Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike begin their latest trip to Europe on Sunday with fives dates in England, followed by two in Ireland and one in Wales before playing a last show in England and then moving on to make four appearances at venues in Germany.
The hectic tour - with 13 appearances in 16 days - is sponsored in part by British Americana magazine, Maverick, which describes Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike as an “excellent stage act ….. known for their lively and impressive concerts!”
Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike consists of lead singer and band leader Valerie Smith, Becky Buller on vocal, fiddle, clawhammer banjo, guitar and as a principal songwriter in the group, Bobby Davis on bass and fiddle, Chad Graves on resophonic guitar and vocals, and Eric Lambert on guitar and mandolin.
Valerie spoke to me about the trip just as she was making final preparations prior to flying out Friday morning …….
“This tour will represent eight years that I have performed in Europe and am anticipating seeing familiar faces. I welcome the opportunity to develop a wider audience. Bell Buckle Records is especially excited about Maverick magazine supporting my tour for the second time and helping spread the news about the anticipated release ‘Here’s A Little Song’!, a duet project recorded with artist, Becky Buller, who will be joining me on the tour. We plan to perform many new songs from the CD and hope that the audience enjoys our new, fresh, enthusiastic show! The band, Liberty Pike, is so much fun to watch and have a great time playing music together.
I have always loved to perform for the enthusiastic audience in Europe and UK and am excited to be there in July and August! Our first show is on the Isle of Wight, and the show will be filmed and produced by the UK Entertainment channel. What a surprise and great opportunity to share the music and gain more publicity for what we do.”
Here’s a full list of dates and venues for the tour ….
July 20 - Freshwater Memorial Hall Freshwater, Isle of Wight
More information about the tour can be accessed at the band web site.
Valerie Smith and Becky Buller Here’s A Little Song hits the streets on September 9.
Guests on the CD include the multi-Grammy, Dove and IBMA award-winning Alan O’Bryant and Mike Compton from the Nashville Bluegrass Band; the 2007 IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year, Dale Ann Bradley; multi-IBMA award winner Wayne Benson of IIIrd Tyme Out; Kristin Scott Benson of the Larry Stephenson Band and Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time; and Justin Carbone of Special Consensus. They are also joined here by their fellow Liberty Pike members Chad Graves and Bobby Davis.
posted by John on 07.02.08 @ 9:05 am Tag: Grasstowne
Phil Leadbetter tells us that he and his Grasstowne compatriots are packing for a week performing in Northern Europe.
The tour begins this weekend with a show at the Torsaker Bluegrass Festival in Sweden (7/5), followed by stops in Helsinki and Stockholm early next week.
When they return to the States mid-month, it’s back into the studio to begin working on their next recording project for Pinecastle Records. Phil noted with pride that their first CD, The Road Headin’ Home, hit #1 this week on The Roots Music Report, a radio play chart.
Phil also promised a full report and some choice photos from their Scandinavian adventure upon their return.
posted by John on 06.30.08 @ 3:56 pm Tag: Gary Ferguson
Gary Ferguson tells us that he is heading shortly for Ireland, his fourth consecutive July visit to the Emerald Isle.
He’ll have Colin Henry in tow on guitar and resonator guitar, joining Gary on guitar and vocals for the 11 day tour, running July 18-29. Irish vocalist and songwriter Janet Holmes will also perform with Gary and Colin for several shows.
Gary is excited for his Irish fans to get a chance to hear the music from his latest CD, Gary Ferguson and Friends - Live at Podunk, recorded at the Podunk Bluegrass Festival in Connecticut.
Every summer, the town of Kawaguchi in Japan hosts an International Exchange program for young musicians. The young players stay with host Japanese families and are exposed to Japanese culture during their visit, which culminates in the annual Lilia festival in Kawaguchi.
Last year, the members of Donald Grass - a Kawaguchi-based bluegrass band who performs regularly in area schools - asked prominent Japanese bluegrass promoter Saburo “Sab Watanabe” Inoue to become involved in petitioning the Exchange Program to bring young US bluegrass players to Japan for the festival, July 27-28.
The members of Donald Grass came to IBMA’s World Of Bluegrass several times and saw a lot of young pickers enjoying bluegrass there. They thought it’s cool to have those kids for International Exchange program of Kawaguchi. Since Donald Grass is known through their volunteer activity by mayor and city hall officers, they recommended bluegrass kids to the city. Finally for this year, Lilia choose to invite young artists from U.S.A.
Donald Grass asked me to make it happen. So I contacted to Dan and Nancy at IBMA. They were both excited about the plan and introduced me to Bluegrass in the Schools program’s Tom Kopp, and things started last WOB.
We’d like to thank Bridgestone Americas Holdings, Inc and the town of Kawaguchi for the funding.
Nancy Cardwell at IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) tells us that Lilia has invited two young amateur bluegrass groups for 2008, and a band made up from of several exceptional teen professionals.
“IBMA provided a list of high school and college-age based bands we knew of to Sab and the officials in Japan, we helped make the initial contacts to see if they had the dates clear, and then Sab and the gentlemen in Japan selected the groups. During World of Bluegrass last fall, several reps from the city of Kawaguchi and Sab met with Bluegrass in the Schools chair Tom Kopp, Dan Hays and the folks at the Nashville Bridgestone office.”
The amateur bands chosen to participate are the Gallatin County Youth Bluegrass Band of Warsaw, KY (faculty sponsor Kim Samuel) and the Wheeling Park High School Bluegrass Band of Wheeling, WV (faculty sponsor Bob Turbanic). (more…)
We’ve written several times about Canadian banjoist Jayme Stone and his musical journey of discovery in West Africa. He traveled to Mali in the Spring of 2007 to research the aspects of the banjo’s historical roots as they are maintained in the musical culture of today’s Africa, and shared his impressions with us in a four part banjo travelogue.
His visit was inspired after Jayme had a chance to meet with Mansa Sissoko, a Malian musician and storyteller in the griot tradition, where history and culture are preserved in song. Now, the two have a CD ready for release where the North American and African banjo sounds are woven together. Sissoko performs on the kora while Stone uses a modern 5 string banjo.
Audio samples and more details can be found on Jayme’s web site. He will also be touring in support of the CD in Canada this summer and in the US in the fall.
The site is managed by Greg McGrath, a serious Aussie bluegrass enthusiast who I met last spring when he was visiting in the US. Greg also maintains Gippsland Bluegrass, a blog for pickers and bluegrass fans in his part of Victoria.
During a recent discussion, Greg shared the story of how he came to be involved in blogging, and it demonstrates the sort of missionary zeal that has kept bluegrass music active and growing for so many years - and especially how it manages to extend its reach so far from where it was born sixty years ago.
“I was inspired to do something after my big trip to the USA last year. I wanted a medium to show my pictures and tell the stories of the many wonderful people I had met in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky. I was also taken by the work that Pete Wernick was doing through his Jam Camps; I was invited to attend the one in North Carolina last year and spent four days there in awe of what Pete and Joan were achieving with otherwise ‘closet pickers.’
I got home and explored some web site options, but did not have the immediate technology to take advantage of them. I tried building websites, but as a frustrated perfectionist I was not happy with the results and I could not afford software to build them or the cost to host them. After a several months of frustration I virtually gave up trying to get what I thought were some great stories up on the web.
One of the folks I met during my time in the USA was Ted Lehmann who spends his days traveling to festivals and reporting on them on his blogsite. I did not readily understand what a blog was then, but it was always there in the back of my mind.
More months passed and I happened across Ted’s blogsite once again and spent some time there, trying to understand the mechanics of how he made it work and what might be involved for me. (more…)
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.
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.
In an interesting twist of fate, we found a connection between two recent stories that had run on The Bluegrass Blog earlier this month.
Faithful readers will recall the story from May 7 about North Carolina mandolinist John Santa and his new book of nonfiction, Bluegrass Is My Second Language. On May 8, we had a piece about The Baghdad Bad Boys, a group of US servicemen stationed in Iraq who get together regularly to pick some bluegrass.
Not long after that pair of stories were posted, we heard back from Santa that Lt. Col. Greg Rawlings - who is quoted in the piece about bluegrass in Baghdad - had become a new friend of his, and further, that a group with whom John is affiliated was partly responsible for getting musical instruments and accessories into the hands of the G.I.s in Iraq. To make the coincidence complete, Santa told us that he and Rawlings had become acquainted through his book.
“When Greg went over to Baghdad he complained that the instruments there were in terrible shape so my group, The RDU Session Players went to work.”
I asked Santa to tell me a bit more about this group, and how they had contributed to bluegrass in Baghdad, and he shared this wonderful story - in the same roundabout, narrative style as he tells the many others in Bluegrass Is My Second Language.
“The RDU Session Players is a group I started many years ago, and which is described in more detail in my book.
I write music for films and commercials, and as I got more successful I was able to bring in some of the better local players to work on projects with me. We would knock out the music for the client pretty quickly (like I said, these players were the best of the best), and then sit around and play and always end up saying (as they were packing up their gear) we need to do this more often.
So I started inviting them over once a month and as we got older and they found better ways to make a living in music rather than constantly being on the road, more and more of them came to play. For a long time I didn’t allow spectators on the grounds that the best music played was played FOR musicians and BY musicians at three in the morning. Then one late spring night my neighbors down the street rolled in about 2 AM and saw us outside on the car port and walked up and sat down in the middle of a long jam. (more…)
posted by John on 05.14.08 @ 11:05 am Tags: EBMA, EWOB
Jan de Mooy from The Netherlands sent along a number of terrific photos he took during the European World of Bluegrass festival in Voorthuizen earlier this month.
He captured images of of 12 different bands on stage, from 9 different European countries.
Here are the photos, tagged with his comments. Thanks Jan!
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.
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.
No matter where you find yourself in the world, a bluegrass jam is sure to lift your spirits. We often take for granted the availability of jam sessions here in the US, while our overseas contemporaries are somewhat harder pressed to find a picking. Imagine the difficulty if you’re a soldier stationed in Iraq.
This morning a story came to my attention of a regular bluegrass jam at Camp Victory in Baghdad. A group of US soldiers calling themselves alternately The Baghdad Bad Boys, or The Stained-Glass Bluegrass, meet regularly in the camp chapel for bluegrass night.
The soldiers love this gathering because it relaxes the tensions of the work place, which for them might be a tad more tension than any of us are used to day in and day out! And in the words of Lt. Col. Greg Rawlings from Fort Bragg,
It keeps me from choking people during the week.
The Fayetteville Observer ran the story, and has even posted a YouTube clip of the soldiers jamming on Will The Circle Be Unbroken. Be sure to stop by the YouTube site and leave a comment encouraging these brave soldiers and letting them know we appreciate them.
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant were featured on the BBC One TV programme Later …. With Jools Holland on Tuesday night, May 6.
The duo, currently on tour in Europe performed two songs, Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) and One Woman Man.
Holland conducted a brief interview with the couple also during the half hour show. Also on Tuesday’s programme was Emmylou Harris, accompanied by Buddy Miller, singing Gold.
Krauss and Plant, who were supported by the likes of T Bone Burnett, Dennis Crouch, Stuart Duncan, Jay Bellerose and Buddy Miller, will be guests of Jools Holland again on BBC Two Friday, May 9, 11.35 p.m. (GMT), during which they will sing Killing The Blues.
The Later show posted a preview clip on their web site from tomorrow night’s show.
Singer/songwriter Liz Meyer wrote in to let us know how the EWOB festival went this past weekend.
She tells us the weather was great in Voorthuizen and the music was even better. For three days this small Dutch town was teaming with bluegrass musicians from all over the world. 41 bands from 15 different countries, including three US bands, participated in the festivities.
These three days, May 1-3, were the culmination of a month of bluegrass celebrations that took place as part of the European World of Bluegrass. It also served as the kickoff for bluegrass month in Europe. During the month of May there are 195 European festivals and events where fans will be able to take in some good bluegrass on the old continent.
One of the most exciting parts of the EWOB festival is the European Bluegrass Band competition.
Winners are chosen each year by the musicians performing at the festival. The first place winner each year is invited to perform at the IBMA World of Bluegrass the following year. Here are this year’s winners.
European Bluegrass Band 2008: ACOUSTICURE (Hungary)
European Bluegrass Band 2008: 4-WHEEL DRIVE (The Netherlands)
The #1 European Bluegrass Band 2008, Acousticure, is the first bluegrass band from Hungary to appear at this colorful international gathering, performing at the past 2 European World of Bluegrass Festivals. An energetic 4-piece group of impressive multi-instrumentalists, Acousticure keeps the sound crew hopping with frequent instrument changes. Their young spokesman, mandolin-fiddler-guitarist Zsolt Pinter, has spent enough time in the USA to speak English like a native, and has a remarkable command of bluegrass-country vocals. Acousticure’s musical vision playfully fuses bluegrass influences from old-time to newgrass, often incorporating their native Hungarian folk music. (An example of the latter, Kis Kece Lanyom, can be heard on the European World of Bluegrass 2007 CD from Strictly Country Records.) The US bluegrass scene will get a chance to experience Acousticure onstage in Nashville at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) World of Bluegrass convention in October 2009, where they will perform as the #1 European Bluegrass Band.
The professional band awards aren’t the only awards given during EWOB though. Each year the festival audience selects their favorite groups from among the showcase performances. Call it a Fan’s Choice Awards if you will. This year’s winners are:
posted by John on 04.23.08 @ 10:58 am Tags: G2, Jens Koch
Here’s a cautionary tale for bluegrass musicians who also like to try their hand at risky extreme sports. It comes from Jens Koch, the superb young banjo player with Swedish bluegrass group, G2.
Three years ago - before G2 caught the ears of fans and critics alike at EBMA and IBMA - he broke his left wrist horribly in a snowboarding accident. Two bones snapped, and though the bones were set, they didn’t heal properly, requiring that they be re-broken and rebuilt.
“They transplanted some bone from my hip to my wrist so that the radius bone would be long enough, and have the right angle.
Then they used some metal screws and plates (pre-war, of course…I’ve been told it was titanium from Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory in the 30s) to fasten it all together.”
He was unable to play at all for six weeks after the accident, and tells us that after the hardware was installed, played in pain for the next two years.
“The tendons in my wrist and forearm had constantly been grinding on those screws and the plate, causing pain and inflammation. But finally, after a long wait, I got them taken out.
What a relief!! I felt a difference right away because my fingers run a little smoother.”
Though winter sports are a big thing in Sweden, Jens says that he now considers himself a former snowboarder, and agrees that bluegrass music and extreme sports aren’t a good mix.
“Maybe we should all stick to golf or…building snowmen.”
G2, along with the newly restored Koch wrist, will be an invited showcase act at the 2008 IBMA World Of Bluegrass convention in Nashville this fall. Audio samples from their debut release, Where The Tall Grass Grows, can be found on the band’s web site.
The European Bluegrass Music Association (EBMA) has a very comprehensive European festival schedule online on their new website. The listing provides information regarding each concert, including the date, location, name of the event, appropriate website or email link, and additional comments about the event. Listings are provided through the end of calendar year 2008.
In addition to the listing of events, the site also has a thorough guide for US bands interested in touring Europe. The guide includes information regarding venues, travel logistics, lodging, traveling with instruments, merchandise sales, and tips on the various cultural differences you might encounter.
If you’re in Europe, or considering a summer vacation there, and would like to take in a bluegrass festival or concert, be sure to consult their listing of events.
If you think you’d like to take your band to Europe on a performance tour, this guide should provide valuable information.
As the International Bluegrass Music Association is at pains to remind us, bluegrass music is a truly worldwide phenomenon. Though the IBMA is based in the US, and the largest part of the membership resides here, no small part of their focus is on the furtherance of the music outside of this country.
The continued growth of the Eurpean Bluegrass Music Association is but one example of those efforts bearing fruit. As is, in a smaller way, this story we received from Sharon Lombardi in France about a recent workshop in Belgium.
As usual, this workshop was entirely devoted to acoustic instruments, such as guitar, fiddle, double-bass and harmonica. As far as the bluegrass part was concerned, we came close to a full bluegrass band. Not only could you attend Roberto Dalla Vecchia’s guitar workshop, Jean-Marie Redon’s banjo workshop or Jesper Rübner-Petersen’s mandolin workshop, but also the brand-new resophonic guitar workshop, taught by Henrich Novak.
Almost one hundred and thirty students came from all over Europe and even the United States and spent a week attending workshops, concerts and even jamming.
It was the seventh year that Jean-Marie Redon led the banjo workshop. It was so popular that it was full only a few days after registration had started.
The next workshop is scheduled for the first week of April 2009 and you can register from January 2009.
Canadian banjoist Jayme Stone was among the winners in this past weekend’s JUNO Awards ceremonies in Calgary. The awards are given by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) each year to Canadian recording artists and professionals for excellence in pop, jazz, classical, rock, country and a variety of roots and traditional music forms.
Stone received the Instrumental Album Of The Year award for his CD Utmost, which CARAS described thusly on its site:
A masterful banjoist, composer, educator, Stone’s music is steeped in the repertoire, technique, and lore of old-time and bluegrass music. He has studied with banjo elders Bela Fleck, Tony Trischka, and Bill Evans, as well as luminaries Bill Frisell and Dave Douglas. Though he is best known for his roots/jazz band Tricycle, his new album, The Utmost, features inventive roots music and a fresh new, sound.
Jayme’s next project is the culmination of his extensive travels in western Africa, researching the banjo’s roots, meeting and collaborating with African players, and writing/recording with them in the process. You can read the banjo travelogues that he prepared during his African visit last Spring here on The Bluegrass Blog.
He will also be featured in an upcoming CBC concert in Winnipeg that will showcase a wide variety of banjo music, including performances by Stone, Cathy Fink and Leonard Podolak among others. The concert will be recorded for a later Canada Live broadcast on CBC.
Look for details about the new CD (due 6/28) and Stone’s fall US tour to appear soon on his web site.
posted by John on 04.07.08 @ 10:36 am Tag: Niall Toner
One of Ireland’s most prominent bluegrass artists is Niall Toner, and he is set to release his third CD of original music later this month. Niall tells us that the new project features ten songs and two instrumentals, and will be on the Avalon Records label.
He also invites everyone to visit the Niall Toner Band MySpace page, where you can view a documentary film about the band.
The documentary was filmed at the 2007 Athy Bluegrass Festival by a local young lady called Kate Bradbury. She is a specialist in Marine Biology, and this was her first venture with a band. I had sent her a couple of our CDs, and she loved the music, and offered to come to the festival and do some shooting. The Carlton Hotel in Athy, where all the gigs for the Festival were staged, were also very accommodating, and they allowed us to use their Library room. Kate also filmed a short part of our live set in the Hotel Bar. Kate did the editing herself, and we were so pleased with the results, we decided to put the two pieces up on our MySpace page.
posted by Brance on 03.28.08 @ 8:16 am Tag: Industry News
Dutch country and bluegrass periodical, Country Gazette, is scheduled to publish it’s last issue next month. The magazine has been in publication for 35 years, covering all things country and bluegrass in Northern Europe. On April 26, 2008, the May/June issue number 368 will be the last one.
Publishers Hans and Jannie van Dam are retiring, and have not found anyone to take over publication of the magazine. They have spent a great many years supporting the music and I’m sure fans and subscribers will be sorry to see them go.
The last issue promises a complete overview of festival and concert dates for the calendar year 2008, along with suggested websites and other resources for fans to continue keeping up with the music in the future.
Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike begin their latest trip to Europe on Sunday with fives dates in England, followed by two in Ireland and one in Wales before playing a last show in England and then moving on to make four appearances at venues in Germany.
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