Flatpicking Guitar Magazine has committed to capturing performances by today’s top practitioners of the flatpicking art, and bringing those performances to guitar players everywhere via DVD.

Over the last several years they have put forth a number of such DVDs. Each DVD consists of a concert performance by three top players. This year’s offering is no exception.

The National Flatpicking Guitar Championship, held each September since 1972 in Winfield, Kansas, is the most prestigious flatpicking event in the country. Every person who has won this event is a master guitarist of the highest order. In this concert performance DVD, filmed at the Peaceful Bend Americana Music Festival in Steelville, MO, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and SimpleFolk Productions present three of the National Flatpicking Guitar Championship’s most respected past champions: Robin Kessinger (1985 champ), Mark Cosgrove (1995 champ), and Robert Shafer (1983 and 2000 champ).

The DVD is now available for ordering at FlatpickingMercantile.com.

Here’s a one song trailer for the product. It features the tune When You and I Where Young, Maggie.

In the interest of full disclosure, my company was the production company which filmed and edited this DVD.

Today’s Tennessean newspaper has reported that the Country Music Foundation (CMF), on behalf of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, has reach an agreement with Robert Waldschmidt, the Trustee for the Robert W. McLean Bankruptcy Estate.

This agreement, if ratified by the Bankruptcy Court, will mean that Bill Monroe’s 1923 F5 mandolin will continue to be displayed at the
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

The settlement, whereby the CMF will pay the Trustee $750,000, safeguards the exhibition of several instruments that were given to the organization by philanthropist, but alleged fraudster, Robert W. McLean, Monroe’s mandolin included.

Further details regarding the deal can be found at The Tennessean website.

This post is the first in what will be an occasional feature – Songwriter Profiles. If you have a suggestion for a bluegrass songwriter we might want to consider, please contact us. 

Patrick McDougal was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina and he grew up watching his father, Robert McDougal, perform at the Grand Ole Opry in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was influenced by the first generation of bluegrass musicians, Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs and the like.

He lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where he owns and operates Music Plus, a music store and instruction studio, as well as teaching a music course at Blue Ridge Community College.

Currently McDougal is a member of  High Windy. In the past Patrick has performed with such notable musical talents as Herschel Sizemore, Jimmy Haley, The Blue Dogs and country star David Ball. He is 43 years old and has been with High Windy for two years.

McDougal is best known for writing the title song to Dan Tyminski’s Grammy-nominated CD, Wheels. The song was September’s No. 1 on Bluegrass Music Profiles‘ Top 30 Hot Singles chart in and is noted in the December edition of Bluegrass Unlimited at No. 2 in the National Bluegrass Survey, having been five months on the charts. His work has also been performed and recorded by Del McCoury, Alan Bibey and Blue Ridge, The Lonesome River Band, Jeanette Williams Band, Dixie Creek Revival and The Blue Dogs.

Recently, I chatted with McDougal about his background and his song writing …….

Tell me about your formative years in music.

“I always wanted to play banjo, since I was about 6 months old. They told me that I would cry unless I could go to sleep holding on to the banjo players pants leg when my dad’s band would practice. My dad played in a very successful band in 1960s and 1970s; even played the Opry some. I got my first banjo at age 12 and practiced some times all day.”

Who was the first bluegrass songwriter that you took noticed and why?

“Bill Monroe was. I noticed most of his songs were about every day things or events that really happened. I sorta got the bug when I heard two friends of mine sing their songs and thought that was a true way of expressing your thoughts. Tim O’Brien was one of my favouritess. But Tim Stafford makes me cry…” (more…)