Bill Evans sent a note last week with news of the 2009 NashCamp Banjo Retreat scheduled for October 16-18 just outside of Nashville.

As always, they have a crackerjack staff of banjo instructors on tap, and Evans was especially pleased to note that this year Bill Emerson will make his NashCamp Banjo faculty debut. Joining Emerson will be host Sonny Osborne, Alan Munde, Tom Adams, Charlie Cushman, Ned Luberecki, Bill Evans and Frank Neat.

This will be their 9th year holding this event which Evans tells us is as oriented towards having fun as it is serious banjo instruction.

You can see all the details about the 2009 NashCamp Banjo Retreat online.

Bluegrass balladeer Cliff Waldron is scheduled for kidney transplant surgery on Monday (4/27) near his home in Northern Virginia. His wife Nancy will be the donor.

Cliff has been a fixture on the DC-area bluegrass scene since the late 1960s, and toured nationally with Bill Emerson and later with his own group, The New Shades Of Grass. He has the notorious distinction of being the man who introduced Fox On The Run to the bluegrass repertoire when he and Bill Emerson first recorded it in 1969.

Waldron has been in ill health this past few years, and his kidney was severely damaged during a catheterization procedure last year. He has been on dialysis since and it is hoped that the transplant will offer him greater freedom and an opportunity to recover fully.

He will be hospitalized until mid-May, but get well wishes and words of encouragement can be sent to:

The DC Bluegrass Union has “reprinted” an article about Cliff Waldron which had originally appeared in the SPBGMA Bluegrass Music News when Cliff was inducted into their Hall Of Greats in 2004.

For anyone who did not catch the article in ‘04 – especially those who do not recognize the name of this important voice in the development of contemporary bluegrass – this fine piece by Steve Romanoski is worth a few minutes of your time.

Steve has written for Bluegrass Music News since 1977 and also has had articles published in Bluegrass Music Profiles, Sing Out, Acoustic Guitar, The Chicago Sun-Times, Bluegrass Now, and Fiddler. He is a songwriter as well, and teaches private music lessons in the Chicago area.

His Waldron article is based on an interview he did with Cliff, and it includes some insights into what has become one of the most popular bluegrass songs ever recorded – one with which many performers have a love/hate relationship.

Over the years, the punchy rhythmic introduction to “Fox On The Run” has become a virtual call to arms in the bluegrass community, And, while the tune will be forever linked to the classic Country Gentlemen ensemble of the early 1970s, another Washington DC based band was responsible for the song’s introduction to bluegrass. That band was simply called Emerson & Waldron.

Both Cliff Waldron and Bill Emerson were immersed in the progressive leanings of the northern Virginia bluegrass scene and actively brought material from different genres for the band to play. Waldron remembers how “Fox On The Run” was introduced to the world of bluegrass, “Bill was the first one to hear it,” he says, “and he played it for me and wondered if we could work it out. I was up for doing new material at this time and thought that we could give it a try. I had done Stanley’s and Flatt & Scruggs songs. I wasn’t sick of them, but I was tired of doing it myself. I wanted to do on my own; something that I could put a name to it myself instead of doing somebody else’s stuff all the time.” And Cliff found true inspiration from the realization that “he’d (Emerson) heard this song and thought that we could do something with it.” Little did either player know that this song, originally performed by the English rock band Manfred Mann, would become an anthem of the ages in bluegrass music.

You can read the full article at DCBU.org or on the SPBGMA web site.

An audio sample from Emerson & Waldron’s original recording of Fox On The Run can be heard on Cliff’s web site.

Tom Adams will be joining Bill Emerson and the Sweet Dixie Band on guitar as of September 5.

We reported just two months ago that Tom was launching a new endeavor, Diamond Joe, with banjoist Chris Warner but that group has now disbanded. Tom says that the recordings the band has already made will be incorcorated into an upcoming Chris Warner release on Patuxent Records, and they will continue to track with Chris for this project.

You can find the tour schedule for The Sweet Dixie Band on their MySpace page.