Here’s Act II from the Bluegrass Babies, a clever animated video from British children’s book illustrator Caroline Roberts and Paul Castle of The Rosinators. Our readers loved their first video, and if you have small children (or grandchildren), they will love it too!

This time out, they have a grassed-up version of the familiar Hush Little Baby.

Roberts explains why we haven’t heard from the Babies since the Spring of this year…

“After a bit of a delay (due to artistic differences over the use of a drum ‚Äì now happily resolved!) The Bluegrass Babies launch their second video HUSH (little baby). This time they are in quieter (but not too quiet) mode with their gently rocking version of this much loved lullaby.”

Wonderful stuff… hat’s off to Roberts and Castle!

Here’s a little book that may be of interest to bluegrass loving parents and grandparents. It’s a children’s story by Sarah Martin Busse and Jacqueline Briggs Martin called Banjo Granny which chronicles how banjo playing and “granny magic” allowed a grandmother to be with her beloved grandson.

Martin and Busse are a mother/daughter team whose personal discoveries of bluegrass music led to the writing of this book, originally published in 2006. Sarah explains how it all began…

“My husband and I had just moved out to California when our first child, our son Owen, was born in June 2001. So we had to learn how to be a family long-distance, since my parents were still in Iowa.

One day, when Owen was a few months old, I heard a radio interview with Dolly Parton about the release of her album, Little Sparrow. I was so taken with what I heard that I ordered the CD right away. I didn’t know very much about Parton’s music before that, but I love acoustic music in general and what I heard just immediately riveted me. The CD came, but being a mother with a small baby, I didn’t have time to listen to it right away.

Then Owen had a cranky day, and in desperation, I put on the new music–hoping to soothe myself as much as him. With the first opening notes, he looked up, stopped crying, and then as the beat kicked in, he smiled a huge smile–the first time he had really responded to music.!!

So, of course, I called my mother right away and told her, ‘Owen loves bluegrass music!’ And that began my own real interest in bluegrass as well.”

…at which point, Jackie picks up the narrative:

“When Sarah told me how Owen listened and “danced” to the music, I longed -as grandmothers do – to see him for myself. But I couldn’t go from where I live in Iowa to California at the time. I dreamed of donning thousand mile shoes and walking to California. In my imagination, I would of course play banjo – and the music and ‘grannymagic’ would get me to California.” (more…)

Runaway Freight, from College Grove, TN, are set to release their new CD on March 6. Hillbilly Bailout – The Recession Tapes, uses the theme of hard times for the art and liners, the song choices, and the production/marketing approach.

To keep costs down, the 15 tracks were cut live in the studio. They all tracked in one large room and completed the project in just over one day, capturing the first take on most of the songs.

The bulk of the songs are in the public domain, save two compositions from Freight guitarist Matt Ford. Their approach is straightahead, and audio samples can be found on the band web site or MySpace page.

In keeping with the theme of economic distress, they will offer the CD for only $10 at live shows, and have an $8 pre-release offer online (plus shipping).

We will be honest with you folks, we don’t know for sure if this bailout will benefit all Hillbillies. We hope that it will at least put you in a lighthearted mood when you listen and read the album credits.

Ford has also produced a clever children’s book, designed to teach young readers about the instruments in the bluegrass band. The Awesome Possums features a family of pickin’ possums, each of whom takes a page to introduce themselves and the instrument they play.

The book includes an audio CD which narrates the text of the book, and a recording of The Ballad Of The Awesome Possums, which tells the tale of the family band.

The song is cute, and each page of the book is illustrated with a water color and ink representation of the many Awesome Possums. If your young reader lives in a part of the world populated with real possums, they will appreciate the many references to the family avoiding “being on the road.”

The Awesome Possums is available for $10 in the Runaway Frieght web store.