Last night my wife and I were talking about my former life as a crew member for country singer Lorrie Morgan. I don’t know how we got on the topic, but the conversation naturally turned to a discussion of Keith Whitley.

We ended up on YouTube watching Whitley videos. I happened across this one of Keith playing with Ralph Stanley and thought I’d share it here. Keith is singing I Hear A Choo Choo Comin’ in this video. I believe this was taped sometime around 1977, but I’m not sure what this taping was a part of. Besides Keith and Ralph, there are some other notable bluegrass figures on stage who were, at the time, members of Ralph’s band, The Clinch Mountain Boys.

For some reason they have disabled embedding on this particular video, so you’ll have to watch it directly on the YoutTube site.

Video of a recent performance by Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet on the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour can now be viewed online.

The group is composed of Abby on clawhammer banjo and vocals, Bela Fleck on 3 finger banjo, Casey Driessen on fiddle and Ben Sollee on cello.

They are the sole guests on this program, and perform for the full hour amidst discussions with host Michael Johnathon about their new self-titled CD, from which they draw selections for the show.

See the full show online at the Woodsongs site.

Here’s the fifth installment of the video content we’re bringing you as part of our Infamous Stringdusters promotion.

The album The Infamous Stringdusters, will be released tomorrow, June 10, 2008. See our original post for information about the pre-order special.

This video is provided in cooperation with The Infamous Stringdusters, Sugar Hill Records, and Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival.

Each episode (5 in total) will be accompanied by either a streaming track or an mp3 download from the new CD. Access to the tracks will be limited to registered users of The Bluegrass Blog, and accessing the track will enter you in a promotional giveaway to win one of three autographed copies of the CD.

We also have one other contest for you - there will only be one winner in this contest, but it’s big. We’re giving away a pair of tickets to this year’s Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, a meet and greet with the band at the festival, and some merchandise the guys will autograph just for you on site.

Enjoy the video, listen to this week’s track, and enter to win free festival tickets!

This fifth installment of the video is a look inside the production of the CD. The tune is Get It While You Can.

Enter to win an autographed CD (and listen to the streaming track)

Enter to win a pair of tickets to the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival

Here’s the fourth installment of the video content we’re bringing you as part of our Infamous Stringdusters promotion.

The album The Infamous Stringdusters, will be released on June 10, 2008. See our original post for information about the pre-order special.

This video is provided in cooperation with The Infamous Stringdusters, Sugar Hill Records, and Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival.

Each episode (5 in total) will be accompanied by either a streaming track or an mp3 download from the new CD. Access to the tracks will be limited to registered users of The Bluegrass Blog, and accessing the track will enter you in a promotional giveaway to win one of three autographed copies of the CD.

We also have one other contest for you - there will only be one winner in this contest, but it’s big. We’re giving away a pair of tickets to this year’s Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, a meet and greet with the band at the festival, and some merchandise the guys will autograph just for you on site.

Enjoy the video, download this week’s track, and enter to win free festival tickets!

This fourth installment of the video is a live performance at the 2008 Merlefest. The tune is Lovin’ You, written by Sarah Siskind who wrote Simple Love from Allison Krauss’ A Hundred Miles Or More CD and Goodbye Is All We Have from the last AKUS CD, Lonely Runs Both Ways - and is also engaged to Travis Book of the ‘Dusters. Tim O’Brien joins the guys onstage for the performance.

The free mp3 download this week is the live version of Lovin’ You from the live CD download available only when you pre-order the new CD. This version is over 8 minutes long, featuring extended instrumental sections.

Enter to win an autographed CD (and listen to the streaming track)

Enter to win a pair of tickets to the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival

Here’s the third installment of the video content we’re bringing you as part of our Infamous Stringdusters promotion.

The album The Infamous Stringdusters, will be released on June 10, 2008. See our original post for information about the pre-order special.

This video is provided in cooperation with The Infamous Stringdusters, Sugar Hill Records, and Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival.

Each episode (5 in total) will be accompanied by either a streaming track or an mp3 download from the new CD. Access to the tracks will be limited to registered users of The Bluegrass Blog, and accessing the track will enter you in a promotional giveaway to win one of three autographed copies of the CD.

We also have one other contest for you - there will only be one winner in this contest, but it’s big. We’re giving away a pair of tickets to this year’s Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, a meet and greet with the band at the festival, and some merchandise the guys will autograph just for you on site.

Enjoy the video, download this week’s track, and enter to win free festival tickets!

This third installment of the video focuses on the addition of guitar player Andy Falco to the band. This week we also have a free mp3 download from the new CD.

Enter to win an autographed CD (and listen to the streaming track)

Enter to win a pair of tickets to the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival

We heard yesterday from Travis Book of The Infamous Stringdusters, filling us in on the band’s ongoing European tour.

The guys have been there since the beginning of May, and will be appearing in Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic until June 1 - returning just in time for the release of their next CD, The Infamous Stringdusters, on June 10.

“We’re having a blast. Being so far from home for so long is tough, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. People are reacting very positively to the music. We’ve even got a group of people that are following us around, coming to multiple shows.

The language barrier has made the stage emceeing interesting. Some nights the audience has a better grasp of the English language, some nights less. Our stage show, the emcee part, has never been the smoothest or slickest - we’re just a bunch of guys hanging out, playing some music, so a lot of what we say, the humor especially, they don’t really understand. But it’s that way in the states a lot of times anyway!”

Travis also wanted to share their most recent video update, available on YouTube along with a number of other tour clips.

• Enter to win an autographed CD (and download a free track)
• Enter to win a pair of tickets to the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival

Cherryholmes will be appearing on tonight’s Tuesday Grand Ole Opry, in the initial segment that airs from 8:00-8:30 p.m.

The Opry broadcast is available over the air in the Nashville market on WSM AM 650, and simulcast worldwide via online streaming at wsmonline.com. It can also be heard live on XM channel 11 (XM Nashville).

The band has continued to offer some sneak peeks from their next CD on YouTube. Throughout the video clips posted so far, they have refered to the project as Cherryholmes III, but that may just be the working title for this next Skaggs Family project.

In this clip, we see guest artist Rob Ickes preparing to track his part on the uptempo bluegrass song, Traveler.

And this latest clip is of Cia Cherryholmes recording vocals for the song, This Is My Son.

You can see all of the video clips on the Skaggs Family YouTube channel.

Cherryholmes also has a UK tour scheduled for this summer, doing shows in both Wales and England prior to their big show at the Cambridge Folk Festival at the end of July. You can see a list of their UK dates at ukbluegrass.com.

Here’s the second installment of the video content we’re bringing you as part of our Infamous Stringdusters promotion.

The album The Infamous Stringdusters, will be released on June 10, 2008. See our original post for information about the pre-order special.

This video is provided in cooperation with The Infamous Stringdusters, Sugar Hill Records, and Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival.

Each episode (5 in total) will be accompanied by either a streaming track or an mp3 download from the new CD. Access to the tracks will be limited to registered users of The Bluegrass Blog, and accessing the track will enter you in a promotional giveaway to win one of three autographed copies of the CD.

We also have one other contest for you - there will only be one winner in this contest, but it’s big. We’re giving away a pair of tickets to this year’s Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, a meet and greet with the band at the festival, and some merchandise the guys will autograph just for you on site.

Enjoy the video, download this week’s track, and enter to win free festival tickets!

This second installment includes episode two of the video, and a streaming mp3 of a track from the new CD, .

Enter to win an autographed CD (and listen to the streaming track)

Enter to win a pair of tickets to the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival

Rhonda Vincent’s 10th career video, I Gotta Start Somewhere from her latest album, Good Thing Going, has been added in medium rotation to CMT’s main television channel. It premiered May 1 on CMT’com’s Country Music Blog and debuted on CMT Pure in heavy rotation on May 5.

The video, filmed in Bryson City, NC in the heart of the Smokey Mountains with Los Angeles director Dallas Henry, features Vincent trying to get over a broken relationship by retreating to the mountains. The piece is Vincent’s first Hi-Def video. The Hi-Def format brings into sharp relief the beauty of early spring in the Smoky Mountains as well as the beauty of the seven time IBMA female vocalist of year.

The video can be viewed here at CMT.com.

Released in January, Good Thing Going has topped Billboard’s Top Bluegrass Albums Chart (currently #8), Bluegrass Unlimited’s Top 15 Bluegrass Albums Chart (currently #2), and Bluegrass Music Profile’s Top 10 Bluegrass CDs Chart (currently #1).

The Dallas Morning News says this of Rhonda …..

“She has everything it takes to appeal to the masses: the pedigree, the pipes, the chops and the looks.”

MiND TV, based in Philadelphia, PA, is an independent public television initiative with an interesting twist. All of the content which is broadcast on TV (Channel 34 in Philly) or streamed online is made up of 5 minute segments.

Four segments have recently been produced that feature Blue Highway. Each begins with a portion of the short documentary on the band produced by Craig Havighurst - which can be viewed in its entirety here on The Bluegrass Blog - followed by a live performance of one song from a live concert.

There is no link that will take you to all four Blue Highway clips, but you can follow the four links below to watch them online.

• Wondrous Love
• Little Maggie
• I Hung My Head
• Cold Harbor

Audio clips from their newest CD, Through The Window Of A Train, on their web site.

McCoury Music and High Sierra Music have posted a YouTube video of Dierks Bentley rehearsing his hit song I’ve Got A Lot Of Leaving Left To Do with The Del McCoury Band in preparation for their joint appearance at DelFest next weekend.

The video shows them running through the tune, complete with an extended jam section - where Dierks even trades a few G runs with the Delster himself!

Cherryholmes invited the video cameras into the studio during the recent sessions for their third Skaggs Family project. They captured a behind-the-scenes look at how the family records, and a few tastes of some of the new songs, still in progress.

All of the studio clips can be seen on the Skaggs Family web site.

The label is currently projecting a late September release.

CMT is marking the month of May (bluegrass month!) with some special programming tomorrow morning (5/13).

From 6:00-8:00 and 9:00-11:00 a.m. (ET/PT) CMT will feature blocks of all bluegrass videos on their popular cable TV network. The music videos will be mixed with live clips from the various bluegrass performances recorded for their Unplugged At Studio 330 series.

If CMT is offered in your cable or satellite package, you can get ready for work with bluegrass videos on Tuesday morning. They will also be launching bluegrass editions this week for their online video series Wide Open Country and Stacked on CMT.com.

This special programming is also being offered to help promote their new bluegrass section at the CMT.com Country Music Blog.

Hey… wait a minute! They’re moving in on our turf!

Just be sure to stop here and read The Bluegrass Blog each day before heading over there to see what they are up to at CMT.com.

As we look forward to the June 10, 2008 release of The Infamous Stringdusters, the sophomore release from this multi-award winning band, we’re partnering with the band, Sugar Hill Records, and Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, to bring our readers some exciting content and giveaways.

The CD is available for pre-order now, directly from the band, and those who do so will receive a signed copy of the CD along with immediate access to download a live recording of the April 15, 2008 show the guys put on at the Fox Theater in Boulder, CO. This live recording features 11 tracks, two of which are over 10 minutes in length. It was a great show, the recording is top notch and the music very enjoyable.

So here’s the content we have for you.

Sugar Hill Records has commissioned our friends at String Theory Media to produce a Best of 2007 video about The Infamous Stringdusters. The video will be debuted here on The Bluegrass Blog in 5 episodes, the first of which is embedded below. Each monday for the next four weeks we’ll present another installment. The last episode will be posted on June 9, 2008, the day before the CD hits the streets.

Each episode will be accompanied by either a streaming track or an mp3 download from the new CD. Access to the tracks will be limited to registered users of The Bluegrass Blog, and accessing the track will enter you in a promotional giveaway to win one of three autographed copies of the CD.

We also have one other contest for you - there will only be one winner in this contest, but it’s big. We’re giving away a pair of tickets to this year’s Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, a meet and greet with the band at the festival, and some merchandise the guys will autograph just for you on site.

So enjoy the video, download this week’s track, and enter to win free festival tickets!

This first installment includes episode one of the video, and an mp3 download of the first track from the new CD, Won’t Be Coming Back.

Enter to win an autographed CD (and download a free track)

Enter to win a pair of tickets to the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival

Chris Pandolfi, banjo player with The Infamous Stringdusters, is debuting his talent as a documentary filmmaker during the band’s current European tour. He will be posting video updates on YouTube while the band is overseas, with the first three available now online.

This initial installment covers their first two days in Germany, with a bit of live show footage and their attempts at learning a bit of German.

See the rest of the videos on YouTube.

We’ll have more Infamous Stringdusters video later this morning, along with a chance to win in our new ‘Dusters promotion. Check back later for details.

Video from a Punch Brothers Concert for Folk Alley has been posted online. The show was recorded on April 2 in Kent, OH and both sets of music can be viewed at FolkAlley.com

The concert contains a complete performance of The Blind Leaving The Blind, split between the two sets. This is Chris Thile’s magnum opus of a string quintet for the bluegrass ensemble in four movements from their recent release, Punch. If you’ve wondered whether they can pull it off live, here’s your chance to find out online.

One aspect that may really strike you is the contrast between the seriousness of the music and the playful personalities of the band - Thile and banjo player Noam Pikelny most particularly.

Watch the full concert on the Folk Alley site.

Our friend Craig Havighurst has posted a YouTube video bio of Sierra Hull. Craig produced the video for Rounder Records to coincide with the release, yesterday, of Sierra’s new CD, Secrets.

We got to produce this video bio of Sierra that shows her trying to balance the life of a normal 16-year-old high school junior with her new career as an in-demand touring and recording artist. She’s a super person too, and we wish her the best of luck.

The video features interview footage with both Sierra and producer, Ron Block, as well as behind the scenes footage and performance footage. It’s a nice feature that all bluegrass fans should enjoy.

Last week was a good’n for bluegrass and old time music on the CMT Pure 12-Pack Countdown video competition. Uncle Earl’s Steak O’ Lean was the #1 viewer-voted video, and Mountain Heart’s Road With No End was #2.

These two beat out Dolly Parton and Toby Keith for the top spots, so we know that it was bluegrass fans that put them in. They are both in the running again in this week’s voting, along with Rhonda Vincent’s I Gotta Start Somewhere, which debuts in the competition this week.

You can see all the videos on the Pure 12-Pack Countdown web site, where you can also cast a vote for your favorites. Voting ends on Wednesday night, with weekly winners announced on Friday evening during the Pure 12-Pack Countdown show on CMTP.

The new music video from Rhonda Vincent has debuted this morning on CMT.com. It’s for the song I Gotta Start Somewhere from her latest Rounder project, Good Thing Going.

Watch the full video on CMT’s Country Music Blog.

You can also see some behind-the-scenes photos from the video shoot in our earlier posts here and here.

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.