Earlier this month, there was a real bluegrass wedding in Nashville.

Andy Hall, resonator guitarist with The Infamous Stringdusters, married Janice Young, agent with Keith Case and Associates. Their wedding was held on May 9 at Riverwood Mansion in Nashville, TN with plenty of bluegrass royalty in attendance.

Janice sent along a couple of photos, and provided this recap.

“Bradley Walker sang a beautiful rendition of Walk Through This World With Me, accompanied by Andy Falco on guitar, Katie Studley on violin, and Hannah Schroeder on cello. Tyler Grant played several classical guitar pieces while the families were being seated, and Dave Peterson and His Old Tyme Country Review played at the reception.

We went to Deep Creek Lake in Maryland for our honeymoon, and stayed at the lovely lake house of Ben and Barbara Eldridge.”

Sounds like a lovely ceremony and a great start for their married life. Congratulations to the happy couple!

Rob Ickes has announced that registration for ResoSummit 2009 has begun – and sold out right away.

The annual weekend of instruction and immersion in resophonic guitar is scheduled for November 5-8, held at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville, with some events at The Station Inn.

Though they have already accepted advance registrations to fill the number of students they can accept, a waiting list has been set up for those who might still hope to attend. ResoSummit has been able to offer registration to people on the wait list each year, so get on there now if you’d like to make it in ‘09.

The faculty includes Rob Ickes, Michael Witcher, Andy Hall, Sally Van Meter, Dave Giegerich and Jimmy Heffernan. It is hoped that both Mike Auldridge and Cindy Cashdollar will also be teaching in November.

Sign up for the waiting list on the ResoSummit 2009 web site.

Jordan Tice is a young guitarist who is releasing a third CD under his name at only 21 years of age.

Long Story, recently released on Patuxent Music, features 10 original instrumental compositions performed by a group of stellar progressive string musicians. Jordan recorded his first solo project, No Place Better, in 2005 and was part of a trio album (Corbett/Chrisman/Tice) in 2007 with banjoist Wes Corbett and hammered dulcimer player Simon Chrisman.

This new solo release shows not only an obvious grasp of acoustic guitar technique, but a fresh compositional voice as well. It is not presented as a “guitar album” – with track-after-track of fiddle-tuney flatpicking – nor does it incorporate the odd vocal number with an eye towards radio play. In fact, the CD is more of a statement about Jordan’s original music than it is his guitar playing, and it is the tunes that shine, both for their clever melodies, and as improvisational vehicles for Tice and his fellow pickers.

The opening melodies are as likely to be presented by the dobro, fiddle or banjo as the guitar, which Tice had in mind when he created the tunes for this album.

“I did write many of the melodies with other instruments in mind. One thing that ties most of the music I love together is that the elements that make up the music are veiled behind the flow of the music. My goal was to make a record with a bluegrass band that accomplishes this rather than to highlight the guitar and ignore the abundance of textures and sounds the bluegrass band is capable of producing.”

Jordan’s tunes range from a fiery fiddle tune form (Sofia) to jazzy, new acoustic ballads (Chincoteague), and even an orchestrated, scored piece (The Colony).

Sofia really jumped out at me on first hearing, and it hasn’t diminished a bit upon multiple listenings.

Listen now:   

“Sofia was written a few years ago pretty quickly. Id say it’s the most straight forward on the record in that its just a tune that we play and improvise on with minimal arrangement. I named it after Sofia, Bulgaria after a visit there last summer. I just liked the simple and pretty sound of ’sofia’ and figured it fit.” (more…)

This past Tuesday saw the official release of the new Scheerhorn resonator guitar tribute CD, Hornography. The CD is put together by renowned resophonic guitar player, recording engineer and producer, Randy Kohrs.

The brainchild of Jimmy Ross, the CD came about after a discussion between Ross, and Tim Scheerhorn at and IBMA tradeshow. Tim suggested they bring Kohrs onboard to engineer and produce. The resulting project includes nearly 50 musicians, a supporting a cast of bluegrass’ best, and 15 all-star resonator guitarists who all play Scheerhorn instruments.

Each track features a different resonator player, with only Kohrs and Tim Scheerhorn himself making more than one appearance. 17 tracks are presented in total, ranging from bluegrass numbers such as Wheel Hoss (performed by Rob Ickes) to Hot Toddy’s Snake Oil (a dual track tune, the first track consisting of some funny banter in the studio).

If you like good acoustic music, especially of the resonator sort, this CD should be on your Christmas wish list. From beginning to end the recording quality and acoustic tones of the instruments met the expectations I’ve come to have of a Randy Kohrs produced project. The purpose of the project is to showcase the Scheerhorn instruments, and it hits that mark with precision.

Some of the tracks have a more distinct “bluegrass” sound to them, namely Rob Ickes’ Wheel Hoss, Andy Hall’s Fishtail, Jack Ferguson’s Carter’s Blues, and Jimmy Ross’ Turnaround. Other tracks take different directions.

One of the standouts to my ear was Primo Duetto for Reso and Viola by Billy Cardine. This classically styled piece had incredible tone and depth (more…)