Here’s another gallery of Dean Hoffmeyer’s photos, capturing many views of Wednesday at IBMA 2009.

For a change, I was able to stay for all three main stage acts at Wednesday’s (9/30) lunchtime showcase, and I saw some very strong performances.

Darren Beachley & Legends Of The Potomac were up first. That may sound like a fairly grandiose name for a new band, but with former Seldom Sceners Tom Gray on bass, Mike Auldridge on resonator guitar, and former Bluegrass Cardinal Norman Wright on mandolin and tenor vocals, the name fits.

Their set featured music from an upcoming CD on Patuxent Records, with Darren Beachley (former member of Quicksilver) on guitar and lead vocals and Mark Delaney on banjo.

No matter how well they played or how solid the material they chose, nothing could overshadow getting to hear Wright’s soaring tenor on stage again! His voice was clear and strong and anyone who cherished his recordings with the Cardinals had to be immediately swept up in the sound – as I surely was.

The name also fits given that their style calls to mind what could be described as the Washington, DC bluegrass sound. Both The Country Gentlemen and Seldom Scene emerged from that community in the 1960s and ’70s, and Darren and the Legends carry it forward just fine.

Next up was G2, a young bluegrass band from Sweden. Wonder what a Swedish bluegrass band sounds like?

Well with these guys, it sounds exactly like it does in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky or Tennessee. Their style is modern, but it’s clear that all five of them have intently studied the music, and they play it with a confidence and authority you might not expect from a young European band.

Almost all of their music is written by guitarist Christoffer Olsson, who also handles the lead vocals. As resonator guitarist Tobias Strömberg mentioned during the set, “It’s hard to believe all those big words come out of such a little man.” Olsson’s songs are thoughtful and original, avoiding the sort of stereotypes that can plague artists who work in a style that is foreign to their culture.

But all of these musicians could go to work for Doyle Lawson. Mandolinist Erik Igelström has obviously mastered his instrument, but plays with a highly individual style. Bass player Jimmy Sunnebrandt, like most of the band, grew up with a father who played country and bluegrass fiddle. Erik told a story about Jimmy as a tyke going with his father to shows, where he would sit in the front row reading Donald Duck comics until his dad would call him up to play a tune with them on fiddle. After he was finished, he would return to his seat and his reading.

Banjo picker Jens Koch really stands out, and is among the very best young, traditional bluegrass banjo players in any country. He works effortlessly in the JD Crowe/Ron Stewart idiom, and I can see him becoming one of the tops on his instrument in the next few years. Strömberg was impressive as well. (more…)

I wanted to add a few impressions to what Brance posted earlier…

Mountain Heart: I thought that their showcase was brilliant, and was very interested to see how they would approach this “going over to the other side” vibe. When the band launched in 1999 – in another en masse exodus from Doyle Lawson – they were a decidedly bluegrass group, very much in the Quicksilver mode.

Only banjo player and vocalist Barry Abernathy and fiddler Jim VanCleve remain from the original lineup, and with new members coming and going, you expect any band to see an evolution in their sound.

Over these ten years, they have been drifting towards a more modern sound, both in their recordings and in their stage presentation. With the addition last year of Josh Shilling, a very talented vocalist and songwriter whose background is in blues and funk-based music, the guys have been drifting ever farther from a bluegrass-only format. Even the fiddle tunes they perform often rely on harmony that owes as much to rock as bluegrass, and the production of their recent studio albums have strayed from kickoff-verse-chorus-break arrangements.

The whole point of last night’s showcase was to introduce a new stage show that made no attempt to be “a bluegrass band” or a “blues band” or a “rock band.”  The video Brance is editing now will have a lot of comments from Shilling about their newly-refocused approach, where they just let the various stylistic influences in the band be what they are. Bluegrass traditionalists may not care for it, but it struck me that anyone with an open mind towards quality music would have to work hard to dislike it.

Mountain Heart is hosting a mega-jam tonight (9/30) to celebrate their 10th Anniversary, with a stellar list of guests scheduled to appear with them on stage. We will certainly be trying to catch that, tonight at 11:15 p.m. (CDT).

Adam Steffey: I agree with Brance that this was a highlight of the day’s music. All the Mountain Heart guys were there – they headed down to see Adam (a former band mate) after their event had concluded.

His band – essentially The Dan Tyminski Band with Clay Hess on guitar and Randy Kohrs on resonator guitar – was sonic perfection. Ron Stewart shows every time he straps on one why he is among the most admired banjoists in bluegrass. Barry Bales plays bass with the tone and sense of time that the rest seek to emulate, and Justin Moses plays fiddle and sings tenor as well as one could hope. (more…)

One of the things that IBMA promotes heavily is education—the music, and about the music business. To that end they have a wide variety of seminars throughout the week on topics ranging from the technical side of the music (“New Developments in Live Sound Technology”), to personal well-being (“Weight Management and Diabetes Prevention on the Bluegrass Road”); from internet marketing and social networking to how to negotiate a contract. This year they have the largest variety of truly useful topics that they’ve had yet. I’ve been to several and each has been wonderfully informative.

For Monday’s “Teaching Bluegrass: An Alternative Revenue Stream” moderators Ned Luberecki and Megan Lynch were joined by panelists Terry Baucom, Stephen Mougin, and myself. Many players rely on teaching to get them through the slim winter months when the gigs are few and far between. We covered many different avenues of instruction including private lessons, group lessons, workshops, camps, DVDs and books, and internet lessons. The last is a recent development and not many people are offering this option yet. Strangely (to us anyway) Mike Compton has been on the leading edge of this technology and has been doing internet lessons for quite a while. Anyone interested in pursuing that avenue, either as a teacher or as a student, should consult his FAQ page.

Tuesday’s “Writing for the Internet: Blogging and Building an Audience” was hosted by our own John Lawless. Panelists included Ashby Frank, sometime contributor to this publication who blogs on his own website; Ted Lehmann of Ted Lehmann’s Bluegrass, Books and Brainstorms blog, and Craig Shelburne who contributes to and edits the blog over at CMT.com. Despite what it looks like in the picture, the discussion was lively and extended. The crux of the discussion was that blogging should be entertaining to the audience, who you hope will come back to your site on a regular basis. Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites are good tools to use to drive people to your site where, hopefully, they’ll buy your CD, or look at your schedule and come out to a show. It’s all about staying connected to people and letting them get to know you through your writing.

They talked a little bit about the technical side of blogging—using programs  such as WordPress, or Blogger—but mostly about the power of changing content to get people to visit your site every day or every week. The Bluegrass Blog is the best at this. I don’t know about you but even when I’m not writing for the Blog I read it every day and it is my main source of bluegrass news.