LarrySparks and Del McCoury singing Those Blue Eyes Don’t Sparkle Anymore. The old time way.

Russell is singing Footprints In The Snow with The Rage and guests Darrell Webb on mandolin, Andy Hall on dobro and Darrin Vincent on guitar.

Mineando, last year’s European World of Bluegrass band winner, is on stage presenting the award for Dobro Player of the Year.

And the award goes to Rob Ickes.

The award for Mandolin Player of the Year goes to our host for the evening, Sam Bush!

The first award of the evening is for Song Of The Year, Bobby Osborne and Claire Lynch presenting.

And the award goes to… Fork In The Road, by The Infamous Stringdusters - Chris Jones and John Pennell songwriters.

Sam Bush is on stage now giving his introductory speech. Sam will be the host for this evening’s festivities.

Right now he’s telling stories about his growing up in Kentucky and hearing some of the great first generation performers of bluegrass music.

The awards should begin shortly. Stay tuned…

It’s on! The Grascals are performing.

Here we go…

The show has begun, with a video presentation from our friend Wichita Rutherford.

The video is showing a young man listening to the radio and Wichita comes on. The young boy is transported through time by Wichita’s Grand Ole Time Machine. Wichita is giving the boy a lesson in the history of bluegrass music.

If you are a Wichita fan, you can use your imagination to envision it.

Our intrepid IBMA fashionistas, Katy Daley and Jen Hitt have sent their first outfit of note. Jen says that they spoke with Richard Gelardin, attending from Alaska, who appeared in a striking outfit, complete with Dave Little boots, a calico vest with a fishing lyre pattern (which his mother made for him back in 1954) and a “half breed” hat - beaver brim and a straw body.

Congratulations, Richard, for catching their eye.

UPDATE 9:18: They’ve now spotted Connie Leigh, who wrote Song Of The Year nominee Sadie’s Got Her New Dress On, with striking platinum hair and a fabulous red satin halter dress.

Brance and I are backstage at the Opry, getting ready to live blog tonight’s International Bluegrass Music Awards. We just got word that Rhonda Vincent is feeling a bit under the weather, and won’t be able to perform on the show.

Russell Moore from IIIrd Tyme Out had been set to play guitar and sing with Rhonda tonight, and he will perform with The Rage in her stead.

Here’s a get well soon wish to Rhonda from The Bluegrass Blog!

UPDATE 9:10 p.m.: Rhonda’s daughter, Tensel, has posted some further details on her mom’s message board.

The Awards Show evening has begun. We’ve set up backstage to blog the show and we’re seeing a lot of bluegrass performers backstage heading to dressing rooms to get themselves ready.

Kyle Cantrell at XM Satellite Radio has a dressing room converted into a studio and he’s busily conducting interviews. When I walked past a moment ago the Dailey Vincent Band was just sitting down with him.

John and I will be bringing you updates the rest of the evening as the event unfolds. Stay tuned for more IBMA Awards Show news!

I’ve closed the voting in our Bluegrass Blog Reader Awards Poll.

John and I will be blogging the award show live from the Grand Ole Opry this evening and tomorrow we’ll compare the actual awards to your choices in the poll.

Thursday morning at IBMA and it’s time for the Special Awards luncheon. This the event where IBMA awards a number of special awards that are not included during the evening’s award show due to time constraints.

Greg Cahill, IBMA president, started off the event by recognizing the outgoing IBMA board members. A heart felt round of applause was giving for each of these men as their names were announced.

The program moved on the announcement of the winners of the Bluegrass Lesson Plan Contest.

Tim Stafford then took the stage to speak about Leadership Bluegrass and the class of 2007.

An IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award was then given to Bluegrass Breakdown, the newsletter of the California Bluegrass Association.

Alison Brown was introduced next and she announced the winner for Best Liner Notes For Recorded Project. The award was given to Barry Poss & Jay Orr at Sugar Hill Records for the project A Retrospective.

Brown then went on to announce the winner of Best Graphic Design for Recorded Project. The award went to Don Bailey for the design on the Rebel Records release Hillbilly Hemingway, the latest CD from The Mark Newton Band.

Dale Ann Bradley gives a Distinguished Achievement Award to Warren Hellman for his work putting together the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco.

Neil Rosenberg was introduced next. He’s presenting the award for Print Media Person of the Year. And the award goes to…wait for it…The Bluegrass Blog!

Next up is Pete Wernick. Pete is on stage to present a Distinguished Achievement Award to Happy and Jane Traum of Homespun Video for their work documenting the legacy of a great many bluegrass master muscians in the form of instructional videos and DVDs.

Lee Michael Dempsy takes the stage to present the award for Bluegrass Broadcaster of the Year to Chris Jones of Sirius Satellite Radio.

Greg Cahil and Jaroslav Prucha, of Prucha Banjos, are presenting a Distinguished Achievement Award to Marko Cermak for his work as a banjo player and artist who has introduced many to bluegrass in the Czech Republic and all of Eastern Europe.

Stan Zdonik in instroduced to present the award for Bluegrass Event of the Year. Festival of the Bluegrass in Lexington, KY is honored with the award this year.

Last up is Rob Ickes presenting a Distinguished Achievement Award to Mike Auldridge for his lifetime of inspiring young musicians to play bluegrass music and the dobro. Rob described Mike’s tone on the instrument as the Holy Grail of modern resophonic guitar players.

John and I have to run to a meeting, but we’ll be back shortly with a set of photos from the luncheon, as well as more coverage of the World of Bluegrass event.

Be sure to visit The Bluegrass Blog tonight for our live blog coverage of the International Bluegrass Music Awards from the Grand Ole Opry. Brance and I will be backstage, posting each new award recipient as they are announced.

The show begins at 9:30 p.m. eastern time (8:30 p.m. Nashville time), and we should be in place and all set up around 9:00 - if IBMA will give us our press credentials.

On Friday morning, we’ll have all of the posts from the live blog available together in actual, instead of reverse chronological order. For our European friends - or anyone who can’t stay up for the results - check in with us on Friday when you get up and see who took home the trophies.

Last night as John and I wondered the halls listening to jams and showcases, shaking hands, and visiting with old friends, I had the camera out and snapped a lot of photos. Here’s a few photos for your viewing pleasure.

    

    

    

  

Here are some random photos taken in the IBMA Exhibit Hall yesterday afternoon. See anyone you know?

   

   

   

   

Earlier this evening John and I had the opportunity to attend the official screening of the 30 minute video Four Days Of Infamy. The video was produced by Craig Havighurst of String Theory Media and takes the viewer on the road with The Infamous Stringdusters.

The event was hosted by Sugar Hill Records and even though we’d seen the video here, I must admit there is just something about seeing a video on the big screen.

We’ve posted it before, but with the excitement rekindled, we decided to post it again for those of you who missed it the first time around. Just click the play button and join The Infamous Stringdusters on a 4 day Colorado tour, for Four Days Of Infamy.

We got to see a great deal of good music last night. The official IBMA showcase presentation in the main ballroom featured one strong act after another, and we managed to catch one after hours show before the travails of a day at IBMA sent us scurrying for the covers.

First up was Meantime, from The Slovak Republic. They are fronted by Daniela Hroncova, a talented vocalist and one of the primary songwriters in the band. They are popular in central and eastern Europe, and they are hoping to build an audience in the United States as well. The band’s sound - both in performance and in their choice of songs and arrangements - is decidedly modern, and they were very well received in the hall.

They were followed on stage by Grass Cats, a band that has existed in many different forms since 1997 as a vehicle for North Carolina singer, songwriter and mandolinist Russell Johnson. Their short set featured several of Russell’s songs, including Home To Carolina, which has spent a number of months on the Bluegrass Unlimited’s National Bluegrass Survey.

Any time Steve Gulley is singing, it’s time to pay attention, and last night was no exception. I had been looking forward to seeing Grasstowne live at IBMA, so when they took the stage next, my ears were perked up. The combination of Gulley with Alan Bibey on mandolin and Phil Leadbetter on dobro is the basis of this new group, still less than a year old, but with quite a reputation already in place.

As you might expect, they put on a strong show, mixing songs from their solo projects and the band’s debut CD, The Road Heading Home.

We also caught John Reischman & The Jaybirds, a Canadian band that performed an interesting mix of old time, bluegrass and folk music. John is known from his time as a member of The Tony Rice Unit and the Good Ol’ Persons. I was unfortunately beset with a computer issue while they were on stage, and wasn’t able to focus on their show, but they were very enthusiastically received in the room.

Dale Ann Bradley closed the evening’s showcase, and was joined by Mike Bub on bass and Ramona Church on banjo. Her set was mostly drawn from here current CD, Catch Tomorrow. There are few singers in bluegrass who can captivate an audience the way she can, and the band was sharp and on top of their game.

     

   

Good morning from Nashville.

Brance and I just had a chance to be a part of radio history. Katy Daley, whose morning bluegrass show is broadcast each morning on both BluegrassCountry.org and WAMU HD-2, is here at IBMA doing the show live from Music City. She invited us down to speak with her on air, and we just returned from a very enjoyable interview.

Katy, and producer/engineer Jen Hitt, mentioned that theirs is among the very first live remote broadcast for HD Radio, and we were delighted to be on hand to see it go down. We talked with Katy about The Bluegrass Blog, about my work with AcuTab and Brance’s with Clear Blue Productions, and she even played a couple of tracks from Acoustic Endeavors.

BluegrassCountry has been offering a free, 24/7 bluegrass audio stream online since 2001, and since are now replicating the signal on WAMU HD 88.5-2 for HD Radio listeners in the DC metro area.

Katy’s show airs each weekday morning from 7:00-10:00 a.m. (ET). I’m not sure if she would approve of me suggesting that everyone should “wake up with Katy Daley each morning,” but it’s not a bad plan as you prepare for the morning slog.

Katy and Jen have also volunteered to provide red carpet fashion coverage for us during our live blog coverage of the IBMA Awards Show Thursday night. They said they would send along fashion hits and misses via text messaging to our Live Blog Headquarters backstage at The Opry.

Join us here on Thursday evening (10/4) around 9:00 p.m. to follow the proceedings online.

As John mentioned just a few minutes ago, we attended the Mountain Heart showcase earlier this evening in the Rural Rhythm suite and they were every bit as good as I expected them to be.

John snapped a few photos of the band during the show, and with the band’s permission I shot a few minutes of video footage. As a disclaimer let me state that I edited this video while watching the Grasstowne showcase this evening. IBMA, there’s no place like it!

Anyway, here’s a short 4 minute video that should give you a glimpse of the Mountain Heart show this evening.