IIIrd Tyme Out will be stopping by the studios of WNCW in Spindale, NC on Saturday (3/1) for a live performance, plus some discussion with Dennis Jones, host of the popular Goin’ Across The Mountain show.

The guys will be on at 2:00 p.m., and since the show is simulcast online, many folks will have their first chance to catch the most recent IIIrd Tyme Out lineup. Founding member Russel Moore still holds down the guitar and lead vocal chair, with Steve Dilling on banjo, Justen Haynes on fiddle, Edgar Loudermilk on bass, and recently returned former member Wayne Benson on mandolin.

WNCW can be heard in the Charlotte, NC area at 88.7 FM and is streamed live from WNCW’s website.

“On Route 23 down in eastern Kentucky…”

So begins the mournful song written by Jack Adkins and Buddy Dee, and recorded by the Stanley Brothers in February 1958 at Radio WCYB in Bristol, VA. No School Bus In Heaven was the last official studio recording that Carter and Ralph would make for the Mercury label.

It relates the tragic story of a tragedy which took place 50 years ago in Floyd County, Kentucky, wherein 26 children and the driver of the bus in which they were traveling lost their lives when the bus plunged into the Big Sandy River

“These little school children have gone on to glory,” but they left behind heart-broken parents, families and friends. The children and the bereaved are remembered in a gut-wrenching article in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Survivors and those who lost loved ones rarely mention what happened in 1958. They spend most days at home, passing one another at the post office or the grocery store. They sit together in church, bonded by their silent grief and heavy hearts.

But it is a story the whole town knows well. Pictures of those who drowned still hang in local restaurants, schoolhouses and funeral homes.

“People don’t talk about it much. It’s too painful to talk about,” said Orville Ousley, 85, who lost one of his three sons in the accident. “When the anniversary comes each year, we avoid each other and we hide in our homes.”

Read the full piece from the Herald-Leader online.

There is yet even more great bluegrass and acoustic music available from your radio (and computer) today (2/29). Tonight’s - and tomorrow’s - Grand Ole Opry broadcasts feature a number of favorite performers.

The Friday Opry boasts performances from The Grascals, The Whites, Jesse McReynolds and The Del McCoury Band. It airs in the Nashville area (and much of the central US) on WSM-AM 650, and live online at wsmonline.com, from 7:00-11:00 p.m. (ET).

The Saturday Opry show features Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart, Mike Snider, Bobby Osborne and The Del McCoury Band, and runs from 7:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Skaggs’ segment will also be carried on GAC TV ’s Opry Live at 8:00 p.m.

Tonight (2/29), Punch Brothers will be the musical guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. No doubt but that they will perform something from their just-released Nonesuch CD,  Punch.

The show airs at 11:30 p.m. (ET) on NBC, and the musical segment is usually the very last before the show concludes at 12:30 a.m. Set your TiVOs if you won’t be at home and be sure to see this exciting ensemble on TV.

When you finish listening to Cherryholmes live on WFDU.org, you can point your browser over to WDVX.com and hear Missy Raines & The New Hip perform on Blue Plate Special. They will be performing live before a studio audience between noon and 1:00 p.m. this afternoon (2/29).

The New Hip is Missy’s musical youth movement, featuring a quartet of talented string musicians. Megan McCormick is on guitars and vocals, Michael Witcher on resonator guitar and vocals, Ethan Ballinger on mandolin and guitar, Lee Holland on percussion and Raines on bass.

Missy has spent her career as a bassist with a number of successful acts (most notably Claire Lynch) and has been named Bass Player of the Year seven times by the IBMA. This marks her first excursion as a band leader, with a group of eager co-conspirators in pursuing new sonic horizons.

WDVX broadcasts on a number of FM frequencies in East Tennessee, and online at WDVX.com.

This morning (2/29) on Lonesome Pine RFD, Cherryholmes will join Carol Beaugard from 11:00 a.m. until noon for some live music and discussion. The show is broadcast on WFDU at 89.1 FM in the New York City metro market, and online via live streaming.

The Cherryholmes segment will also be recorded for a later broadcast on the Open Mic show on WAMU-HD in the DC market and BluegrassCountry.org.

This review was written by John McGann, Associate Professor of Strings at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston, MA.

A wise friend of mine once observed that “people spend a lot of energy looking for what something isn’t, rather than what something is.” Punch is an adventurous listener’s paradise and an acoustic music lover’s dream. Led by composer/mandolinist/lead vocalist Chris Thile with Chris Eldridge (guitar/vocal), Noam Pikelny (banjo/vocal), Gabe Wichter (fiddle/vocal) and Greg Garrison (bass/vocal), the Punch Brothers deliver an astonishing range of styles and moods with relaxed virtuosity across three songs, an instrumental, and an innovative 40 minute four movement suite.

The touchstones of established styles on this recording span many genres: a classical range of tone colors and dynamics, from quiet filigree to ominous thunder; a jazz sense of adventure, harmonic daring and “sound of surprise;” the blue grass drive and commitment to the groove; the pop songwriter’s flare for melody, and the progressive rock musician’s restless penchant for shifting textures and colors. While echoes of the above styles combine with and extend the groundbreaking New Acoustic work of the Trischka-Grisman-Flecktones-Newgrass vectors, it is fair to say that the band is breaking new ground and creating its own unique idiom. It is not merely “chamber music” played with bluegrass instrumentation, but music conceived to take advantage of the traditional bluegrass band instrumentation as presented to the world by Bill Monroe in 1945, albeit in ways Mr. Monroe may never have imagined.

Compositionally, there are definite parallels with classical music in the “through composed” long form style of composition (particularly in the four movement suite The Blind Leaving The Blind) rather than the more typical verse/chorus song form’s repeated sections. The creative use of counterpoint and counter melodies as well as contrasts and combinations of instrumental colors between musical lines are more the stuff of the classical orchestrator, rather than the bluegrass arranger. Independent rhythmic interplay creates clockwork-like textures at various times that mesh like a bluegrass band, dixieland group, and chamber orchestra (and sometimes all three at once!). Of course, along with the carefully composed mosaics of counter lines, we find improvisational passages that depend on the unique personalities of each band member to be realized, much in the way that jazz legend Duke Ellington relied on his stable of players to create the music’s character. (more…)

There has been much discussion in the last year concerning the future of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Will it continue to be used widely, or will it be discontinued as an ineffective measure?

DRM encompasses a number of technologies used to prevent the illegal distribution of digital audio files. Opponents have long held that DRM gets in the way of legitimate uses by consumers who legally obtained the files. The biggest complaint being the incompatibility of different systems, preventing users from purchasing music at whichever online retailer they choose and likewise playing said music on the media player of their choice.

All that may be poised to change in the near future.

Major book publisher Random House has made the decision to cease using DRM on its audio book downloads.

Beginning March 1st, we will no longer require that our retail partners use DRM when selling audiobooks via digital download. We believe that this move will allow for healthy competition among retailers targeting the iPod consumer, without posing any substantive increase in risk of piracy.

This announcement follows the results of an experiment Random House conducted, in which they sold unprotected, but watermarked, MP3s through online retailer EMusic.com. A third party company was hired to track the distribution of Random House titles on Peer-to-Peer networks in order to determine if the sale of unprotected files would correlate to an increase in illegal file trading.

The results: we have not yet found a single instance of the eMusic watermarked titles being distributed illegally. We did find many copies of audiobook files available for free, but they did not originate from the eMusic test, but rather from copied CDs or from files whose DRM was hacked.

The report also notes similar finding by major labels in the music industry, (more…)

We received a note from our friend Richard Hawkins who runs the Bluegrass Ireland Blog, and posts at the European Bluegrass Blog, about a bluegrass connection to last weekend’s Academy Awards presentation in Los Angeles. Richard pointed out that one of the writers of the award for Music (Song), Glen Hansard, is a former member of Ireland’s Niall Toner Band.

Toner is a longtime singer and songwriter in Ireland who Hawkins describes as the godfather of Irish bluegrass.

Hansard and fellow songwriter and Marketa Irglova won for the song Falling Slowly from the movie, Once. You can see a live performance video of the song on the Fox Searchlight web site.

Josh Williams unveiled his new band last Saturday at The Station Inn in Nashville. It was their first public performance, and a good many of Nashville’s bluegrass folks were on hand.

Among them was veteran songwriter and bluegrass entrepreneur Tom T. Hall, who shared a few words about the show on Josh’s web site.

At nine-fifteen, a hush lay over the crowd and then suddenly a wild burst of applause swept the room as Josh, Clayton, Tim, Jason, and Chase took the stage; after all the years of playing in other bands, including Rhonda Vincent’s Rage, we were now looking at The Josh Williams Band.

All of the songs that Josh had recorded over the years could now be performed at his own discretion. He made mention of the fact that he had worked many nights when he got to sing only one song. And now he had the stage all to himself with his own band.

Miss Dixie and I looked at one another and smiled. After all the learning, practice, watching, patience and dedication to his craft and his art, Josh Williams had arrived.

Josh’s band features Clayton Campbell on fiddle, Tim Dishman on bass, Jason McKendree on banjo, Chase Johner on mandolin, and Williams on guitar and lead vocals.

You can read the rest of Tom T.’s comments on Josh’s site, and see several photos from the show on photographer Bobby Jones’ web site.

The NPD Group released a new report yesterday detailing the changes in music consumption among U.S. music buyers during 2007 (report)

The report claims an overall increase in music acquisition of 6% for the year, while stating a decline in “average annual per-capita music spending” of 10%. That statement must be carefully read. All it really says, is that more music found it’s way into the hands of consumers during 2007, but on average each consumer spent less to acquire that music. Yes, that’s bad news for labels. Based on this report, the labels saw a 10% decline in revenue.

The report indicates that iTunes has become the second largest music retailer in the states. Only Wal-Mart sells more music. The problem seems to be that consumers are opting for purchasing single tracks rather than albums as a whole. This hurts pop/major labels who have invested heavily in the album/CD culture, whereby the consumer was required to purchase music in which they may have had no interest (other tracks on the CD), in order to acquire music they desired (the one or two tracks they really wanted). The ability to purchase individual tracks for download has resulted in increased freedom for the consumer, and spread their music spending cash around a little more.

This situation has also resulted in less money being spent on music per capita. Spending is down from $44 to $40 per capita for users of the internet. The assumption might be that the internet savvy user is simply acquiring his music illegally rather than purchasing it. The NPD data suggests though that the percentage of users doing so did not increase statistically in 2007, holding steady at 19%. The report does say that those users downloaded more music illegally during 2007 than they did in 2006.

The report also indicates that online music sales are now being driven by consumer between the ages of 36 and 50. This segment of the market having just acquired MP3 players in recent months.

The various live performances from the recent Celtic Connections festival in Scotland that have been aired on BBC Scotland can be accessed online.

Cherryholmes is among the acts whose appearances were aired, and three songs from their set (Black & White, Turn Me Down and Tell Me Why) can be seen on the BBC site.

Performances from The Packway Handle Band are also featured, including a couple of web exclusive videos.

This morning, The Wall Street Journal is running an article titled Bluegrass With a Difference. The piece is about Nashville based band, the SteelDrivers.

The article trumpets bluegrass music as the music to listen to if you want something real in your ears. I couldn’t agree more heartily. The writer, Jim Fusilli, holds up The SteelDrivers as champions of that cause.

He covers the background of each member in brief, with special attention being given to lead singer Chris Stapleton. The story is told of the formation of the band, along with a summary of their signature sound, and an explanation to the WSJ readers as to why they should give bluegrass a try.

If you want to hear real country music — the kind with just-short-of-reckless picking on acoustic instruments and naturally vivid vocal harmonies — these days you turn to bluegrass.

He goes on to suggest specifically listening to The SteelDrivers as the subject of his article. He lays particular emphasis on the honesty of the music these guys make in comparison to main stream, commercial country.

The SteelDrivers’ music is organic and unsoiled by studio trickery, the kind that has plasticized contemporary country.

One has to wonder, with the WSJ being the go-to source for financial news, does this article indicate increased monetary success for bluegrass? We can hope…

The Tacoma, Washington, based The News Tribune has published a story about what it considers to be a stand out band at the 15th Annual Wintergrass festival during this past weekend’s shindig. The Ebony Hillbillies weren’t even expected to be playing at the festival, but when the Carolina Chocolate Drops cancelled just days before the festival started the New York quartet got the call to fill the void.

The quartet, comprising fiddler Rique Prince, singer and multi-instrumentalist Norris Bennett, upright bass player Bill Salter and a cowboy washboard player who simply goes by the initials A.R., not only played a set on Thursday evening, they set the place alive with foot-stomping dancers in abundance.

The full story of their memorable performance can be found at the newspaper’s website.

Here is an unrelated clip of them performing in the NYC subway.

The Third Annual Folk Alliance Awards were presented during the 20th Annual Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, TN, on Wednesday evening, February 20, 2008.

We have already mentioned the Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients:

• Mavis Staples
• Tommy Jarrell
• Rounder Records

Other winners that may be of interest to bluegrass aficionados include …

• Legacy Recording - Woody Guthrie The Live Wire (Woody Guthrie Archives)
• Emerging Artist - Carolina Chocolate Drops
• Album of the Year - Uncle Earl - Waterloo, Tennessee
• Small Folk Venue - Freight & Salvage, San Francisco, California (Tied with Cafe Lena - Saratoga Springs, NewYork)
• Large Folk Venue - The Ark, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Unsuccessful Nominations include ….

• Legacy Recording - Various Artists - People Take Warning: Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs (Tompkins Square)
• Traditional Artist - Uncle Earl and David Bromberg
• Large Folk Venue - The Birchmere - Arlington, VA, and Kennedy Center Millenium Stage - Washington, DC

The award for Album of the Year was chosen based on Folk-DJ Chart airplay.

One week from today, on March 4, 2008, Chatham County Line, the four piece alt-bluegrass band from Raleigh, NC, will release their fourth CD titled IV.

Chatham County Line isn’t your typical bluegrass band. They are self described as “new traditionalists” in the bluegrass/acoustic music genre. Born out a love for roots music, the band members have quite varied music backgrounds that range from flatpicking to indie rock.

Producer Chris Stamey is back again on this new CD. He describes the band’s relationship to bluegrass this way.

They have always stayed true to their traditional instrumentation, but their albums have never been limited by that in any way. There has always been a progression. They’ve used bluegrass as a jumping off point, a vernacular through which to access all that is roots music, be that gospel, country, rock or pop. That’s American music and they are an American band.

Dave Wilson is the band’s flatpicking guitarist/vocalist. He comments that this new recording is really a mile stone in the band’s maturity.

We started the band as a way to hang out and drink beer. Slowly it turns into a career. This record is about growing up and becoming a band.

Before, we were trying to fit into this one niche because of the instruments we like to play. But now we just look at our instruments as our instruments and it’s all about taking that and evolving into the band we are and want to be.

I share all that information with you as a spoiler of sorts. This is not your average bluegrass CD, and that’s a good thing! Who wants to be average? Certainly not these guys. (more…)

Today (2/26) marks the widely-anticipated release of Punch, the debut recording of Chris Thile’s touring band, Punch Brothers. Of course he recorded once before with this same unit on his How To Grow A Woman From The Ground CD, but they were then known as How To Grow A Band.

With Punch, the band has a new name, a new label (Nonesuch) and a new raison d’être, to wit, Chris’ lengthy composition in four movements, The Blind Leaving The Blind, which forms the major portion of this new project.

We’ve written a good bit about this project on The Bluegrass Blog, including Brance’s recent three part interview with both Chris Thile and guitarist Chris Eldridge. Today, we celebrate the release of Punch in an interview with banjoist Noam Pikelny. Noam talks some more about the recording process and about performing this challenging material live.

You can hear two full pieces from Punch on the Nonesuch web site, audio samples from all 8 tracks on iTunes, and extended selections from each of the four movements of The Blind Leaving The Blind on Thile’s MySpace page. Chris and the Brothers will also be appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Friday (2/29).

Here’s Noam on recording this CD…

We recorded at Legacy studio A509 in Manhattan. Our producer Steve Epstein suggested the room for the project. Once he signed on to the project he felt very strongly about having us in that room. And looking back on it all, I can see why. It’s absolutely beautiful. It’s quite large, but has amazing natural reverb and is a big part of the overall sound of Punch.We sat in a horse shoe type of shape, with [fiddler] Gabe [Wichter] and I opposite Critter [Chris Eldridge] and Thile, with [bassist] Greg [Garrison]at the bass of the “U”. We used no headphones and relied mainly on a 3 microphone tree about 10 feet above us. There were spot mics on each vocal and instrument that were used for balancing out the mix.

We recorded for about 5-6 days, from noon to 8 pm. We did multiple takes of everything on the record, but no overdubs. We played everything live in the room with no headphones. Typically we’d play a movement 5 or 6 times until Steve and the rest of us were confident we had everything we needed. At times we’d isolate certain sections and do several takes of them. (more…)

Tonight’s Songwriter Chat from the folks at The Bluegrass Guide will feature an online discussion with Carl Jackson. He will join host Eric Gibson on Tuesday, 2/26 at 8:00 p.m. (EST) to talk about his craft, and take questions from chatters.

To participate, visit the Songwriter Chat page at 8:00 and log in. There is no fee to participate, and only a very brief registration is required to join.

Transcripts from previous sessions with Tim Stafford, Larry Cordle, Brink Brinkman, Chris Stuart and others can be found on the site as well (scroll to the bottom of the page).

As a songwriter Craig Bickhardt has had about as much commercial success as a person could hope for. His songs have been recorded by top artists in several genres, including cuts by Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, David Wilcox, Martina McBride, B. B. King, Ray Charles, Art Garfunkel, and many more.

On his songwriting blog, Ninety Mile Wind, Craig recently wrote a post discussing what he feels are the five biggest lies propagated in Nashville these days. Here are a couple of his comments I found interesting.

The first has to do with illegal downloading. The lie is…

It’s the illegal downloading, stupid

Craig discusses just how much it should cost to produce a quality CD. He thinks the reason the labels are hurting has nothing to do with illegal downloading, and everything to do with bloated expenses and the poor quality of the music being produced.

If you want a great CD look to the indie labels, which incidentally, are booming and profiting because they don’t operate on bloated budgets designed to keep the suits well-fed while the artists do all the work. The Indies are mostly in it for the art. Read the blogs and the comments and you’ll find that most consumers are still buying the music they love and they have no problem paying for mp3s. But they do have a problem with paying twice what they ought to pay for crappy CDs,

That sure makes one appreciate the nature of our indigenous bluegrass labels. They operate more like indie labels for sure, smaller budgets, and I’ve meet many of the bluegrass label heads and staffers, they do genuinely love the music. Thanks guys!

Here’s another lie Craig aims to dispel, as it applies to songwriters.

You must live in Nashville

He says it’s not necessary that a songwriter be located in Nashville to be successful, or even to collaborate with other songwriters. In fact, he says living in Nashville may be more of a hinderance than a help in many ways.

I get regular emails and comments from writers who say that Nashville is ruining their writing. They can’t be spontaneous, it’s all done by committee, they fear being criticized for writing anything too artistic, and they must collaborate with artists, many of whom are not songwriters, never will be songwriters, and only show up for the money.

If you’d like to read his full comments, and find out the other three lies he’s exposing, read his post Craig’s blog regularly. He posts some good stuff.

A poster at the official Rhonda Vincent Message Board tells of an incident at a 2/23 performance in Augusta. GA. Three people were arrested at the Imperial Theater as they became unruly when unable to get into the show.

They arrived very intoxicated. Were asked to leave, yet they refused, they started to fight security. 911 was called, police arrived, and they started fighting the police. 5 officers came to arrest the men, and one officer was injured.

All 3 were arrested and taken to jail.

What some people won’t do to see Rhonda & The Rage!!

Indeed.