Last night’s (5/29) Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver concert at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC can be viewed online.

The show runs just over an hour and includes a number of Doyle’s most popular numbers, plus several songs from his current Gospel release, Help Is On The Way.

It may also be your last chance to see fiddler (and bass vocalist) Alan Johnson as a member of the band, as he will be departing after this weekend.

The entire video can be seen (in RealPlayer format) at kennedy-center.org.

The second Rural Rhythm release from Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain isn’t due until July 29, but a single has been released to bluegrass radio this week.

The song is I Can Go Back Anytime, written by Jennifer Strickland, who had also contributed the song Going On The Next Train for Carrie’s first project. This new track is a driving, modern bluegrass number, which you can sample below.

Listen now:

Brance and I were very impressed by Hassler and her young band at IBMA last fall, and expect that their sophomore effort, CHHR2, will be every bit as strong as their 2006 debut. Round 2 was produced by Jim Van Cleve, who served in that capacity on the band’s earlier self-titled CD as well.

In addition to Carrie on lead vocals, the band is Keith McKinnon on guitar, Kevin McKinnon on mandolin, Travis Anderson on bass, Josh Miller on banjo, and Jamie Harper on fiddle.

UPDATE 2:35 p.m.: Jim Van Cleve shared a few comments about CHHR2:

“I am really fired up about this project on a number of levels. They came in with some very edgy material, and were completely committed to going all out with their vision on where their music is heading. They are an extremely talented, motivated, and energetic group of musicians, and their creativity is going to knock people out on this new project. It picks up right where the last one left off, and pushes harder and farther than even I expected when we started putting it all together.

It covers A LOT of musical ground…”

Audie Blaylock and Redline will be guests on today’s (5/30) noontime edition of Blue Plate Special on WDVX.

They have been hard at work on a new CD, which Audie promises will be chock full of hard-driving, traditional bluegrass music. They are sure to preview it on the show today.

Joining Audie in the band are Evan Ward on banjo, Patrick McAvinue on fiddle, Jason Johnson on mandolin, and Matt Wallace on bass.

The show originates before a live audience from Knoxville, TN, where it airs on 102.9 and 105.9 FM. You can also catch Audie and the guys online via the WDVX streaming broadcast over the Internet.

Knoxville folk/Americana artist Marc Jeffares is also on the bill.

Until this morning I had never heard of a CokeTag. From what I understand after doing some research, a CokeTag is a widget that runs on your Facebook page, presenting people with a list of links you recommend. The company is working to make the widget compatible with other social networking sites like MySpace, in the near future.

The CokeTag is a product of the Coca-Cola company and really serves as a branding tool for them, since it puts their name in front of the people viewing it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any use for a bluegrass band though. Once you’ve created a CokeTag, other people can embed it on their own Facebook page. This allows fans to post a band’s CokeTag on their personal page. And your links spread around the social network that way.

The product is in public beta at this point, but one of the early adopters was the bluegrass band, James Reams & The Barnstormers. Reams put the CokeTag on his facebook page and then discovered that his was being used as an example on the CokeTags homepage.

…it seems that I’m a poster boy for this new product. Coca Cola is using my band (yes, bluegrass, not rock, not hip hop, not jazz but BLUEGRASS) in its worldwide promotional material to show how a band can use this new product, called a CokeTag, on the Internet social networking site Facebook (and, eventually, elsewhere) to allow an easy way to keep friends and fans up to date on what’s going on with the band and what’s important to us.

The neat thing about this is that if I update the information on my CokeTag, it will be updated anywhere that the CokeTag has been posted — initially, just on other Facebook profile pages but eventually on other sites on the Internet as well. So you can link to shows, CDs, videos, etc and then if you change it the next day or the next month, it will be updated everywhere that the CokeTag is posted.

You can see how it looks on a a Facebook band page by visit Reams’ Facebook page. You don’t have to be a member to view the page.

And you don’t have to be a band to find a use for this nifty little widget. You can create one for your hobby and put links to all your favorite bluegrass bands, or whatever you want. There are no guarantees that Coca Cola will notice you though. If they do, your mom is sure to be proud.

So, there I am, featured on Coca Cola’s CokeTag website. My mom is proud because she thinks I’ve finally amounted to something in the music business. Don’t tell her otherwise, ok?

We’ll vouch for ya James, just have her call us if there’s ever any question about your somethingness!