Pinecastle Records has released the live concert video of The Osborne Brothers at Renfro Valley on DVD. The performance, recorded in 1994 and released on VHS video in 1997, features Sonny and Bobby with Terry Eldridge on guitar and vocals, and Terry Smith on bass, both currently with The Grascals. The late Gene Wooten is on dobro, and David Crow on fiddle.

The video has been unavailable for some time, and this is its first release on DVD.

Nickel Creek fans who are still processing the news that the band will not be performing together much longer can take heart with one bit of news.

Sugar Hill is set to release a special retrospective on the band next month, which will include 12 audio tracks from their previously released projects, 2 live audio tracks and a companion DVD with 7 Nickel Creek music videos.

The pre-released tracks are fairly evenly taken from Nickel Creek’s 3 Sugar Hill projects, and include the songs that got the most chart and video attention - like Smoothie Song, When In Rome, and When You Come Back Down, plus songs like Sara Watkin’s lovely and plaintive Out Of The Woods and Chris Thile’s The Lighthouse’s Tale from their self-titled “debut” from 2000.

The two live audio tracks were recorded at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, CA in November 2000. They are the band’s take on Keith Whitley’s You Don’t Have To Move That Mountain, a bluesy Gospel song Sara sings, as well as Chris’ tour-de-force performance of The Fox.

Nickel Creek concert goers will recall The Fox as a real show stopper when they performed it live. This cut launches with a mandolin solo, joined shortly by Chris’ voice, with the band drifting in over the first verse and chorus. What starts as a fairly conventional bluegrass treatment of the old folk song eventually expands, including bits of Bill Monroe’s Jerusalem Ridge and Big Mon, Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, and J.S. Bach’s E Major Partita over the course of a 9 minute romp.

The DVD includes all 7 Nickel Creek videos.

The two disk set will be entitled Reasons Why (The Very Best), and is set for a November 14th release. The full track listings (audio and video) can be found on the Sugar Hill web site. All pre-orders from the Sugar Hill site will also be entered in a drawing for a Nickel Creek prize pack which includes 14 CDs - all of the Nickel Creek releases, plus their various side and solo projects.

This one probably should have been filed under celebrity gossip or something, but we don’t have a category for that. Anyway, according to the PR Inside website, Brad Pitt is learning to play the mandolin. And not for a role he’s playing. He’s doing it for a role Angelina Jolie is playing. She’s playing Mariane Pearl, wife of murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl in a movie titled A Mighty Heart.

Brad, who is a producer on the movie, is helping her immerse herself in the role by attempting to emulate Daniel in almost every way, including learning to play the instrument he was accomplished in.

Brad - who has no acting part in the film - spends hours discussing the relationship between Daniel and Mariane with Angelina while strumming his mandolin.

The role of Daniel is actually being played by Dan Futterman, who starred in ‘Shooting Fish’ and ‘The Birdcage’. I haven’t seen or heard anything to suggest that Mr. Futterman is learning mandolin or fiddle. Speaking of which, wasn’t Daniel Pearl more of a violin/fiddle player than a mandolin player? But I guess asking Brad Pitt to learn fiddle might be a bit much, mandolin will do.

The Hot Rize concert DVD we mentioned a few weeks ago has been released, and can be ordered now from the Hot Rize web site.

It features a concert performance at the Kentucky Center for the Arts in Lousiville, KY from July of 1987, with the original members of the band - Tim O’Brien, Pete Wernick, Charles Sawtelle and Nick Forster. Interviews with the band are included, and Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers also make an appearance.

The DVD runs just under an hour, and is offered for $20 plus $5 shipping.

Sugar Hill is set to release an interesting 4-disc set from Dolly Parton on October 10. The box set will consist of three audio CDs and a DVD, and will be distributed as Dolly Parton, The Acoustic Collection 1999-2002.

The set will include three previously released Sugar Hill projects, all with an acoustic, even bluegrassy sound: The Grass Is Blue, Little Sparrow and Halos & Horns.

The DVD offers up five new mixes (Seven Bridges Road, Travelin’ Prayer, Train, Train, Shine and I’m Gone) and three music videos (Shine, I’m Gone and Dagger Through The Heart) not previously available on DVD. It also features the duet performance by Dolly and Norah Jones on The Grass Is Blue from the CMA Awards show, and a number of other special features.

Great news for Hot Rize fans. Pete Wernick has announced that a DVD will soon be available featuring a concert originally filmed in 1987. Both the original Hot Rize band (Pete on banjo, Tim O’Brien on mandolin, Charles Sawtelle on guitar, and Nick Forster on bass) perform on the DVD, as do their erstwhile traveling companions, Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers.

Pete says that the DVD will include 19 songs, plus interviews, but no solid release date can be given at this time. It will be sold for $20, and it will surely show up on the Dr. Banjo online store as soon as it is released, which is expected to be soon.

Hot Rize was a very popular act on the bluegrass circuit during the 1980s, playing a hyrbid sort of music that was right at home on older Flatt & Scruggs or Bill Monroe material, and on their own more contemporary music as well. The additional of The Trailblazers to the show, which involved the Hot Rize boys quickly changing clothes mid-set and adopting new characters as a slightly dim, but surely serious honky tonk hillbilly band, was a huge hit as well.

They disbanded in 1990 at the height of their success, having recently been named as IBMA’s first Entertainer Of The Year, when Tim O’Brien left to pursue opportunities outside of Hot Rize. Tim has, of course, remained a fixture in our music, while Pete Wernick continued on teaching and performing, and Nick Forster found a home with etown on on National Public Radio. Sadly, Charles Sawtelle passed away in 1999 after battling leukemia for a number of years.

In addition to four Hot Rize CDs that are still available on Sugar Hill, there is also one from Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers, Shades Of The Past.

We also heard last week from Fred Carpenter, who runs The Violin Shop in Nashville. He shared some of his plans for IBMA week later this month, which will include their participation during the Grand Masters Fiddle Contest (9/28-29), and a special concert at the shop that Monday.

The show on September 25 will feature Tim O’Brien and Stuart Duncan, with support from Bryan Sutton and Dennis Crouch. There will be two shows that evening, at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m., with both shows taped for Volume II of their live Violin Shop concerts on DVD.

We posted about the first volume when it was released earlier this summer. That concert DVD features Andy Leftwich, Bruce Molsky, Aubrey Haynie, Jim Van Cleve and Bobby Hicks on fiddles, with contributions from Ronnie Bowman, Ron Stewart, Alan Bibey and several other fine pickers and singers.

Fred says that he really has no set release date for the Duncan/O’Brien concert DVD, but expects it will be in the first half of 2007. Details will surely appear on The Violin Shop site as they are clarified.

We’ve told you in the past about our friend Wichita Rutherford and the band he plays in, Van Heffer. As you may recall Wichita podcasted the entire video in 5 minute episodes earlier this year. Now it seems that somebody got ahold of a DVD copy and put the entire thing up on YouTube.com. Many people would be upset if someone did that to their product, video or recording. In light of the recent discussions on this site concerning copyright issues I wondered what Wichita thought of the development.

When asked his thoughts on the posting of the movie Wichita has this to say:

Them kids today, bless their little hearts. They fly around on the internet and listen to their music so loud, and they all got them iPods and stuff. I think its wonderful. I’m not mad or anything, its just the way of the ‘new music economy.’ They’re telling me its a ‘Viral Video’ now. Its good for folks to be able see what you’re proud of and what you’ve done. Besides, we weren’t selling the thing in the first place. I’ve even got a link to it over at my blog over at WichitasBlog.com.

In case you missed it, Wichita does have his own blog, where you can read his thoughts about what he calls The Bluegrass Way. Give him a visit.

The third live release from IIIrd Tyme Out, Round III At The Mac, should be available soon from the band at live shows, or from their online store.

As we reported late last year, this performance was recorded at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonburg, KY, commonly known as “The Mac,” in November of 2005. The show was captured for both audio and video, and while the DVD release seems to be a few months off, the audio CD is expected any day now.

Like the band’s past few projects, the new live CD is released on their own label, Chateau Music Group. Radio promos will go out as soon as they are received from the duplicators, and show hosts can contact Chateau to be make sure they are on the distribution list.

Two previous live shows have been successful audio CD releases for IIIrd Tyme Out, both recorded in this same venue. It looks like they are following a similar formula with the latest MAC CD, mixing older bluegrass favorites with some new songs, and even re-cutting a couple of 3TO tracks from earlier releases.

The band hopes to not only complete editing and post-production for the live DVD this year, but start in on a new studio project as well. We’ll post more details as we find them.

Fiddlers, and fans of fiddle music in the Nashville area, have made a point to catch the occasional concerts held at The Violin Shop on Old Hickory Boulevard. The shows are always intimate, performed with no amplification in a 60 seat music room, and dependably spontaneous and improvisational.

A collection of these concert performances have now been assembled on DVD, featuring some of bluegrass music’s finest fiddlers. Andy Leftwich, Jim VanCleve, Aubrey Haynie and Bruce Molsky are showcased on The Violin Shop Concert Series, Vol. 1. Guests and supporting players on the DVD include veteran fiddler Bobby Hicks, as well as Ronnie Bowman, Byron House, Cody Kilby, Wyatt Rice, Charlie Cushman, Alan Bibey, Kent Blanton, Adam Steffey, Clay Jones, Ron Stewart, Jason Moore, and Steve Gulley.

The Violin Shop is run by Fred Carpenter, and is both a favored repair facility for Nashville fiddlers, and their local meeting place as well. Carpenter spent several years as a member of The Tony Rice Unit while also serving a violin building apprenticeship in California. He moved to Nashville in 1987, and opened The Violin Shop while also touring with Emmy Lou Harris. His repair and restoration staff at the shop has grown over the years, and Fred now focuses on buying and selling fine violins. He remains active as a player touring with Kathy Mattea.

Carpenter said that there was never an intention to either record these live shows, or release them on DVD.

“My intention with the concerts was just to build a room where we could have some fun shows. Jeff Wyatt Wilson, a Nashville filmmaker, happened to come to the Violin Shop the day before our first show, looking for 3 seconds of fiddle playing for a documentary he was working on. We got to talking, one thing led to another, and this project just became what it is as the discussions evolved.”

The DVDs can be purchased on The Violin Shop web site.

Continuing with today’s video theme, here is a link to a Jimmy Martin interview available on YouTube. It is provided on the YouTube site of James Reams & The Barnstormers, who included the interview as a part of a DVD they released last year and distributed along with their Troubled Times CD.

The DVD contained a 20 minute preview of a documentary on the first generation of bluegrass artists, entitled Pioneers Of Bluegrass. It is still in production, with a release expected in 2007, and is directed by James Reams along with Joe Copp and David Fassno. The YouTube clip is taken from that preview.

Their YouTube page also features a number of studio performances of James Reams & The Barnstormers. They include Winsboro Cotton Mill, Coal Dust In My Soul and Black Mountain Blues.

We just got a note from our buddy, Wichita Rutherford, alerting us to the fact that a clip from the VanHeffer movie could be viewed on YouTube.

The movie, Van Heffer - a Bluegrass tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, was chosen as a fan favorite at The Nashville Film Festival this year and has become a cult favorite underground DVD. Wichita swears it can be found on every tour bus from The Del McCoury Band to Dierks Bentley, Metallica, 50 Cent, Kanye West and Tom Petty - and that Tommy Lee made 3 references to Van Heffer on his reality TV show, Tommy Goes to College.

According to Wichita:

“The 3 minute clip on YouTube features some of the giants of bluegrass, Doc Watson, Del McCoury, Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush as well as country music’s Vince Gill. The soundtrack album, Van Heffer - a Tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, is selling like there’s no tomorrow. It’s an iTunes exclusive.”

The CD is a set of bluegrass covers of Ozzy Osborne songs, and features performances from Andy Hall, Tim May and Kyle Wood, plus a duet by Ronnie McCoury and jazz sensation Cyndi Wheeler. It was produced by Scott Rouse, who has been quite prolific in bluegrass circles of late, most recently producing Blue Highway’s stellar Marbletown CD.

We asked Wichita if we would ever see the Van Heffer CD in stores.

“We’d love to have it in stores, we’re just waiting for a label to ask us.”

For now, you can sample the audio or buy the CD for download on iTunes.

When I Find The Ocean is the title of an independently produced feature film by Tonya Holly, starring Diane Ladd, Lee Majors, Graham Greene, and George (Goober) Lindsey. It is billed as a family feature about an eleven year old girl who comes to believe that a creek that runs behind her home in rural Alabama will lead her to the ocean. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights struggles of 1965, the film follows the young girl as she runs away from home with her dog to find the ocean.

We mention it here for the soundtrack, which will feature at least one bluegrass song. Stan Daily, our friend with Cornbread Red, recently recorded the vocal for A Place Where Time Stands Still, which also featured Cornbread Red’s Dennis Clifton on mandolin. The soundtrack will also include performances from such diverse artists as Little Richard and Marty Rabon.

The film is the first project from Cypress Moon Productions, who have set up shop in Muscle Shoals, AL. Cypress Moon purchased the old Muscle Shoals Sound facility which recorded some major pop hits in nearly every imaginable genre, with Paul Simon and Lynyrd Skynyrd being notable examples.

When I Find The Ocean was shot primarily along the Gulf Coast of AL, using local and regional talent for as much as 70% of the crew. Cornbread Red is based near Muscle Shoals, which is also Marty Rabon’s home base. It was debuted at the 2006 Reel WomenInternational Film Festival in late March, where it won an honorable mention.

You can see the trailer on the Cypress Moon web site, but none of the music in the trailer is bluegrass. No word yet on a theatrical release, but we will stay in touch with Cypress Moon and update as details are announced.

Kentucky Bluebird is the title of a new film project about to get underway, based on the life and frustratingly brief career of bluegrass/country star Keith Whitley. Keith made his presence felt in bluegrass from the early 1970s, when he joined Ralph Stanley’s band as a teenager (along with fellow Kentuckian, Ricky Skaggs), through an impressive stint with JD Crowe & The New South. His subsequent career recording mainstream country music for RCA earned him multiple chart hits and impressive sales figures, which continued even after he was discovered dead in his home in May of 1989.

Casting for the film role of Keith Whitley is now underway, and audition tapes are being solicited by Fincannon & Associates, who have been contracted to cast the film. They request that any audition be sent on DVD or VHS, and contain a brief monologue demonstrating your acting range, plus a live rendition of two Whitley songs - one each from his bluegrass and his country repertoire.

Fincannon & Associates’ web site does not seem to be functional, but they do have an email address, and their published contact information is as follows:

We have not yet been able to obtain any information about who is producing this film, or when it might go into production, but we will update as we find more details. Bluegrass fans harbor a great fondness for Keith Whitley, and will surely embrace a film on his life with great anticipation.

This post is a contribution from Ned Luberecki, banjo player with Chris Jones and The Night Drivers, and instructor at the Gibson Bluegrass Showcase in Nashville, TN.

Here’s the story of how I got to play banjo on a movie soundtrack. The movie is called Chrystal, and stars Billy Bob Thornton and Lisa Blount. It is now available on DVD at most video rental stores.

A few years ago, when I was still living in northwest Arkansas, a friend at a local music store handed me a fax they received from a movie production company, looking for area musicians for extras. The fax said that the film would feature “traditional” music and that they needed banjo and fiddle players for the audition. I called the number and was told what day and time to show up for the casting call. That same day, I got a call from a recording studio in Springfield, MO hiring me for a session on the same day as the casting call. (You gotta take the paying gig, right?) Turns out, it was for the soundtrack of the same movie!

The movie was filmed in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas and a sub-plot of the story involves an out-of-towner researching traditional music of the area” that”s where the banjo comes in. (Warning: This film contains nudity, drug content and violence, and is rated “R”.)

In the studio, I met the engineer and the other musicians, then Ray McKinnon (writer, producer and director of the film), Lisa Blount (the female lead in the film, who was there to sing her parts for the soundtrack) and Don Fleming (music supervisor). No, Billy Bob Thornton was not there, but and old friend, Dave Wilson (a former band mate from the group Radio Flyer) was there to play fiddle and mandolin. (more…)