Here’s an out-of-this-world story with a bluegrass angle…

Research into the melting points of diamonds has suggested that remote planets may indeed sport what Jimmy Martin sang about in the 1950s – an Ocean Of Diamonds. It seems that a mass of molten diamonds would form a solid crust (like ice) atop the liquid, and this could explain some of the behaviors found in faraway planets.

According to piece in last Friday’s (1/22) edition of the UK Telegraph…

Dr Jon Eggert, of the Laser Shock Equation of State (EOS) group in the Department of Physical and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said: “The idea of significant quantities of pure carbon existing in giant planets such as Uranus and Neptune has gained both experimental and theoretical support.

“It is now accepted that the high-pressure, high-temperature behaviour of carbon is essential to predicting the evolution and structure of such planets.

An ocean of diamond could help explain the orientation of Uranus’ and Neptune’s magnetic field.”

You can read the full article online, with more information at Discovery.com

Maybe Jimmy Martin – and songwriter Carnahan Clifford – were on to something with that song? Here’s a video of Gabe Witcher singing it with Punch Brothers in 2008.

Regular readers of The Bluegrass Blog know that one of my favorite web sites is The Bluegrass Intelligencer, brainchild of Crooked Still banjo wizard Greg Liszt. Its theme is “fake” bluegrass and acoustic music news, and the site is plainly hilarious, if occasionally a bit on the bawdy side.

The Still has been recording of late, and Greg hasn’t had time to post much new material on the site, but has recently put up a new piece about the lengths Mountain Heart is willing to go in service to their country.

The post title says it all: News of Guantanamo Music Torture Inspires Mountain Heart to Play Harder, Faster Than Ever Before.

Sources close to the band Mountain Heart indicate that the renowned group is urgently striving to play faster, harder, and louder than ever before in hopes that its music help win the war on terror.

“The revelation of music torture or, ‘torture lite’, was a real call-to-arms for these guys,” said a friend of the band.

Music experts agree that Mountain Heart is the only bluegrass band with the skills, intensity, and patriotic fervor to make music significantly more effective than what the US government already uses on prisoners.

Don’t miss it.

Phyllis Boyens-Liptak passed away on 9 December after a battle with cancer.

The daughter of old-time singer and songwriter Nimrod Workman, Phyllis Boyens was a soulful mountain singer who recorded her only solo album, I Really Care for Rounder (0162) in 1983. Half the album was country, the other half bluegrass backed up by the Johnson Mountain Boys. The following year she recorded a number of songs as part of the album, They’ll Never Keep Her Down, a compilation of songs by women about coal mining. On this album, she was backed up by the short lived bluegrass band The Dreadful Snakes, which included Bela Fleck and Jerry Douglas.

In 1974 Boyens recorded an album, Passing Thru the Garden (June Appal JA 0001) with her father.

In 1980, she played Loretta Lynn’s mother, Clara Webb, in the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter and in 1984 Boyens appeared in the TV movie, The Dollmaker. Also, she is featured on the soundtrack to Guncrazy (1992), singing Mean Papa Blues, a track from her I Really Care album. Boyens also appeared in the documentary Harlan County USA.

Her version of Jean Ritchie’s Blue Diamond Mines and the tune Lawrence Jones, about the one man dead on the Harlan County line, during the labor troubles there in early 1970s are classics.

She retired after moving from her native West Virginia to Florida.

Here are two videos which feature her singing. The first has Phyllis singing her song, The Way My Daddy Laughed, in 1983. Following that is a tribute to her music that has the audio of her singing The Last Old Shovel from her Rounder CD with assorted images.

This version of The Last Old Shovel is inlcuded in the Rounder collection O Sister – The Women’s Bluegrass Collection, which also has tracks from Delia Bell, Claire Lynch, Hazel Dickens, Wilma Lee Cooper and Rhonda Vincent.

Phyllis Boyens-Liptak passed away on 9 December after a battle with cancer.

The daughter of old-time singer and songwriter Nimrod Workman, Phyllis Boyens was a soulful mountain singer who recorded her only solo album, I Really Care for Rounder (0162) in 1983. Half the album was country, the other half bluegrass backed up by the Johnson Mountain Boys. The following year she recorded a number of songs as part of the album, They’ll Never Keep Her Down, a compilation of songs by women about coal mining. On this album, she was backed up by the short lived bluegrass band The Dreadful Snakes, which included Bela Fleck and Jerry Douglas.

In 1974 Boyens recorded an album, Passing Thru the Garden (June Appal JA 0001) with her father.

In 1980, she played Loretta Lynn’s mother, Clara Webb, in the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter and in 1984 Boyens appeared in the TV movie, The Dollmaker. Also, she is featured on the soundtrack to Guncrazy (1992), singing Mean Papa Blues, a track from her I Really Care album. Boyens also appeared in the documentary Harlan County USA.

Her version of Jean Ritchie’s Blue Diamond Mines and the tune Lawrence Jones, about the one man dead on the Harlan County line, during the labor troubles there in early 1970s are classics.

She retired after moving from her native West Virginia to Florida.

Here are two videos which feature her singing. The first has Phyllis singing her song, The Way My Daddy Laughed, in 1983. Following that is a tribute to her music that has the audio of her singing The Last Old Shovel from her Rounder CD with assorted images.

This version of The Last Old Shovel is inlcuded in the Rounder collection O Sister – The Women’s Bluegrass Collection, which also has tracks from Delia Bell, Claire Lynch, Hazel Dickens, Wilma Lee Cooper and Rhonda Vincent.