After coming in 3rd place last week in the online voting, Mountain Heart’s video for Road That Never Ends is once again in the running for CMT Pure 12-Pack Countdown. The video is is for the title track of the band’s new CD, was produced by lead singer Josh Shilling – who also acts – and directed by Scott Hansen of Renown Studios.

Uncle Earl’s clever Streak O’ Lean video is also on this week’s ballot, and deserving of your vote as well.

The ballot for this week’s show closes tonight (4/30) at 9:00 p.m. (EDT), and the top 12 videos will be announced and aired on CMT Pure (CMTP) Friday evening at 9:00 p.m., with rebroadcasts over the weekend.
You can watch the Road That Never Ends video here on The Bluegrass Blog, or on the Countdown site.

HINT: The voting process allows you to select up to 12 videos from a list of 30 plus, so selecting only one of two from the list increases the chances of your favorites scoring high. Multiple votes are allowed if you are so inclined.

If you weren’t among the reported 76,000 in attendance at Merlefest last weekend, you can get a taste of the proceedings online. Our friend Ted Lehmann has dozens of photos posted on his blog, Bluegrass, Books, and Brainstorms.

Ted was on hand Tuesday through Sunday, and captured acts from the many stage shows, as well as the Pete Wernick jam camp and pre-festival jamming.

See all his fine photos at tedlehmann.blogspot.com.

The Isaacs have posted some sample video from their recent concert DVD release, Live In Norway. It starts with a spirited instrumental version of I’ll Fly Away followed by footage of the band and family sight-seeing.

The DVD was filmed in Kristiansand in June of 2007, and features 19 songs, including many popular titles from Isaacs’ CD releases.

Many grassers may think of The Isaacs primarily as a pop, Gospel act, not realizing that they started out as a bluegrass band singing Gospel music. I can recall seeing Ben, Sonya and Rebecca jamming at Galax and they are all serious and highly competent bluegrass pickers.

Check out the sample video clip for confirmation.