal two year stretch. The list is one sure to stir the passions of any die-hard traditionalist.

Why Did You Wander		Mighty Dark To Travel
When You’re Lonely		Toy Heart
Remember the Cross		Bluegrass Breakdown
Mansions For Me		Little Cabin Home On The Hill
I Hear A Sweet Voice Calling		I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky
The Old Cross Roads		Sweetheart You Done Me Wrong

And Skaggs has the band to pull this off. Banjo picker Jim Mills is a serious student of Earl Scruggs’ music, and tenor singer Paul Brewster can soar as high as Monroe ever did. Skaggs is, of course, a gifted vocalist and a fine Monroe-style mandolinist himself. Fiddler Andy Leftwich, though a youngster, can surely emulate these “ancient tones,” and guitarist Cody Kilby and bass player Mark Fain are equally up to the task.

Ricky said that the idea for this CD came to him when he came across some live recordings of Monroe’s band in ‘46 and ‘47, and he felt that he had a chance to both honor the men who brought this music to life, and also tell their stories in the music.

“We wanted to tell their stories through music, honoring their arrangements and their tempos, bringing 1946 to the present for the next generation of listeners. Every generation needs to be educated. If you don’t tell the stories of the fathers (of the music), the next generation will forget. That’s what this record is about.”

Yep… 2008 is shaping up to be a fine year for recorded bluegrass music.

Alan Munde has made a career out of playing the banjo, something he once joked about in an interview. He described meeting a girlfriend’s parents as a young man, and answering their obvious question about what he did for a living with the plain truth. Alan said that their expressions made it clear that they imagined him on a street corner with a hat and a monkey, while in fact he was on the road with Jimmy Martin.

The intervening years have marked Munde as a consummate music professional, with a long performing and recording career, plus a 20 year tenure as the head of the bluegrass music program at South Plains College in Levelland, TX. Along the way, he has authored or been the subject of a great many pieces of instructional material, and taught at camps and workshops all over the world.

So it should be no surprise that Mel Bay Publications chose Alan to author a banjo book for their Getting Into series. Getting Into Bluegrass Banjo is a 96 page book with an accompanying audio CD that is designed to help novice banjo pickers get started on the 5 string. It covers right hand rolls, creating solos, left hand techniques and then combines them all in a number of banjo arrangements for popular bluegrass standards.

You can find more details and a list of songs on the Mel Bay web site.

The Dan Tyminski Band is still hard at work in the studio, trying to complete the recording of their debut CD before they begin touring in January ‘08. At this point, Rounder is looking for an early spring release for this highly anticipated, as yet unnamed project.

Mandolinist Adam Steffey says that the band has gelled quickly, and is getting a great sound in the studio.

“The recording is going well and we’re all very pleased with what we’ve got down so far. We are cutting at Omni Studios in Nashville and are trying to finish the project up and get it ready to mix and master by the end of the year. It’s mostly new songs written by folks within the band, with two new tunes co-written by Craig Market and Darren Shoemaker, a Patrick McDougal tune, a Ron Block original, and a tune from Jeff White.

We’re all happy with the way it’s shaping up and can’t wait to get it finished up and out to all the folks.”

Here are a few photos from the first tracking sessions.

Their first show will be at Nashville’s Station Inn on January 2, followed by a quick west coast trip to San Francisco and Portland. Touring begins for them in earnest by mid-February, and you can find the shows as they are updated on Dan’s MySpace page.

The folks at Flatpicking Guitar Magazine have posted an online clip from the most recent DVD release, Guitarmageddon. It features Josh Williams, Andy Falco and Chris Eldridge tearing up Cherokee Shuffle on stage at the Station Inn in Nashville.

As you might expect, the boys pick it solid throughout, and surely do so throughout this one hour production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s8Mmc69CP8

The Guitarmageddon DVD was shot and edited by our own Brance Gillian.

The Lovell Sisters (Jessica, Megan, and Rebecca), a trio of talented young women from Georgia, have released a live concert DVD. Filmed at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, it is titled The Lovell Sisters - Live at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.

The girls, between 16 and 21, are relative newcomers to bluegrass but as their debut CD and this live concert release show, they are very quick studies. Jessica plays fiddle, Rebbecca mandolin, and Megan resophonic guitar, with all three singing. They are joined by Jake Stargel on guitar and Andy Nall on bass.

Jessica tells us that the DVD was an unplanned event.

“Actually, we weren’t aware the set would be filmed until we arrived at the festival. It was truly an awesome night! We played the late night slot just prior to Doc Watson. The footage turned out really well.”

Ten songs are featured, and a track list can be found on their web site.

Starting this weekend, we will mark the Christmas holiday on The Bluegrass Blog with a series of remembrances and reflections from some of our friends. News is a bit slow as bluegrass folks gather with family and friends over Christmas, so we thought everyone might enjoy hearing about how some prominent people in bluegrass spend the holiday, or recall cherished Christmas memories from their own lives.

We know that most of our readers will be spending Christmas away from their daily routines, taking the chance to join loved ones, often at some distance from home. If you find the occasion to get online, please make a point to visit The Bluegrass Blog and read some of our special Christmas contributions, which will be posted through Christmas Day.

We have posts from Rhonda Vincent, Paul Williams, Larry Stephenson and many others on tap. This could be a fine way to introduce family members who may not follow bluegrass music closely with some of the personalities who make it what it is.

Banjo wreath image courtesy of The Flute Tutor. 

The upcoming Mountain Heart music video we mentioned earlier this month is being shot this next few days. The guys are making their way towards our home turf, and will shoot in and around Roanoke, VA betwen December 18-20. Shooting and editing will be done by Scott Hansen of Virginia Beach.

The video will be for the title track from their latest Rural Rhythm CD, Road That Never Ends, and will feature both live performance and offstage footage. The band is planning to shoot outdoors this evening, when the temperatures will be in the 20s! I hope they brought their long woollies.

On Wednesday evening (12/19), shooting will take place at Greystone Tavern in Salem, and any Mountain Heart fans and friends within a comfortable drive are invited to come out and be a part of the shoot. They plan to start by 6:30 p.m., and will play a set after they get the shooting finished.

They will have their newest member in tow for this trip, Aaron Ramsey, on mandolin taking Adam Steffey’s spot. Aaron had been a featured member of both The Linville Ridge Band and Damascus Road.

Mountain Heart fiddler Jim Van Cleve is glad to have Aaron climb on board the train.

“We had looked at holding formal tryouts when Adam told us he was leaving, but before we could, we had a last minute date come in where Adam couldn’t make it. He recommended that we get Aaron to fill in so we asked him to sub that night. Aaron knew all the songs, played them well and had a great stage presence. It wasn’t meant as a tryout, but I guess it ended up being one!

We all got together with him to rehearse last week, and he knew all our material - some of it better than we did - and we knew he was the guy. Aaron is young (21 years old), plays several instruments well and is a good singer. To me, he could be one of the next “big deals” in the mandolin world. I’m really fired up, and am excited to have someone in the band to challenge me musically in new ways.

All of us were sorry to see Adam leave, but we wish him all the luck in the world with his new endeavor. I’m grateful to him for seven years of great music. He is one of my musical heroes, who I’m proud to also call a friend.”

Bluegrass Mix is the latest internet bluegrass radio station to launch, going live just a few days ago. Founders Roger Randolph and Julie Raye Huffman describe it as their “Christmas present to bluegrass fans around the globe.”

Though the stream is available 24/7, only a dozen hours each week are hosted at this point. They expect to add more as new hosts can be brought aboard.

The name applies to how they view the music they play - a mix of new and older bluegrass, with some traditional country thown in as well.

You can find their audio stream, available in a numver of popular formats, at www.bluegrassmix.com.