Andy Hall’s new solo project, Sound Of The Slide Guitar, is released today on Sugar Hill. As the title suggests, this recording focuses on Andy as a resophonic guitarist and is heavy on original tunes he has written of late.

He is joined by his bandmates in The Infamous Stringdusters for most of the tracks with special guests David Grier, Tim Stafford and Rob Ickes making appearances as well. You can read more about the new CD - including some comments from Andy - in our earlier post about this release.

Sound Of The Slide Guitar is available for download in iTunes or on Andy’s MySpace page, and CD copies can be purchased from Andy at ‘Dusters shows.

Andy Hall, busy resophonic guitarist with The Infamous Stringdusters, recently found time to cut a solo project of his own between recording and touring with his band mates.

Sound Of The Slide Guitar features 11 tracks, 8 of which are original pieces Hall wrote for this project. The Dusters serve as the core band, but four tracks are cut as duets, performed with David Grier and Tim Stafford on guitar, Jesse Cobb on mandolin, and Rob Ickes on dobro.

Andy said that he had wanted to complete this recording quickly, reflecting his writing and playing over a certain period of time. Unlike his first solo project, Redwing - which took almost two years to finish - this one was recorded in four months at Hall’s home studio.

Dusters fans will recognize Deep Elem Blues, which Andy sings with the band on their live shows, and Norman Blake fans will enjoy hearing the reso-version of Green Light On The Southern and Bony Crossing The Alps which closes the CD.

“I chose the title, ‘The Sound Of the Slide Guitar,’ because I heard so many people use that phrase. Like ‘I love the…..’ or ‘ ……….is a haunting sound.’ I had heard it used so much, I thought it would be an appropriate title. Seems to be pretty accurate in describing the record!

I used my mahogany Meredith guitar on a lot of the tracks and my my Koa Harper in D tuning for C-Bops. For a few of the softer tunes, I used my Hawaiian. There’s some bluesy stuff too, like Deep Elem, where I used an old style 2 square neck tri-cone.

I wanted to get some different sounds on there, as per the album title.”

Sound Of The Slide Guitar will be released on January 22 from Sugar Hill, but is available for download purchase now on Andy’s MySpace page, where you can hear audio for several tunes. It will appear in iTunes on the 22nd, and will be available for CD purchase from Andy’s site at that time as well.

UPDATE 1:55 p.m. - Andy will be a guest on Cindy Baucom’s Knee Deep In Bluegrass show this week, talking with Cindy about the new CD.

Resonance is a new bimonthly newsletter for resophonic (dobro) guitar players. The July-August issue was Volume 1 #1. Issue #2 will be mailing out soon and we wanted to tell you about it.

Issue #1 featured Andy Hall, of The Infamous Stringdusters, as the cover story. The story is a lengthy, multi-page article/interview that covers Andy’s history with music and the dobro in particular. The issue also includes tab to one of Andy’s tunes, Last Chance Getaway.

One full page in the magazine is dedicated to instruction in the art of rolls. Another column, entitled In Theory, discusses the use of the Nashville Numbering System. Tablature is presented, both in an easy arrangement and a more advanced one, for the song Cherokee Shuffle.

All of that is in the first issue. Issue #2, which is soon to come out, will feature Tim Graves on the cover, new topics and songs, and more.

The layout is clean and simple with a minimum of clutter. The tabs look nice and easy to read. This should be a valuable resource for dobro players who are interested in learning new tunes, and reading about their heros.

Mike Evers, the editor/publisher of Resonance says the magazine is long overdue.

The professionals I have talked with believe such a newsletter is long overdue. I know I wish there had been one around when I started learning 21 years ago.

Resonance will be featuring interviews with players and luthiers, CD and product reviews, dobro news, theory & technique, and plenty of tablature for both beginners and intermediate/advanced players.

Subscriptions can be ordered online for the print version, at just $15 per year, and the web version, for only $12 per year. Single web issues can also be purchased if you’d like to look one over before subscribing.

Mike tells me he will allow new subscribers to backdate the beginning of their subscription to include the premier issue until the end of September. After that, it will be available only as a back issue.

We just heard from our friend Wichita Rutherford that Andy Hall, of The Infamous Stringdusters, will be his guest host this evening on his XM Radio show, The Grand Old Time Machine.

A couple weeks ago Wichita had Mac Wiseman, then Doc Watson, and last week Alison Krauss. He sure seemed excited about having Andy on the show though.

Each week Wichita and a guest host visit with each other, play some music, and get in The Grand Old Time Machine and travel back in time, stopping in the 30’s, 40’s, 70’s or where ever the guest wants to go. There they meet some bluegrass stars of yesteryear and hear some great music.

Last week, at the beginning of the show featuring Alison Krauss as a guest host, Wichita and Alison went over the rules for the audience about not taking pictures, recording, smoking, etc. I’m glad Alison straightened Wichita out and told him it was OK for the listeners to eat sausage gravy and biscuits, but she never did tell him the audience wouldn’t be able to take pictures since they were just listing to the radio!

The Grand Old Time Machine comes on at 5 PM EST every Friday and 12 AM EST every Saturday night. It can be found on XM Channel 14, Bluegrass Junction.

You can find more information about the show online at TheGrandOldTimeMachine.com.

Long time readers of The Bluegrass Blog realize that I am something of a cheerleader for The Infamous Stringdusters. I had been mightily impressed when I saw them several years ago as Wheel House. They knocked me over two years ago as The Stringdusters, and when they “emerged” at IBMA last year as The Infamous Stringdusters - with a Sugar Hill recording contract - I was sure great things were ahead for these young pickers.

Last night here in Roanoke, they packed a trendy, downtown nightspot and proceeded to demolish the assembled throng of music lovers and fans. The two sets mixed cuts from their Sugar Hill debut, Fork In The Road, with new band compositions, some bluegrass classics, and even a few songs they had just been working up backstage.

What strikes me as rare with this bunch is their ability to mix genres so smoothly, with enough progressive/modern/newgrass edge to attract younger listeners, and a sufficient amount of unadulterated grass to please the hard core purists. I saw them go from a long, jammy instrumental with a rock flavor, to a smooth and wholly traditional take on The Stanley Brothers Lonesome River.

They are clearly comfortable in this small club environment, and worked both the early evening “meet and greet” bunch and the late night stragglers with just the right vibe. The highlight for me was the very end of the show, where they encouraged everyone to leave their seats and join the band in front of the stage for a three song, unamplified conclusion. This kicked with Uncle Pen and closed with Blue Night, both showing that despite their occasional wandering from the trail Bill Monroe blazed, they are right at home with his music in a straightahead style.

The Infamous Stringdusters are Chris Pandolfi (Panda) on banjo, Jeremy Garrett on fiddle/vocals, Chris Eldridge (Critter) on guitar, Travis Book on bass/vocals, Jesse Cobb on mandolin and Andy Hall on Dobro/vocals.

Each is a superb musician, worthy of a good many pixels of praise, but I am consistently impressed in particular by the ChrisDusters - Eldridge and Pandolfi. (more…)

Fans of new young bluegrass phenoms, The Infamous Stringdusters - or anyone curious to learn what they are all about - will have several chances to see and hear them over the next few days.

They will be interviewed on GAC TV’s The Edge of Country show on Saturday (3/17). The show is hosted by Kylie Harris, and airs at 1:00 p.m. with a rebroadcast at 11:00 p.m. The show will also be shown on Monday (3/19) at 1:00 p.m., and again on Tuesday morning (3/20) at 3:00 a.m. All times are eastern.

Banjo picker Chris Pandolfi shared some thoughts on taping the segment with GAC.

“The Edge of Country was some of the first real ‘national’ media attention we have received, and the show went really well. We do many press opportunities as a full band, so it was a challenge to get everyone involved, but we did, in turn showcasing one of our greatest assets - we are a band.

It’s hard to classify exactly what we do, genre-wise, but ‘edge of country’ seems an appropriate catch-all for our music.

I asked dobroist/vocalist Andy Hall what is was like for them, with a new CD out on a major independent label after actively performing without label support for almost two years. He responded with high praise for the folks at Sugar Hill, and said that all was right with his world.

“This is a great time for us, as we have a full touring schedule and a brand new first record. What more does a picker need?”

Andy also mentioned that The ‘Dusters recently recorded a live segment for AT&T blue room, which showcases artists online with both in studio performances and interviews. We’ll be sure to post an update when that is available on the blue room site.

On Monday, the band will be in Knoxville for a live radio broadcast from the studios of WDVX. The show will air from noon to 1:00 p.m. (3/19) on 89.9 FM, and will also be available online via streaming audio.

If you just can’t get enough of The Infamous Stringdusters, you could listen to the WDVX audio stream from noon to 1:00, and then tune in to GAC and catch the interview.

A while back we did a short piece about the band Crooked Still and where they came up with their band name. It was requested by a reader in the comments that we do a similar piece about The Infamous Stringdusters.

“Stringdusters” is fairly easy to figure out by itself, it’s probably a reference to keeping the strings clean by playing all the time. But where did the “Infamous” part come from? Andy Hall was kind enough to relate the story to me. Here’s what he had to say.

Actually Ben Eldrige came up with it. We had been through quite a naming crisis at the beginning. We started as Wheelhouse, but that was a metal band from L.A. Then we were Broken Drought, which is the title of a Robert Frost poem. Noam Pikelny suggested that, so we’ll blame that one on him. The Stringdusters was a band that Jethro Burns was in, but wasn’t around anymore. We added the “Infamous” to help distiguish from that. Hopefully we will eventually earn that description!

Coming up with band names is so hard. The ridiculous ones come easy. Sabertooth, Six On A Stick, The Free Radicals to name a few. Ironically these are probably all taken. I like where we ended up. The other cool part of The Infamous Stringdusters is that it’s acronym is IS.

I would guess we might be seeing that on a T-shirt sometime later this year!

Rob Ickes has announced a four day resophonic guitar summit in Nashville this fall. Billed as ResoSummit, it will include workshops and performances, and a hands-on experience is promised for all students.

Instructors tapped to participate in addition to Rob are Mike Auldridge, Phil Leadbetter, Randy Kohrs, Michael Witcher, and Andy Hall, plus luthiers Tim Scheerhorn and Paul Beard.

Things kick off on Thursday (11/8) with a concert at The Station Inn by The Infamous Stringdusters. Classes then run from Friday (11/9) through Sunday (11/11). Here’s how Rob describes the weekend’s activities:

From Friday through Sunday, we’ll have a full menu of workshops, jams, “dobro speed dates,” faculty fave song deconstruction, and other creative approaches designed to ramp up your playing rapidly and enrich your creativity. We’ll be tapping some truly gifted teachers and players to make all this happen, and we’re going to make sure everyone has lots of fun in the process. We’ve found a great campus right off Music Row - The Scarritt-Bennett Center - for all our daytime activities. This beautiful Gothic campus will make you think you’re in college (except no exams!), and will put you in just the right mood for a high-energy learning experience. And a nearby recording studio will be available for a hands-on recording experience, for those who dare!

Each night during the ResoSummit, we’ll head back to The Station Inn for some great performances by bands featuring faculty members, including Three Ring Circle. And for the grand finale on late Sunday afternoon, we’ll have a closing performance at the Harambee Auditorium at Scarritt-Bennett.

By the end of the Summit on Sunday evening, you’ll be loaded up with enough inspiration and “homework” to keep you busy for the next year!

There is no web site for the event, but Rob encourages anyone with an interest in ResoSummit to contact him by email for registration forms. Full tuition is $350, which includes all workshops and evening concerts.

Episode #39 continues on the heels of last week’s discussion with Chris Pandolfi. This time, we are talking with dobroist/vocalist Andy Hall, also of The Infamous Stringdusters, and a fellow graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Andy talks a bit about the band, and how his Berklee degree in recording and audio production helped prepare him for his music career.

This GrassCast is a bit shorter than most, coming in at 6 minutes, with a download size of 6.8 MB (for the MP3 file).

Below is an mp3 file which you can hear now, or download to your computer. The GrassCast is also available in the iTunes music store as an enhanced podcast containing photos and hyperlinks relative to the subject matter being discussed in the interview.

Listen now:
Direct Download: ep39_andy_hall.mp3
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Free Download: The GrassCast iPodder software

To subscribe with your own podcatching software, copy and past this url into the appropriate entry box in your software: http://www.thegrasscast.com/rss