Skaggs Family Records has begun posting video clips of Cadillac Sky from the recording sessions earlier this year for their upcoming CD, Gravity’s Our Enemy. A new video will go up each week until the album hits the street on August 19.

Skaggs Family is running a special promotion for pre-orders received online prior to August 16. When you place an order, you’ll be entered to win an iPod Nano pre-loaded with both Cadillac Sky recordings, plus all pre-orders will receive a free download card for exclusive C-Sky digital content.

Full details on the Skaggs Family web site.

This first clip has mandolinist Bryan Simpson and fiddler Ross Holmes discussing the new project and the “secrets” within.

Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road have a new CD out this year which they are currently promoting on the road.

Why Don’t You Give Jesus A Try, as the name suggests, is an all-Gospel release from Tom T. and Dixie Hall’s Blue Circle Records. It actually hit the street at the end of March, but only recently have audio samples appeared online.

Carolina Road features band leader Lorraine Jordan on mandolin and lead vocals, Jerry Butler on guitar, Ben Green on banjo and Josh Goforth on fiddle.

A complete track listing and several audio samples can be found on the band’s web site.

Jerry Douglas, certified master of the resonator guitar, has a new CD due out August 19 on Koch Records. This will be his 12th solo project in a career that spans more than 30 years, and stints with a who’s who of bluegrass and acoustic artists: Country Gentlemen, JD Crowe & The New South, Boone Creek, The Whites, Emmylou Harris, Strength In Numbers and Alison Krauss & Union Station.

His distinctive slide style has been sought to grace recordings by artists as diverse as bluegrass/new acoustic stalwarts Béla Fleck and Tony Rice, to pop singer/songwriters Paul Simon and James Taylor.

Like previous Douglas recordings, Glide defies every attempt at stylistic pigeon-holing, and features a mixing of genres and sounds as varied as his career suggests. You’ll hear bluegrass influence throughout the majority of the CD, even when the tunes aren’t specifically grassy, encompassing elements of Celtic, American folk, country and rock.

We had a chance to get some feedback from Jerry about the new CD, and about a special honor that has come his way.

“I have been named Artist In Residence for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum for this year. I feel very honored by this appointment. Last year’s Artist was Kris Kristofferson. Earl Scruggs and Tom T. Hall have also had this title.

What this means is that I get do four shows during the months of August and September any way I see fit. I am trying to recruit some respected friends who have meant something special to my career down through the years. I also want this to be entertaining for both the folks participating and those coming to see a good show. There are only around 200 seats in the Ford’s Theater in the Museum and I want this to be something special for those there to remember.”

The Artist In Residency shows are scheduled for August 19, August 27, September 16 and September 30. Tickets are currently available for Museum members, and any remaining seats will be offered to the general public on Monday, July 21. More details can be found on the Hall Of Fame web site, or by calling 615-416-2001.

Given the variety of sounds he captured on Glide, I wondered how many different guitars he used in recording this album.

“I used quite a few guitars for Glide. The workhorse being my new signature model Beard in different tunings, I sometimes stacked tracks with other Beard guitars I have. Also used were an old Weissenborn guitar, lapsteels from Jason Dumont at Lapking Guitars and a Fender Tele I’ve had for years made for me as a lapsteel. I also played an old Martin D-18 and Gibson J-200 on some tracks.” (more…)

Richard Thompson reviews a CD from the Spring of 2007 that he wishes he had written much sooner.

Hunter Berry, a native of Elizabethton, in the foothills of eastern Tennessee, began playing the fiddle at the age of nine, learning partly under the tutelage of old-time bluegrass fiddler Benny Sims. Berry has learned his craft very well.

More recently he had played with Melvin Goins and Doyle Lawson before joining Rhonda Vincent & The Rage in 2002. He has won SPBGMA fiddle awards for four consecutive years and has been nominated for the IBMA award on two occasions, demonstrating that fans and peers rate his playing highly.

Lawson leads a select group of musicians who form the band backing Berry along with Tony Rice (rhythm guitar, mostly), Ronnie Stewart - playing banjo - and Darrin Vincent (bass and harmony vocals), offering further proof of the esteem in which Hunter Berry is held. Other notables in the mix here and there are Adam Steffey, Randy Kohrs, Dan Tyminski and Jason Carter.

Arranged to showcase the fiddler, Wow Baby (the title tune and opening track) is an apt response to how Berry plays on this CD. It sets the standard and the bar is set high and kept up there throughout.

There are seven instrumentals in all, some traditional pieces like Leather Britches performed as a classic fiddle/banjo duet with that master of all instruments, Ronnie Stewart, Ragtime Annie, with a full five-piece band, and Kansas City Kitty with the great Bob Moore anchoring this sassy swing number which features a second fiddle, played by Buddy Spicher, and Buck White on piano and Bryan Sutton (guitar).

The balance are all vocal pieces with a variety of singers; two feature Keith Williams, the first of which, In The Pines, has Berry overdubbing a further two fiddle parts, one with Marty Stuart and Bobby Osborne - I’m Waiting To Hear You Call Me Darlin’, Sally Sandker (Rhonda’s daughter) demonstrating that she has a good set of pipes on Blue Kentucky Girl, another triple fiddle piece - this also has Sally’s uncle singing harmony - and Rhonda Vincent with Sonya Isaacs harmonize on the driving bluegrass number Hard Living. The fiddle work on each is stellar, artfully tailored to suit the relevant vocalist.

For me two tunes Waltz For Mom And Dad, a second Hunter Berry composition, and Ragtime Annie, juxtaposed as tracks seven and eight, demonstrate the finesse, the power and drive that Berry brings to the world of the bluegrass fiddle.

Wow Baby was nominated for both the IBMA Instrumental Album of the Year and Recorded Event of the Year awards last year and I can understand why it is so highly rated. You won’t get any argument from me as far as quality is concerned.

Long Road, the new CD from former Leftover Salmonite Drew Emmitt, is due out next Tuesday (7/15) on Compass Records.

The bulk of the songs are Emmitt originals and the core group of musicians include Chris Pandolfi on banjo, Tyler Grant on guitar, Eric Thorin on bass, Jeff Sipe on drums, Steven Sandifer on percussion, and Emmitt on mandolin and lead vocals. There are also guest appearances from Bill Nershi and Andy Hall on resonator guitar, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, and Tim O’Brien, John Cowan and Darrell Scott on vocals.

Audio samples can be found on Drew’s MySpace page and on the Compass Records web site.

Bryan Simpson of Cadillac Sky just shot us a note with news about one of the songs on their upcoming CD, Gravity’s Our Enemy, set for an August 19 Skaggs Family release.

It’s not really a single release, but one of the tracks from the new project is now available online at reverbnation.com. You can also give the song a listen in the player embedded below.

Says Bryan of this track…

“The tune’s called Inside Joke and it’s about a crazy dream I had one night. It serves as therapy for the band everytime we play it.”

Back in March we shared a few words from Cadillac Sky mandolinist and vocalist Bryan Simpson as the band got started on their next CD.

Well, it’s all finished and Gravity’s Our Enemy is set for an August 19 release on Skaggs Family Records.

We hooked up with Bryan once again last week to find out a bit about the new project.

“The title of the record is lifted from the lyrics of a song on the record called Carousel. We thought it was appropriate based on several things. With the last record referencing ‘walking,’ and with us attempting to really make this thing ‘fly’ with the new record, we thought Gravity’s Our Enemy was kind of cool.

But I also think of the ‘gravity’ in the title as sort of like the ‘gravity’ of our situation. I mean, we’ve got wives and kids now and they deserve our attention and that sort of prevents constant touring which would probably be the best thing for the band (maybe not for our lives but for the band), and there’s gravity to that. And just simply coming from the reference point of bluegrass - with our instrumentation,etc - and trying to take our music to more diverse audiences - that certainly can work against you at times - sort of the stereotypical presumptions that occur before you’ve even played a note. So there’s gravity to that.

But the record name chooses the ‘gravity’ of our situation as an adversary - because, be not fooled, we have no plans for defeat- we plan on rising above and getting our feet off the ground - very soon!!”

On this album, the band enlisted the aid of an outside producer, noted mandolinist and producer Mike Marshall.

“Blind Man Walking we produced ourself - so this new producer was a lot easier to work with - not such a hot head like the last. No, honestly, we co-produced this record with our new musical guru, Mike Marshall! And it was awesome. (more…)

Well, that’s the way she describes the release of her latest CD, Live, from Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands (Spruce & Maple Music SMM 2004).

From the Bay Area of San Francisco, the highly rated fiddler and two-time International Bluegrass Music Association Award winner for Female Vocalist of the Year has, along with her right-hand men, Tom Rozum, mandolin; Scott Huffman, guitar; Craig Smith, banjo; and Todd Phillips, string bass, recently announced the availability of a first live set of recordings.

The 19-song collection also features, the 13 year old Oregon champion fiddler from Corvallis, Oregon, Tatiana Hargreaves on the medley O My Malissa/How Old Are You?

Recorded on location by Fred Forssell at three different shows - at First United Methodist Church, Corvallis, Oregon, [on 3/9/07]; at Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts, Longview, Washington [3/10/07]; and at Cashmere Community Coffeehouse, Cashmere, Washington [3/11/07] - the CD captures the Right Hands’ excellent individual talents as well as their dynamic on-stage interplay.

The full track listing reveals the inclusion of many fan favourites ….…

I’ve found several occasions this past few years to offer high praise for Boston-based string band Crooked Still. Originally drawn to them by my interest in their high-profile instrumentalists, Greg Lizst on banjo and (then) cellist, Rushad Eggleston, I quickly discovered that vocalist Aoife O’Donovan and bassist Corey DiMario were every bit their equals and further that, as a unit, they had created a truly new sound, something often promised by overheated publicity, but much more rarely experienced.

Their 2006 release, Shaken By A Low Sound was an immediate critical sensation, with writers in a wide variety of acoustic, folk, bluegrass and alternative publications praising the CD, which a good many mainstream periodicals did as well. The title was a reference to the instrumentation, using the cello and string bass as the foundation of the rhythm section, without a guitar, mandolin or fiddle - though those did pop up from guest artists on a few tracks.

The critical success was mirrored in sales, and soon the band was a major attraction at festivals and venues appealing to music lovers of eclectic tastes throughout North America and Europe.

With last week’s release of their latest CD, Still Crooked, and some extensive summer touring, the band is again turning heads.

To my ear, this album succeeds ever bit as well as the last. The arrangements are both sparse and sonically rich, and the songs they’ve chosen are drawn from a variety of sources - new, old and very old. The new project also introduces two new members, as fiddler Brittany Haas and cellist Tristan Clarridge have stepped into the space left by original member Rushad Eggleston’s exit.

I was able to chat yesterday with O’Donovan from California as she was headed for the airport, and a flight to Canada. She discussed several of the songs on Still Crooked, the band’s new personnel, and how she came to a career in music.

“When Rushad left, we decided that the band should expand in whatever way seemed natural. We had considered a cello or a fiddle, but weren’t determined to go in either direction. Last September we got together with both Brittany and Tristan in my living room - our first time playing with potential new members - and it just seemed to work perfectly.

We had always talked about adding a fiddle - even when Rushad was in the band - and had featured fiddle on a few cuts on previous records.” (more…)

We posted several weeks ago with news about Leavin’ Town, the upcoming CD project from Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, due from Rounder on July 29.

Michael tells us that the band has a new web site that went live this morning, with a new web address to boot. You should look for them online now at www.flamekeeperband.com, where you’ll find online ordering and news updates about the band and the new CD.

There are no audio samples up yet from Leavin’ Town, but Mike says they will be up there soon.

He also shared a few thoughts about the new CD, and the band’s comings and goings this year.

“The album has quite a few original tunes on it, along with some great older tunes that you don’t hear played every day. Some tunes that we are really excited about are Kickin’ Back, I’m Riding This Train and Farewell For A Little While. Kickin’ Back is a blistering mandolin instrumental written by Jesse Brock. Folks this one really moves on down the line. I’m Riding This Train is a vocal number written by Todd Rakestraw. Farewell For A Little While is a song written by Chris Stuart. The inspiration for this song came from the words written on the headstone of Carter Stanley’s grave.

We’re also excited about the 2008 tour schedule. We just got back from an incredible eight day tour of the Yukon and Alaska. We are also looking forward to a trip to Ireland for the Appalachian and Bluegrass Festival on September 5 - 7. The following day, September 8th, we’ll be in Runcorn, Cheshire, UK.

We look forward to seeing our west coast friends at the festival in Plymouth, CA on September 19 - 20.

Thanks everyone, for your support. We hope to see you soon at the shows and festivals.”

This afternoon (July 1) at 4:00 p.m., XM Satellite Radio’s Bluegrass Junction offers the first look and listen to Keep On Walkin’, the third Rounder release from The Grascals.

Band members Terry Eldredge, Aaron McDaris, and Terry Smith will join Bluegrass Junction host Kyle Cantrell to play each track of the new CD (due July 15) and discuss the songs and the recording process.

The show will air several more times over the next two weeks, leading up to the release date. Should you miss today’s broadcast, check XM 14 for one of these rebroadcasts (all times EDT):

• Friday, July 4 at noon
• Sunday, July 6 at 10:00 a.m.
• Wednesday, July 9 at 8:00 p.m.
• Friday, July 11 at midnight
• Tuesday, July 15 at 9:00 a.m.

Speaking of the new Grascals CD…

We mentioned in an earlier post that Rounder would also be releasing Keep On Walkin’ as a long playing vinyl album as well as CD. For anyone interested in LPs, here is an interesting story from CNET News about the process of manufacturing vinyl records.

Lonesome River Band and Rural Rhythm Records are pleased to announce that the band’s next project will be released on the Arcadia, CA based label.

Though the new CD, No Turning Back, won’t be released until September 9, 2008, a new single from the album is expected in mid-July. The band will celebrate their 26th year by releasing their updated version of Them Blues, a song originally recorded by LRB back in 1984 on their very first album for Rebel Records.

LRB bandleader Sammy Shelor tells us how that song came to be chosen as the single…

“For years I’ve heard Them Blues played in jam sessions and at festival campgrounds based on the original LRB arrangement. It hadn’t been in our show for years, but we put it back in and the audience reaction was so strong that it seemed like an obvious way for us to connect the storied history of the band with our new, re-invented lineup for the next CD.”

Look for Them Blues as the first track on the second edition of Rural Rhythm’s Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks, a radio sampler due to be sent to show hosts and PDs in the next two weeks.

No Turning Back is the first recorded effort by the current edition of this hard-hitting band, featuring Sammy Shelor on banjo, Brandon Rickman on guitar and vocals, Andy Ball on mandolin and vocals, Mike Anglin on bass and Mike Hartgrove on fiddle.

Sammy is happy to see a new direction and a new business partnership in place for this new project.

“I feel like we have re-invented the LRB sound with this band, and I’m really excited about working with these guys - on stage and in the studio.

With a reinvented sound, it seemed like the right time to go a different direction with distribution and marketing, and we couldn’t have made a better choice than Rural Rhythm. All the Passamano family has shown the same seriousness and dedication about their end of the business as we do about ours, and I look forward to what we can accomplish together.

It’s amazing that the band has gone on for 25 years, but you can’t simply rest on your laurels in the music business. We are always looking to the future with Lonesome River Band and can’t wait for all our fans and friends to hear these great new songs on No Turning Back.”

Audio clips will be available soon on the Rural Rhythm site.

Ricky Skaggs has covered bluegrass heroes Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers. Now, he has covered himself.

Skaggs, who had a dozen #1 hits as a country singer before returning to his bluegrass roots in 1997, re-recorded his country hits to give them a bluegrass spin for a new project with Cracker Barrel restaurants.

The CD, The High Notes, will be released exclusively through Cracker Barrel on July 1. Among the songs he reworks are Crying My Heart Out Over You, Honey (Open That Door), Cajun Moon and Highway 40 Blues. All were originally from his illustrious Epic Records period and nine were #1 hits on the Billboard charts.

Skaggs said he has been wanting to do this for a while. “This was the perfect time and the perfect audience for it. It’s so great to sing these hit songs again. Many of these I haven’t sung since the 1990s,” he said in a statement. “I think many of the tracks came out better than the originals,” Skaggs added.

The complete track listing is as follows ..

1. Crying My Heart Out Over You
2. Heartbroke
3. Highway 40 Blues
4. I Wouldn’t Change You If I Could
5. You’ve Got A Lover
6. Cajun Moon
7. Honey (Open That Door)
8. Cat’s In The Cradle
9. Uncle Pen
10. Country Boy
    
11. Lovin’ Only Me
12. Somebody’s Prayin’

Skaggs, 53, has won several awards for his country and bluegrass recordings, including 13 Grammy Awards. His most recent album, Honoring The Fathers of Bluegrass: Tribute to 1946 and 1947, is currently No. 4 on the Billboard chart.

Based in Lebanon, Tennessee, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store operates 577 restaurants in 41 states. The chain has offered exclusive recordings from Alison Krauss & Union Station, Stony Point Quartet, Merle Haggard and others.

Rounder Records has announced the forthcoming release of Night Flyer: The Singer-Songwriter Collection, due on August 5.

The 17-track album assembles a wide range of material from Rice’s catalogue of covers of the work of the many singer-songwriters with whom he has been associated during his long career. Night Flyer: The Singer-Songwriter Collection actually begins with the previously unreleased Rice original Never Meant to Be, a venting of his feelings in the aftermath of the break-up of a long-term marriage with a sad, bitter tone that is completely real in its sense of unresolved hurt and anger. From other sources is a version of Gordon Lightfoot’s Changes, which opens with a sublime guitar introduction with perfect counterpoint by the Dobro ®of Jerry Douglas. Also included are covers of Joni Mitchell’s Urge for Going, James Taylor’s Me and My Guitar, John Mayall’s Night Flyer, Bob Dylan’s Sweetheart Like You and Tom Waits’ Pony.

As illustrated, this compilation contains a broad selection of Rice’s engaging songs taken from several of his albums – as well as three previously unreleased tracks – demonstrating the wide range of non-bluegrass material that he incorporated into his signature sound.

Tim Stafford, co-author of a forthcoming Tony Rice biography and an ace guitarist himself, is looking forward to the release of the CD ….

“For me, the really interesting stuff is the previously unreleased tracks, including Never Meant to Be, a beautiful Tony original originally scheduled to appear on the ‘Me and My Guitar’ project, About Love, which was written by Tony’s late brother Larry, and the poignant Pony, which was recorded during the ‘Rice, Rice, Hillman and Pedersen 2′ sessions.”

Alison Krauss who not so long ago shared the staged on tour with Rice has this to say about Tony …

“To me, his music was never built on anything but emotion. That’s what’s so addicting – the pictures and the feelings it brings to you. Everything is played so beautifully…even though he’s so technically amazing, the reason you put those records on, at least for me, isn’t because of that. It’s emotional, and that’s why those records last. He just happens to be technically beautiful, at the same time, beyond anybody else.” (more…)

We have commented twice in recent weeks about the forthcoming McCoury Music release Moneyland. Now I can report that Del McCoury flies to New England this week to appear on the popular A Prairie Home Companion radio program to further promote the hard-hitting, multi-artist Moneyland CD.

Heard by more than four million listeners each week on some 580 public radio stations and abroad on America One and the Armed Forces Networks, the appearance by The Del McCoury Band will be broadcast live from Tanglewood – the Koussevitzky Music Shed in Lenox, Massachusetts, at 5:45 pm (EST) on Saturday, June 28.

McCoury will bring more than new music to the stage of A Prairie Home Companion, he will bring a new attitude destined to shake up the right, left and center. He doesn’t claim to have the answers to America’s problems, just hopes that “Somebody a lot smarter than us will hear a song that moves them and decide to take action.” The producers of the project add in the liner notes. “Not only do we believe it un-American for Washington to be blind to the problems of small towns and rural areas, we believe it to be immoral.”

Noted music journalist Craig Havighurst has written, “I think when this album hits for real, it’s going to shock lefties and righties alike with its candor and its understated moral outrage.” The Austin Chronicle adds, “The album is equal parts empathetic consolation and political outrage at a government that has left the common folks behind.”

Moneyland is to be released on July 8 and features songs by The Del McCoury Band, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Hornsby, Chris Knight, Patty Loveless, Marty Stuart, Dan Tyminski and Mac Wiseman and includes special guest appearances by Rodney Crowell, The Fairfield Four, Tim O’Brien, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.

For more information, please visit www.mccourymusic.com.

Editor’s note: It will be interesting to see if Del explains on PHC just what sort of governmental inaction has contributed to the plight of small town and rural America. PHC host Garrison Keillor is a well-known advocate of an interventionist federal government, so a discussion between he and Del could be enlightening, both as to how they see that such problems came to be, and how they might be addressed.

The Chapmans are hoping to use the leverage of viral marketing to help promote their next recording project.

They have a new single release, which is being offered as a free digital download online. The track is a remake of Redwood Hill, the Gordon Lightfoot song made into a bluegrass classic by the Country Gentlemen in 1972.

They don’t yet have a new CD on the horizon, but Jeremy Chapman tells us that they wanted to remind everyone that they were still kicking with a new song.

“The main reason for the single was that we have been hearing a lot from fans and DJ’s wanting to know if we had anything new since Simple Man in the works. With the time we took off in the early part of the year to allow John to be home for the birth of his first baby, we decided to get into the studio to cut a few tracks while we were building a new team on the business end, as far as agent, management, and record label. One of the tunes we cut was Redwood Hill, which is one that we had grown up listening to the Country Gentlemen do. We thought we would keep pretty close to their arrangement to kind of pay homage to them.

Then as well as mailing it to a number of bluegrass radio stations, we wanted to make it available to all our fans through our new website for free. Just to hold them over until we have a full project finished.”

Listen to the new track on the band’s reverbnation site, where you can also download it for free.

The folks at McCoury Music have come up with an interesting special pre-release offer for their Moneyland CD, sure to appeal to the most extreme Del heads among us.

Due July 8, Moneyland is a concept project, using songs to make a statement about the state of rural America, which they see as in need of special attention. The CD was initially produced to be a campaign item for the now suspended presidential campaign of former NC Senator John Edwards, which will be released to the general public instead.

Most of the tracks are previously released recordings from Mac Wiseman, Merle Haggard, Patty Loveless, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Tim O’Brien, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. The Del McCoury Band is also featured on a number of newly recorded tracks, including a remake of The Beatles’ When I’m 64.

The cover is a play on the classic Grant Wood painting, American Gothic, but with a figure dressed in red, white and blue stealing away in the background with a bag of money.

McCoury Music has pressed 1,000 collectors edition CDs with a alternate cover featuring Del himself as the farmer being fleeced by the crooked politician. Each of these will be signed and numbered, with a portion of the proceeds going to an unspecified organization to aid the homeless.

To order the collectors CD - and hear audio samples from the album - visit McCoury Music online.

Ricky Wasson, long-time guitarist and lead vocalist with JD Crowe & The New South, will soon have his own solo project on Rural Rhythm Records.

Entitled From The Heart and Soul, the CD is due to be released on August 12. Joining Wasson will be J.D. Crowe on banjo, Ron Stewart on fiddle and banjo, Adam Steffey on mandolin, Harold Nixon on bass, Randy Kohrs on resonator guitar and Don Rigsby, Sonya Isaacs and Ben Isaacs on harmony vocals.

The first single from this release, Merle Haggard’s Losin’ In Las Vegas, is included in the recent Rural Rhythm sampler, Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks, and we have a brief audio sample you can hear right now.

Listen now:

This one we will certainly be looking forward to hearing in full.

Rural Rhythm Records is committed to tradition and progress simultaneously. In an effort to promote all the good bluegrass recordings they are putting out these days, the label has just started their own Bluegrass Radio service. They are calling it Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks.

If you’re a radio DJ, you may have already received a copy of Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks. This CD is a special promotional radio disc including seven new singles from current and upcoming Rural Rhythm releases. The tracks are from these artists: Mountain Heart, Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain, Mashville Brigade, Dwight McCall, Randy Kohrs, Rickey Wasson, and Cody Shuler & Pine Mountain Railroad.

I’m told another disc is underway and scheduled for a mid-July shipment.

If you didn’t receive a copy for your show, visit the Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks web page to see what it’s all about. DJs who did not receive a copy should contact them and request to be added to their radio list.

Fans, keep an ear tuned to your favorite bluegrass radio show and check out the new tracks. We’ve already told you about some of these records, and we’ll be bringing you news of the others as soon as we have it!

We’ve already told you about the upcoming release of Keep On Walkin’ by the Grascals. The release date is July 15, 2008. The has now teamed up with Rounder Records and Takamine Guitars to bring you a special offer.

If you pre-order the CD by July 14, you’ll be entered to win a Takamine (TF360SBG) guitar. It’s an acoustic/electric dreadnought designed with the bluegrass flatpicker in mind. Brad Davis consulted with Takamine on the design of the T Series guitars.

Rounder Records has made three tracks available via online streaming for those who are interested.