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.

The Isaacs have posted some sample video from their recent concert DVD release, Live In Norway. It starts with a spirited instrumental version of I’ll Fly Away followed by footage of the band and family sight-seeing.

The DVD was filmed in Kristiansand in June of 2007, and features 19 songs, including many popular titles from Isaacs’ CD releases.

Many grassers may think of The Isaacs primarily as a pop, Gospel act, not realizing that they started out as a bluegrass band singing Gospel music. I can recall seeing Ben, Sonya and Rebecca jamming at Galax and they are all serious and highly competent bluegrass pickers.

Check out the sample video clip for confirmation.

Mountain Heart came in #3 in the online fan voting in this week’s CMT Pure 12-Pack Countdown for their Road That Never Ends video.

That means that the video will be shown tonight (4/25) on television on CMTP, CMT’s new digital channel. The show airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. (EDT) with rebroadcasts on Saturday (4/26) at 2:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., and on Sunday (4/27) at 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

Additional show times later in the week can be found on CMT.com.

Congratulations, guys!

Several folks have written in to remind us that Mountain Heart’s video for Road That Never Ends is in the running this week on CMT Pure 12-Pack Countdown.

Voting ends tonight (4/23) at 9:00 p.m., so head on over to CMT.com and cast your ballot if you want to see the guys score high in the results - which will be announced on Friday.

I had the opportunity to watch part of the shooting of this video, and you can read a bit about that (and see a few photos) in my earlier post.

Uncle Earl’s Streak O’ Lean video is also up in this week’s competition.

You can watch the Mountain Heart video here on The Bluegrass Blog, or on the Countdown site.

Our friend David Conner shared this YouTube link with us. It features a number of videos shot during an appearance by The Dan Tyminski Band at The Birchmere on March 1 of this year.

Ten songs from the show are posted, including the title track from Dan’s upcoming Rounder CD, Wheels, several cuts from his previous solo release (Tiny Broken Heart, Stuck In The Middle Of Nowhere) and a few bluegrass classics (Rocky Road Blues, Man Of Constant Sorrow, Muleskinner Blues, Mary Ann).

The band includes Tyminski on guitar and vocals, Ron Stewart on banjo, Adam Steffey on mandolin, Barry bales on bass and Justin Moses on fiddle.

The video was shot with a hand held camera, so it’s a bit shaky at times, but the audio is terrific and they give a fine taste of how strong this band is in concert. This show in March took place one day after I saw the band perform in Roanoke (review here).

You can find all the videos on YouTube, and we’ve included the Wheels video for your enjoyment here.

The Chapmans have launched a new band website. It’s an interactive flash based site that is basically one page with popups for all additional info. It’s not a bad design, but it does use some bandwidth.

The photo gallery was pretty slow to load, and I’m on high-speed, but it was worth it to see papa Chapman in that ten-gallon hat!

The tour schedule feature is pretty cool, but I had to use Firefox to view it. It never would load in Safari. So be aware that your milage may vary depending on your preferred browser. It not only provides dates and locations, but also an animated tour map with a red line tracing their tour route. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the Indian Jones map, but without the plane.

The real unique feature though is Chap TV. If you click on the TV, the popup will load the Chap TV. Chap TV is…well, I’ll let them explain it.

It was an idea that was conceived on one of those really late overnight drives on tour, when Jason decided to pull out his new camcorder and start filming all the excitement. Being dark and all, he put the camera on night mode, and then the light bulb went off in the collective heads of The Chapmans… if millions of people wanted to watch the home video’s of Paris Hilton, maybe they wanted to see some of The Chapmans too. So we started filming every exciting moment out on the road, back stage, riding in the ChapMobile™, in the studio, broke down on the side of the highway. Then we got to thinking how difficult it was gonna be to get all our fans into our living room to watch the footage, and after a failed attempt to get permits to build a 10,000 sq. ft. addition to our house, we decided to build it in cyberspace. Enter Chap-TV.

I’m not sure but that the boys may have overestimated the size and interest of the audience just a bit, but it’s still fun stuff. You’ll also see an occasional appearance by other bluegrassers the Chapmans come into contact with. The single bass jam featuring Jason Chapman along with Justin Carbone and Alan Bartram, was inspiring.

Watch this introductory video. That last question really has me thinking. (more…)

If you need a new coffee mug and you like to watch bluegrass related videos, then Wichita Rutherford has a got a deal for you.

He’s posted this video on his blog. It was made back in the summer of 2006. The local news in Nashville did a story on Wichita and it contains a LOT of bluegrass musicians.

Wichita is offering a free “The Bluegrass Way” coffee mug to the first three people who can tell him the names of all the musicians in the video.

I’ll give one away, the guys pouring of the limo while playing are The Infamous Stringdusters. You’ll have to figure out the rest on your own.

To win you’ll need to visit Wichita’s Blog and email him your list.

Here’s the video…

Rounder has put together an online video bio to introduce young mandolin sensation Sierra Hull in preparation for the upcoming release of her debut CD, Secrets, on May 6.

The video mixes interview segments with both Sierra and co-producer Ron Block, with photos, video clips and audio from the new CD.

If you are not familiar with this exciting new artist, take a few minutes and get to know her and her music.

Watch the video on the Rounder site.

Following up on John’s post yesterday, I spoke with Rhonda, via email, about the new video.

She is very pleased with the results, not so pleased about the bronchitis, and offered a couple more of her favorite photos taken during the shooting of the video.