Now it appears that Sing Out!, the venerable folk music mag, is approaching its 60 year anniversary in a very tenuous state. The economic difficulties of print publishing in today’s market have hit them hard, and without the help of the many friends of the magazine, their fate is uncertain.

Co-founder Pete Seeger has written an open letter to the folk music community about Sing Out’s condition, asking for immediate financial help.

“Over the years, Sing Out! has grown, changed formats several times, and added songbooks like Rise Up Singing to its catalog. It’s created a resource center collecting music, books and photos, reaching back through our community of music and its revival. We even do a weekly radio show that you might be hearing on a local radio station.

Today, in these changing and challenging economic times, Sing Out! is struggling to survive. As we head toward our 60th anniversary next year, we need your support more than ever. I ask you to consider making a contribution to help Sing Out! get through this very difficult year AND to ensure another 60 years of sharing songs that we need to learn and sing.”

He also created a video appeal…

Sing Out! has an online donations page set up to accept whatever assistance loyal readers and supporters of the magazine may be willing to offer.

Entitled The freshman, the general tenor of the piece by Joan Anderman is the contrast between Sarah’s path and that of the average 18 year old artist with a recording contract.

Now, just when most rising stars would be leaping headlong into the beckoning arms of agents and promoters, Jarosz is putting her career on the back burner to study at the New England Conservatory. She admits that enrolling in the school of life was a tempting choice; plenty of musicians do it, and many believe that hitting the road is the only legitimate path for a player.

“I talked to a lot of musicians that I respect and got a lot of different opinions,’’ Jarosz says over coffee at a cafe near campus. “And I definitely did ponder the idea of just going straight into the music career. But there’s always more to learn, and I also didn’t want to miss out on the college experience. My roommate is a classical vocal performance major; she does a lot of opera singing, which is something I’ve never really been around before. I’ve been listening to a ton of Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. I’m in a world music and a Jewish music ensemble. I’m getting out of my comfort zone.’’

You can read the whole article online.

Bluegrass Now tried going all-digital in March 2008, hoping that eliminating the print and mailing costs would allow them to survive with an online subscription model, but unfortunately for the entire bluegrass community, it was not to be.

The Bledsoes spelled it out in in their farewell message…

Although Bluegrass Now has avoided the magnitude of problems afflicting the major publishers, the economic downturn has impacted us in a variety of ways. After prolonged deliberations, we have decided that rather than compromise the integrity and quality of the magazine, which we have sought to maintain since its inception in 1990, we will cease publication at the end of this year.

One thing left unresolved was the status of the existing online subscribers when the magazine closed up shop. That issue has finally been resolved, and all current subscribers as of 12/08 will be offered an online subscription to Flatpicking Digital, the online home of Flatpicking Guitar magazine.

FGM publisher Dan Miller explains how the switch-off will work.

“Before they went out of business they were only offering a digital version of the magazine, so I’m allowing all of those people who still had issues remaining on their subscription to Bluegrass Now to have a one year digital subscription to Flatpicking Guitar Magazine – both our digital magazine and the audio files.”

Former BN subscribers can contact FGM for more details if they have not yet been contacted about this offer.

Bluegrass Music Profiles

Since 2005, BMP has dedicated their November/December issue to the ladies, with both feature articles and regular columns focusing on the contributions of female bluegrass artists and personalities.

The cover article by Deborah Wilbrink follows the familiar BMP interview format. An example…

BMP: What are your two favorite bluegrass songs?

DALE ANN BRADLEY: John Deere Tractor remains one of my very favorite songs. Larry Sparks had a hit with it, and The Judds recorded it. I love One Way Track, it’s been a mainstay for Boone Creek, one of the songs that progressed bluegrass. Ricky [Skaggs] has recorded it too in recent times, both of those are standards for a generation.

Also found in the new issue:

• Rhonda Vincent – Christmas Memories
• Claire Lynch and Alecia Nugent – Bluegrass Favorites
• Frances Mooney – Shop Talk
• Carrie Hassler – Bluegrass Poster
• Jennifer Strickland – Songwriter Profile
• Bertie Sullivan – Promoter Profile
• Erica Brady – DJ Profile

Subscription and single-issue details can be found online.

Letterman has dubbed this week as Country Music Week on The Late Show, with musical performances each night from prominent Nashville entertainers. Stanley will close out this theme week talking about his very personal book, written with Eddie Dean. It covers Ralph’s life from early childhood with his brother, Carter, through their time together as The Stanley Brothers, and his own musical career after Carter’s passing in 1966.

We’ll have more to say about this deeply moving autobiography soon.

The Late Show airs on CBS television at 11:35 p.m. (ET/PT).

UPDATE 10:30 a.m. – We just got an update from Norma Morris, of Morris Public Relations, who handles publicity for Ralph Stanley:

“Letterman will mention the book, open it up and make some comments, but Ralph will not have the opportunity to sit down and discuss it. So he will perform one song, Room at the Top of the Stairs. The Letterman people have been just great.”

The show can be heard on WAMU online and is syndicated on 150 NPR affiliate stations all over the US. The segment with Ralph is scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. (EDT).

Audio archives are maintained on the WAMU site, and today’s show will be available in the archive approximately one hour after the program ends.

UPDATE 1:00 p.m. – We just heard from WAMU’s Bluegrass Country host Katy Daley, who sent along a couple of photos from today’s visit from a number of bluegrass legends.

While Dr. Ralph Stanley was being interviewed (and line singing) with Diane Rehm, Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen were across the hall on the air with Lee Michael Demsey on Bluegrass Country.  Hillman and Pederson sang a few songs live — Wait a Minute, Love Reunited among them — and talked their 45-years in the music business — Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Desert Rose Band.

They’re in town to play the Birchmere tonight with The Grascals.  Chris Hillman is giving a lecture on his career at the Library of Congress on Friday from Noon to 1.

Working Girl Blues, which was published in 2008 by the University of Illinois Press, relates the life story of singer and songwriter Hazel Dickens, the inspiring voice of a whole generation of women and workers. It contains the lyrics to and comments on 40 of her wonderful songs, as well as a brief biography.

The winners will be recognized during an awards banquet to be held at the Chateau Bourbon in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Saturday, May 22, 2010.

Inside the magazine is an interview with Martin conducted by fellow banjo picker Pete Wernick.

In addition to all their regular features, Managing Editor Sharon McGraw tells us that the new issue also has a special 20th Anniversary overview of the International Bluegrass Music Awards.

Sharon also invites all of our readers who will be at IBMA next week to swing by the BU booth in the exhibit hall for some special offers.

You can find subscription and single issue purchase info for Bluegrass Unlimited on their web site.

Gene Lowinger, a New Jersey boy by birth, was the first northerner to play the fiddle for Bill Monroe. He first played with Monroe in 1964, filling in on shows in the northeast. In June 1965 he was hired as a regular Blue Grass Boy and stayed for about eight months.

Lowinger oscillated between playing bluegrass fiddle and classical violin, mastering both in a highly-driven pursuit  for perfection. As well as being a talented fiddler/violinist, Lowinger is an excellent photographer. I Hear A Voice Calling is Lowinger’s photographic tribute to the Father of Bluegrass music. However, it is not designed for the coffee table. The black and white photographs are placed in two sections with Lowinger’s own story framing them.

Lowinger’s narrative takes the reader through his life, in which he always had a penchant for music, beginning in 1942 in the Greenwich Village (New York) bluegrass scene and his friendship with David Grisman, the visits, while a college student, to the early bluegrass festivals, through to the passing of Bill Monroe and beyond. As well as relating his own story of his trials and tribulations, he shares a personal account of his experiences with Bill Monroe on and off the road. In the process we learn a lot about both  individuals and the relationship between the two; one the mentor, the other a willing student, both friends.

After a ten year hiatus working on Wall Street Lowinger overcame a serious neck injury, recreational drugs and alcohol to return to music. He doesn’t discuss his dependencies, but his return to playing bluegrass fiddle just prior to Monroe’s passing is most welcome.

I Hear A Voice Calling is a vivid, sometimes emotional, record of a very significant era in bluegrass music.

Highly recommended.

Note: Gene Lowinger is a freelance photojournalist based in New York and New Jersey. Lowinger is also the author of Bluegrass Fiddle (Oak Publications), one of the first books to accurately capture the bluegrass fiddle style in standard musical notation.

Kyle MacMillan, Denver Post Fine Arts Critic, was enthusiast about the piece, and hailed Thile as “up-and-coming classical composer with almost unlimited potential.”

The 25-minute piece would have been an admirable accomplishment for anyone. But considering that the mandolinist is just 28, is not classically trained and has never written an orchestral work before, it is nothing short of astounding.

Although it is a wonderful solo vehicle for him, the virtuoso player that he is, the concerto is not a showpiece. There are no big flourishes, no grand gestures to win over audiences.

It is a tightly wound, introspective work suffused with a melancholic, even gently haunting feeling. The sometimes spare, sometimes layered piece stays well within the bounds of tonality, looking back at times to Bela Bartok and the early 20th century.

The mandolin is not an obvious concerto instrument, but Thile skillfully integrates it into the whole, demonstrating a natural gift for orchestration. The work scatters handsome solos around the orchestra and sets up intriguing inner dialogues with the mandolin and other instruments.

Read the full review online.

Russell is also the subject of a feature interview, where he discusses the group’s latest eponymous CD, his co-writing, how he spends his free time, and the new band name – which puts his name out front after billing themselves as a band for 18 years, a move suggested by the fact that Moore is the sole founding member remaining.

“I had been strongly advised by several people that this was something I needed to do. Either do it like that or change the name totally. I contemplated about that for a long time because I didn’t want anybody to feel like I was saying I was better than they are. It takes every one of us in this group to do what we do, and I’m the first one that’ll tell you that I can’t get up on stage and do it by myself. I sat down with all the guys in the group and we talked about  it, and I explained my position and asked their opinions. I didn’t tell them I was going to do something. I asked them what their opinions were, and we talked about it. Everybody was fine with it. They know where my heart is. They’re like brothers to me and I’m proud of every one of them. We all still feel the same way about each other. That hasn’t changed. The music hasn’t changed. We still go about it the same way. But now I have all the bills. They all come to me.”

Also included in this Fall issue include profiles on Jerry Butler and John Wade’s group The Blu-J’s and promoter Sheldon Frost, ShopTalk with mandolin legend Frank Wakefield, Dan Tyminski’s Bluegrass Favorites, a Songwriter Profile of Ray Edwards, and The Bluegrass Side of Michael Martin Murphey. This issue also includes a fold out, full color poster of Dailey & Vincent.

Find more details on BMP online.

Valentine’s Fall is the latest offering from Canadian Cary Fagan, an award-winning author of children’s books, whose non-fiction writing and commentary also appears in a number of Canadian papers. He has authored a number of books for older readers as well, but this will be his first with a bluegrass twist.

The book, due October 1 from Cormorant Books, tells the story of Huddie Rosen, whose high school life is marred by the death of his best friend in a foolish stunt (Valentine’s Fall), and who discovers a love for bluegrass music when he moves from Toronto to live in Tennessee.

I would say that the author captures much of the spirit of the music in this brief passage from the book, inspired by hearing a recording of Bill Monroe playing Get Up John at the first Fincastle Bluegrass Festival in 1965:

“Monroe’s mandolin is backed only by Peter Rowan on guitar. His playing is very fast but not blistering, a cascade of vibrating rhythm, of changing doublestops and open drone strings, of the sound both delicate and rough that he could draw from his 1924 Gibson Lloyd Loar mandolin. He plays a series of variations, making the rhythm surge here, hang back there, suddenly thrashing his pick in successive downstrokes, touching the high harmonic note like a bell. It’s just the most alive, most human sound I have ever heard. You can feel the energy pouring from his hands into that small instrument. It’s as if he could go on for ever or might begin to falter, but he does neither, he makes the music rise like a wave, hold there, and then, in a touching anticlimax, quit. It would be like Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations or Pablo Casals’s Cello Suites if they had written what they were playing.

The thing about music is that you can trust it. It’s emotionally reliable. Playing or listening, it gives you what you need, when you need it. A lot of the time, that has seemed like enough to me. But it isn’t enough. That’s what I have sometimes failed to remember.”

Here’s a brief video synopsis of the story…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The song tells a compelling story of James and Red Molly and their fascination with other, and with his classic motorbike. Now James is a bad boy – part of his attraction for Molly – and things end poorly for him in the song, written by British guitarist, singer and songwriter Richard Thompson.

The first time I heard the track, it sounded like it would make a fine treatment for a film script, and it seems that Al Sciarrino had the same reaction. He has spun the bare-bones story from the song into a full-length novel, Vincent Black Lightning 1952, due for publication by Cape Fear Media in early October.

Sciarrino is an attorney and a professor of business law in New York whose first novel, Officer Candidate School, was published in 1994. That book was based on his experience in the U.S. Army Signal Corps Officer Candidate School, and dealt with questions about military hazing.

His love of music and motorcycles is what led him to his newest undertaking.

“What inspired me to write a novel based on the bluegrass hit, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning was the jumpy cool version by Del McCoury and the lyrics. I must have played the song a hundred times the first few days. I did not know much about Del McCoury and bluegrass until that song and, of course the movie O Brother Where Art Thou. Now I’m a real aficionado of bluegrass and learning more about it each day!

My novel is loosely based on the song…I make James Adi less of a calculated robber and a little more like Robin Hood…and I also bring in the Korean War.”

The book will be released in conjunction with ibluegrass.com and Solid Gold Country. Pre-orders will be accepted beginning on September 16.

**NOTE: To avoid confusion, the Richard Thompson who wrote this fine song – and a good many others – is not our Richard F. Thompson, a regular contributor to The Bluegrass Blog and editor of British Bluegrass News.

He is on the cover of the September 2009 issue of Strings Magazine, and received a profile in the September 7 edition of The New Yorker’s Talk Of The Town column. Mark also graces the cover of this month’s International Musician, the monthly publication of the American Federation of Musicians.

All these articles focus on O’Connor’s upcoming instructional book series, the aptly-named O’Connor Violin Method, which he describes as follows:

“The music that I have collected for the O’Connor Violin Method includes some of the most endearing melodies in American music as well as some of the great folk fiddle tunes that have endured our 400 year-old history of violin playing. I have made it a specific feature of the Method to include musical literature that represents all of the Americas -Mexico, Canada and every region of the United States ‚Äì and all musical styles ‚Äì classical, folk, Latin, jazz, rock and ragtime. I have chosen and arranged material that will be both instructive and artistically enriching, and will help create the future classical violinist, folk fiddler, jazz musician – or all three!

The Method takes into consideration that, even at the beginning levels, learning music possessing a timeless quality is a healthy vehicle for engendering a lifelong love of music-making. Beginner tunes can be great tunes, and could very well stay with the student for a lifetime of playing and performing. In my own experience giving classes around the country, I often tell students that I have professionally recorded three of the first fiddle tunes I learned as a child. All three -  Soldier’s Joy, Arkansas Traveler, and Fiddler’s Dream, are presented early in this Method. I believe there are no throw-aways. The beginning tunes are built to last, providing a sturdy foundation and core for the novice. The tune that I have arranged to provide the most rudimentary studies for a beginning violinist – Boil’em Cabbage Down – is the first fiddle tune I learned as a child.”

The New Yorker also posted this video of Mark talking about the books.

The Tennessean, Nashville’s hometown newspaper, has published a story on the ongoing legal battle over Martin’s reputed $2 million estate, and income from future royalties. As has happened so many times, a number of surviving siblings and an ex-wife are at odds over the terms of Martin’s will.

According to the August 30 piece by Kate Howard…

The case goes on because of an addendum he made two weeks before he died: scolding his children and adding two music business friends as co-executors with his son Lee “Buddy” Martin.

His children believe that the strong-willed musician was lied to about money missing from his bank account and that he was coerced into splitting the power of executing his will.

His four children are at odds over whether someone outside the family should decide who gets what. They have different attorneys and different perspectives on how it should all end.

“This is not what my dad worked all his life for,” son Ray Martin said.

You can read the full piece online.

We ran into this buzz saw a few years ago when we tried to get approval for a charitable venture that would have involved Jimmy Martin’s likeness. The attorney who represents the estate attempted to get this cleared through the many Martin survivors, but had warned us that there was not much agreement among them.

No luck in our case.

A variation of this piece has been published in British Bluegrass News.

Light In The Window – A series of rambles about CDs by bluegrassmercury

It has been a long time since the last Country Gazette album release, but fans of their style of bluegrass music will be delighted to know that the band has been re-activated as Alan Munde Gazette and that there is a new CD available. Made To Last (Munde’s Child Records 003) features the aforementioned Alan Munde (banjo) with Elliott Rogers (guitar and vocals), Steve Smith (mandolin and vocals), Bill Honker (bass and vocals) and Nate Lee (fiddle). Not surprisingly, Munde is very prominent not just on his two melodious, original banjo pieces Traditional Family Breakdown and The Run of ‘89, but on Bill Monroe’s Brown County Breakdown (played in the key of D rather than E) and indeed throughout.

Smith and Lee add to the buoyancy with sparkling instrumental interludes on these tunes and elsewhere. Smith, Rogers and Honker share the lead vocal duties pretty evenly, with the first named having the sharpest edge to his singing. It is Bill Honker who wrote and sings lead on the title track, which is about life in a mining town long after the economic boom has passed. Above The Waterline, a Cajun flavored song about post Hurricane Katrina expectations, comes from same pen. Rogers brought four songs to the sessions, including the ballad, Haul Away, performed largely as a Rogers-Smith duet; Little Teardrops, about a troubled son who ignores parental guidance; and Wave Goodbye, a good addition to the hobo song cannon. Smith’s vocal show-case is the old standard John Hardy. There is a lot to enjoy on this self-produced collection.

Balsam Range, so called because of a mountain ridge close to where they are based, is another of the very good new bands hailing from western North Carolina. Last Train To Kitty Hawk (Mountain Home 12062) is their second album in quick succession. Individually, they are Buddy Melton (fiddle), Darren Nicholson (mandolin), Marc Pruett (banjo), Caleb Smith (guitar) and Tim Surrett (acoustic bass and xenophobic guitar). Each is a top-notch musician who combine well on both fast-paced songs and slower numbers. All but Pruett contribute vocally and each shares the lead role.

There is a good balance between secular material and sacred. In the former category is Melton’s plaintive Julie’s Train, Chris Stapleton’s beautiful Somewhere In Between, the title track, about change and progress, and Smith’s Jack Diamond, a story about the old west. Alongside these new songs are modern treatments of Ralph Stanley’s I’m Lonesome Without You and Charlie Monroe’s most apt Down In Caroline. In the latter category are Place No Wreath, Spring Will Bring Flowers, Don’t Take Me Tonight As I Am, with Jeff Collin’s piano in the mix, and Dottie Rambo’s The Holy Hills, with a high baritone part sung by Karen Peck Gooch to Surrett‚Äòs lead and Melton‚Äòs tenor vocals. There is a single instrumental to close an album that has some well conceived arrangements.

Jon Weisberger’s independently released If This Road Could Talk collection consists of a dozen songs, each of which Weisberger has written either alone or with a partner. Three of them were co-written with Mark Simos, while Alan Bartram, Jennifer Strickland, Justin Carbone, Jeremy Garrett and Tim Stafford helped with one each.

Most of the songs were penned in the past five years and they reflect the various facets of bluegrass music during that period of time. Two, My Turn To Laugh and Stepping Stone, are both traditional in character, albeit that the latter reminds one of Johnny and Jack with its rumba beat. Some, like When She’s By My Side, At The Bottom Again, Aim High and the title track, are among the majority in being contemporary bluegrass. A couple, including Nothing Against Memphis and Lonely Town, are acoustic country while The Very Next Hello has the broadest appeal.

There is nothing unusual in all that is there? Well, apart from the song writing, Weisberger does nothing more than play upright bass. Now that is unusual. In all other respects this is a set of demo recordings; a very good one it must be said. The vocal duties are shared by some well-known individuals such as Alan Bartram, Jennifer Strickland, David Peterson, Justin Carbone, Jeremy Garrett, Stephen Mougin and Tim Stafford or lesser names such as Darren McGuire, Patty Mitchell, Jan Harvey, Robert Gateley, , Chris Davis, Jenni Lynn Gardner and Megan McCormick. The musicians that Weisberger has asked to help him; Chris Jones, Tim Strong, Aaron Till, Mike Witcher, Ron Block, Jesse Brock, Andy Falco and Ned Luberecki. This is a fine album with plenty of variety and many songs worthy of recording.

Among the recent releases from Rounder Records was Bobby Osborne’s third album for the label, entitled Bluegrass & Beyond (Rounder 0603). For this 12-track album, Osborne, with his band The Rocky Top X-Press, mixes straight ahead bluegrass, some soulful Gospel and a couple of traditional country songs.

The sound of Glen Duncan’s fiery fiddling kicks off the opening track, Let’s Sing Our Song, and, along with Osborne’s mandolin playing and Dana Cupp’s driving banjo, he stands out as providing some of the brighter instrumental moments on the CD. The vocal harmonies on Let’s Sing Our Song are pleasing also. Osborne is vocally assured, sufficiently so to sing tenor as well as lead on many tracks, despite his 76 years. What Would You Give In Exchange perhaps fits into all three categories. The arrangement begins with a typical brother-duet coupling of Osborne with guest Marty Stuart before the band kicks in and Country great Connie Smith replaces her husband as one of the vocalists.

Contemporary bluegrass is represented by A Wise Man’s Mind Will Change and You Can. Definitely traditional Country is After the Fire Is Gone, which has two more guests, Rhonda Vincent and brother Darrin. Certainly in the ‚Äòbeyond’ category is Jerry Reed’s Let’s Sing Our Song, a song from the Eagles’ repertoire Girl from Yesterday and Eddie Rabbit’s Driving My Life Away. The album ends with Chris Stuart’s Civil War ballad Shenandoah Wind, and then the Gospel number Way Up On The Mountain. Rounding out the set is a Bobby Osborne instrumental Hyden.

The Rocky Top X-Press are Bobby Osborne, Jr. (guitar and bass), Derrell Mosley (bass), Cupp, Glen Duncan (fiddle, guitar and banzooki) and Matt DeSpain (Dobro ¬Æ). Marty Stuart guests on guitar on “What Would You Give In Exchange”.

Johnny Williams is a little known name, but he is nonetheless a fine singer in the traditional style and an award-winning songwriter. As perhaps suggested by the title, Last Days Of Galax (Mountain Roads Records 1004), Williams is from south-west Virginia. He penned eight of the 15 songs on this album and shares co-writer credits on a further three, with John Thompson on a Gospel song Going To A Mansion; and with Tom T and Dixie Hall on Papa Loved Ringing That Bell and What Are You Trying To Say?, a song that makes one wonder why it was never written long, long ago, so commonplace is the confusion over meaning that troubles both genders.

Williams has excellent diction and an edge to his light tenor voice that is not lost on I Can’t Help It If I’m Still In Love You, but he is perhaps better when tackling his own songs, such as Your Love Holds The Key, a conventional duet with his wife Jeanette singing lead in part, the positive love song A Change In Me, the light-hearted Country Living’s Changing Every Day and Let That Someone Be You, performed solo with just a single guitar accompaniment. Sins Of War is an original song about the Civil War the mood of which is enhanced by the clawhammer banjo, while the sentimental title song bears some resemblance to the song Streets Of Bakersfield, though the instrumental ending is a strong reminder of the essence of a week at the Galax Fiddlers Convention.

Jeanette Williams (bass and vocals), Amber Collins (vocals), Debbie Yates (clawhammer banjo), Kathleen O’Connell (fiddle), Tony Mabe (banjo), Chase Johner (mandolin), Billy Hawks (fiddle) and Kenneth Berrier (steel guitar) are the studio musicians on this fine album.

Kristin Scott Benson was proclaimed IBMA banjo player of the year for 2008; a well deserved acknowledgment of her musicianship and progression up the ladder to the top strata of bluegrass musicians. After seven years as part of Larry Stephenson’s Band, Ms. Benson is now the first female Grascal.

Second Season (Pinecastle 6514) features four tunes composed by Ms. Benson; Don’t Tread On Me and Freedom Park are both full-on stomping numbers, Trying Times is a moody borderline-jazz piece, in contrast is the slower-paced Far Enough Away. The old warhorse Bugle Call Rag, Bill Emerson’s previously unrecorded No Steering, No Brakes and a couple of traditional pieces arranged by Ms. Benson, Sandy River Belle and Greencastle Hornpipe also allow her to demonstrate her stellar lead banjo picking.

There are four vocal tracks; the O’Kanes’ Imagine That (with Mickey Harris singing lead and Sally Jones adding the harmony part); No Southern Comfort (Josh Williams – lead, Harris and Ms Benson – harmony); The Gospel Way (Larry Stephenson – lead and harmony, and Williams – harmony); and Something ‘Bout You (Larry Cordle – lead and Harris harmony). On each she demonstrates her exemplary back-up playing ability.

In addition to the vocalists mentioned Ms. Benson is helped out by her husband Wayne (mandolin), Cody Kilby and David Grier (guitar), Mickey Harris or Andy Todd (bass), and Shad Cobb or Jim van Cleve (fiddle). “Second Season” is an excellent statement by one of the very best banjo players of today.

Lowinger’s pictures accompany his own story of a New Jersey boy obsessed with folk and bluegrass music and he recounts college trips to country music parks in Pennsylvania and his stints as a fiddler for the New York Ramblers and Blue Grass Boys.

The 144 page book contains 75 black & white photographs. It will be published in both cloth and paper backed editions this October by the University of Illinois Press.

A variation of this piece has been published in British Bluegrass News. A fourth installment will be along in a week or so.

Light In The Window – A series of rambles about CDs by bluegrassmercury

Earl Scruggs has often trod the boards at the Ryman Auditorium. Firstly as a member of the Blue Grass Boys, later with his partner Lester Flatt and then with sons, Randy and Gary, leading the Earl Scruggs Review. More recently, on 21 June 2007 to be precise, Scruggs gathered together his two sons and a group of friends to play once more for a Ryman audience. The show was recorded and 18 tracks have been released as Earl Scruggs with Family & Friends The Ultimate Collection: Live At The Ryman on the Rounder label (0618).

The set comprised a selection of songs and tunes from most phases of Scruggs’ career as an ace banjo player. Kicking off with a boisterous rendition of Salty Dog Blues, Scruggs follows with the high-lonesome Borrowed Love, recently penned by Earl, Randy and Dwight Yoakam; two Scruggs originals, Earl’s Breakdown and Foggy Mountain Breakdown; the infectious Soldier’s Joy, Doin’ My Time and The Ballad Of Jed Clampett along with another from the popular folk catalog, Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere; the Carter Family’s You Are My Flower, dedicated to the then recently departed Louise Scruggs, and showcasing Scruggs‚Äò lead guitar picking; and concludes with Lonesome Ruben.

Earl is ably supported by Randy (acoustic guitar and lead vocals) and Gary (bass and lead vocals). In the friends category is Rob Ickes (Dobro ®), John Jorgenson (mandolin, electric guitar, clarinet and vocals), Jon Randall (acoustic guitar and lead vocals), Hoot Hester (fiddle and vocals) and John Gardner (drums). The result is generally more Earl Scruggs Review than early Flatt & Scruggs, but it is an enjoyable fast-paced show. Great stuff from an 83 year old!

One of the hottest bands on the circuit at the moment is Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper. Their latest CD  Leavin’ Town (Rounder 0596) starts in a blaze of driving banjo that signals a menu of full-on hard-core bluegrass. Serving the dishes are Cleveland himself (fiddle, lead and rhythm guitar), Jesse Brock (mandolin and rhythm guitar), Todd Rakestraw (guitar), Marshall Wilborn (bass) and John Mark Batchelor (banjo), with co-producer (with Cleveland) is Jeff White (guitar) guesting.

Cleveland himself has won the IBMA best fiddle player title six times out of the last eight years and the band has won the instrumental award for the last two years. So, there can’t be any doubts about that aspect of this band’s work. A listen to the full-band romp Northern White Clouds but more particularly to the blistering fiddle-mandolin duet performance of another Monroe tune Jerusalem Ridge. It is a stunning exploration of the melodic and harmonic possibilities. Vocally, I can’t think of such a well-matched or a tighter trio than Rakestraw, Brock and Cleveland. The opening song, Sold Down The River sets the standard and there isn’t a weak track to follow.

Other highlights include In My Mind To Ramble, I’m Feeling For You (with Marshall Wilborn singing lead), Troubles Round My Door, Leavin’ Town, Todd Rakestraw’s I’m Riding This Train, When You Were Mine and Farewell For A Little While. The tempo is slowed down briefly only for My Blue Eyed Darling and Dottie Rambo‚Äòs Come Spring; both also add to the luster of the album. As Tom Adams says at the conclusion of his notes, “Real bluegrass. Real country. Real music.”

David Grier Live At The Linda (Dreadnought Recordings 0701) was recorded in September 2006 at WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio in Albany, New York (released in 2007), but I have only recently acquired a copy. Grier is the son of Lamar Grier, banjo player with the Blue Grass Boys, and he got a lot of help on his way from about six years of age to his well-established position in the upper echelons of the guitar kingdom.

This set includes a rendition of a tune Red Haired Boy that he learned when he was young and other traditional pieces like The Old Spinning Wheel, Redwing and Bonaparte’s Retreat. Alongside is a Monroe medley, two pop songs Yesterday and Killing Me Softly and several compositions by Grier himself, such as Have You Ever Been To England, High Atop Princess Cove, As It Rolls To The Sea, Road To Hope and The End Of Good Day.

All are captured superbly, such that one would be forgiven for thinking that the set was recorded in a standard studio environment. The audience is singularly attentive and receptive to Grieg’s phenomenal picking in a performance that lasts just over an hour. I recommend Live At The Linda to all lovers of exceptional instrumental music and particularly to the guitar players among us.

The Crowe Brothers have seemingly been silent for a few years – too many, to my way of thinking. The brothers, Josh and Wayne, return with their debut release for Rural Rhythm Records. The album, Brothers-N-Harmony (RHY1041), showcases a dozen outstanding songs with some of the best sibling harmony singing that you can hear today. The Crowe brothers remind one that it has been a much neglected art form in recent years.

There are so many gems here that it is difficult to know which has the greatest luster. Savor Are You Teasing Me, Don Reno’s Better Luck Next Time, the Wilburn Brothers’ Which One Is To Blame and Go Away With Me, the Blue Sky Boys’ Why Not Confess, the joyous Gospel numbers I Know I’m Saved and Take Me By The Hand (Josh Crowe) both with their intricate harmonies, Holdin’ On When You’ve Let Go (written by Eric Gibson with a bit of polishing from Dixie Hall), Dan Seals’ God Must Be A Cowboy, Million For A Broken Heart (another Josh Crowe song) and Cody Shuler’s Cindy Mae. Josh (rhythm and lead guitar) and Wayne Crowe (upright bass) are supported by some excellent fiddle work from Steve Thomas, Steve Sutton and Don Wayne Reno (both banjo), some superb mandolin playing by Darren Nicholson, Randy Kohrs (Dobro ¬Æ and lap steel), Ronnie McCoury (mandolin on Country Boy Rock & Roll) and some honky-tonk piano from the one and only Buck White.

This album is definitely for those who enjoy brother singing in harmony, and if you don’t mind a bit of a country edge here and there so much the better.

The 2006 Sago mine disaster had a profound effect on Kathy Mattea, so much so that she recorded a full album of songs about the coal mining industry. Mattea has long been an act that has sympathies with stripped-down country music, including songs such as Walk The Way Wind Blues and Untold Stories, penned by Tim O’Brien, in her repertoire.

Mattea reacted to that incident by recording Coal (Captain Potato Records), a 11-song tribute to those hard-working fellow natives of her home state of West Virginia. Some of Mattea’s relatives are among those miners, so there is a personal aspect to her work and it comes through in her rendition of songs such as Merle Travis’ Dark As A Dungeon, Jean Ritchie’s The L&N Don’t Stop Here Any More, Hazel Dickens’ Black Lung (sung a cappella), Coal Tattoo, Green Rolling Hills (with Tim and Mollie O‚ÄòBrien providing harmony vocals), You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive, Blue Diamond Mines (with Marty Stuart and Patty Loveless – background vocals) and Red-winged Blackbird.

The backing musician includes names that are no strangers to bluegrass aficionados, beginning with producer Marty Stuart, Bryon House (bass) and Stuart Duncan (fiddle, mandolin and banjo); all are household names in the bluegrass world. Lesser known are Bill Cooley, who has been with Mattea for 20 years, handling the guitar duties, while John Catchings (cello), Randy Leago (keyboards and accordion) and guest steel player Fred Newell round out the album’s sound.

A book about Tony Rice is scheduled to be released soon, before the end of the year, hopefully. The title is Still Inside: The Tony Rice Story and the publisher is Word of Mouth Press. The authors in this instance are Tim Stafford, of Blue Highway, and Caroline Wright, one time Editor of the now-defunct Bluegrass Now.

Dick Spottswood’s, book Banjo On the Mountain: Wade Mainer’s First Hundred Years, is scheduled for publication next spring by the University Press of Mississippi. Spottswood is is an author, historian, musicologist, discographer and radio personality, who has devoted his life to documenting American music of the early twentieth century.

Pretty Good For A Girl: Women in Bluegrass is the working title for Murphy Henry’s book to be published by University of Illinois Press. The publication date is unknown at the moment.  Ms. Henry is a proprietor of the Murphy Method learning aids and a regular contributor to Bluegrass Unlimited.

We’ll be sure to note each of these books as they are published.

UPDATE 8/18: The publication date for the Tony Rice biography is still on the tentative side. Tim tells us that the book is complete, but that we should steer clear of suggesting a date until all of the legal niceties have been wrapped up as well.

The article only briefly covers O’Connor’s past, with the bulk of the content focused on his current and future projects. Among these are his continued involvement with music instruction at the college level, but also the development of a 10 part series of instructional materials entitled the O’Connor Violin Method.

The Suzuki-inspired series will, from the very beginning, expose students to a variety of North American fiddle and violin styles, including such traditional tunes as “Soldier’s Joy,” “Arkansas Traveler,” and “Fiddler’s Dream,” plus a number of O’Connor originals.

This is designed for beginners, even children, but not intended to be easy. If you want it, you’ll have to work for it. The songs are intended to not be “kiddie stuff” but rather tunes the student will want to continue to play after reaching musical maturity. With a focus on improvisation, and the ever changing landscape of American music, O’Connor claims to be a traditionally informed progressive.

I’m trying to build into the classical community, tearing down the divisions and tapping into that history of creativity, imagination, and playing style to amass an American classical music that can be taught to people in schools. That’s one of the reasons I have my string camps. We no longer have back-porch mentoring by grandparents playing the fiddle. This is the first generation of fiddlers who didn’t learn from their grandparents. So we need to figure out how to get this to work inside the classroom.

O’Connor offers many great insights as to why American music is the way it is. Regardless of your interest in the fiddle, if you care about traditional American music forms, you should take a few moments and read this article.

Below is a video of Mark O’Connor’s American String Celebration courtesy of Time.com.