This year’s trade show exhibit hall seems to have noticeably fewer booths than in past years. (This picture labeled “Where’s Gibson?” demonstrates this point admirably. Other long-time exhibitors notably absent are Huber Banjos and The Murphy Method.) Walking through the hall on Tuesday also revealed many booths with people’s names on them, but no one there. The mystery of those deserted spots was solved on Wednesday when the one-day exhibitors set up. A one-day option is new this year and we’ll have to wait until the dust settles to find out whether these businesses felt it was worth their while to come set up for just one day.

This year is also the first year that the official showcase bands received their own booths, which no doubt helped to fill up the available (unsold) booth space.

Vendors’ impressions of hall traffic varied. Bob Fehr at Martin Guitars said that business was very slow; Rienk Janssen of The European Bluegrass Music Association, who was reading a book at his booth when I stopped to talk, agreed that things were slow, but perhaps not more so than last year. I told him he should get a really good book and that would guarantee that people would be constantly interrupting him. Laurie Matheson from the University of Illinois Press said that business wasn’t exactly booming, but it was steady.

The single exception to this trend is Bluegrass Unlimited, which is offering a tote bag stuffed full of truly great stuff for renewing your subscription. They’ve sold more than 175 subscriptions and renewals so far and have around 70 left, so if you want yours, act fast!

Inside the magazine is an interview with Martin conducted by fellow banjo picker Pete Wernick.

In addition to all their regular features, Managing Editor Sharon McGraw tells us that the new issue also has a special 20th Anniversary overview of the International Bluegrass Music Awards.

Sharon also invites all of our readers who will be at IBMA next week to swing by the BU booth in the exhibit hall for some special offers.

You can find subscription and single issue purchase info for Bluegrass Unlimited on their web site.

The August 2009 issue also includes a lengthy article about Bradley by Larry Nager, which chronicles her career in bluegrass from her early days with the New Coon Creek Girls through her latest compass CD, Don’t Turn Your Back, and her ongoing struggle with diabetes.

There is also a fascinating travelogue written by Dan Loftin, Nashville photographer and teller of tall tales, about his road trip with Jim Mills to shoot some of the pre war banjos for Mills’ book, Gibson’s Original Mastertones: Flathead 5-String Banjos of the 1930s-40s.

Casey Henry has a piece on dance troupe Footworks, and Murphy Henry has one on bluegrass pioneer Gloria Belle. Regular features include the BU personal appearance calendar, Notes & Queries and the monthly National Bluegrass Survey chart, where Lonesome River Band continues their run at #1 with Them Blues from their No Turning Back CD.

In discussing the August issue with BU Managing Editor Sharon McGraw, it came out that this cover is the second of three in a row that will feature female artists – a first from the magazine. Valerie Smith and Becky Buller had the July cover, and Claire Lynch will be there for September.

You can read the cover story on Dale Ann, and find subscription and single issue purchase information on the Bluegrass Unlimited web site.

Bluegrass Unlimited Top 30 Countdown will be broadcast on the last Saturday of each month from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (eastern), hosted by Lee Michael Demsey. The show will feature the top 30 songs as reported to Bluegrass Unlimited for the upcoming month, in the familiar countdown format. Demsey will also include brief comments from some of the artists and/or songwriters whose music is included.

BU has maintained their monthly chart, the National Bluegrass Survey, for the past 19 years. Since its inception, Demsey has compiled the list for the magazine from reporting radio stations and syndicators, so he would seem the obvious choice to host a radio countdown.

The debut show is this Saturday (4/25), during the first two hours of Demsey’s regular morning show on Bluegrass Country.

You can hear their 24/7  bluegrass music feed online at bluegrasscountry.org, or broadcast in the Washington, DC area on HD Radio WAMU 88-5 Channel 2 and 105.FIVE FM.

The cover feature is on Ricky Skaggs and his label, Skaggs Family Records.

There is also an article on David Harvey, noted mandolinist and luthier with Gibson Acoustic Instruments, images from the new photo mural at East Tennessee State University, plus pieces on Maine’s Al Hawkes and East Side Dave Kline from Mountain Folk radio.

Subscription and single-issue information can be found online.

The story, by Dave McCarty, is titled When Only A Gibson Is Good Enough. It focuses not on the company’s storied history – largely well known to the bluegrass audience – but on Gibson’s current bluegrass manufacturing facility, known officially within the company as the Original Acoustic Instruments division.

This is where the Gibson banjos, mandolins and Dobro instruments are built, located in the Opry Mills shopping center near the home of the Grand Ole Opry.

McCarty interviews Gibson master luthier (and notable mandolinist) Dave Harvey about the products they produce in Nashville, the challenges the company faces from US and international competition, and building high end stringed instruments in the face of the current economic downturn.

The March issue also has features on Red Diamond Mandolins, Homespun Tapes, Laurie Grundy’s ornate banjos from Australia, and the evolution of the resophonic guitar.

Of course, you’ll also find the BU radio chart, live show calendar and plenty of CD reviews for recent releases.

Find more info on Bluegrass Unlimited – including subscription details – at www.bluegrassmusic.com. They are extending their ‘09 subscription special through March, offering a free CD sampler of your choice for new or renewal subscriptions to the magazine.

The full list of 40 songs is shown below, but first there are a couple of observations made by Demsey during the program. The #1 song, Through The Window Of A Train, had been, at the end of 2008, at the top of the Survey for five months. The second song, Alison’s Band, was only a couple of points away from reaching the top spot on the Survey during its 13 month stay on the Survey.

The placement of these two songs mirrors the choices made by IBMA members in the Song Of The Year award in October with both songs being on the final ballot and Through The Window Of A Train triumphing there as well.

A rough assessment of the Top 40 shows that Rhonda Vincent and the Gibson Brothers both had three titles on the chart, Blue Highway, Dailey & Vincent, The SteelDrivers, Cherryholmes and Steep Canyon Rangers all had two entries.

Allocating points for a song relative to its position on the chart makes Dailey & Vincent the top band with 71pts, by virtue of their two top five entries. They are followed by The Gibson Brothers, with 64pts, Steep Canyon Rangers (63pts) third, Blue Highway (54pts) fourth and Rhonda Vincent, fifth with 51pts.

Dailey & Vincent were in the final five on the IBMA ballot for Vocal Group Of The Year as were Blue Highway, who featured in the final five choices for Instrumental Group Of The Year also.

The top albums are, in descending order, Dailey & Vincent, Iron & Diamonds, Lovin’ Pretty Women, Through The Window Of A Train and Good Thing Going.

Dailey & Vincent, Lovin’ Pretty Women and Through The Window Of A Train were in the last five albums on the IBMA ballot for the Album Of The Year award. The sixth placed band, The SteelDrivers, had its album, also called The SteelDrivers, in the final ballot for the Album Of The Year award.

The top record label is Rounder with 14 entries. They are followed by Sugar Hill (with five titles), then Pinecastle, Rebel, Rural Rhythm and Skaggs Family each with three songs on the chart.

See the complete Top 40 listing after the jump.

And bluegrass music is no different…

Lee Michael Demsey has compiled his Top 40 Bluegrass Songs of 2008, which he will disclose on WAMU’s Bluegrass Country on New Yea’s Eve from 10:00 p.m. until midnight (EST), and again on New Year’s Day from 10:00 a.m. until noon.

Lee has been in charge of putting together the National Bluegrass Survey charts for Bluegrass Unlimited this past 18 year, and has used that information from the past 14 months to create his 2008 Top 40.

“This [year end] chart is not officially sanctioned by BU as being ‘official.’ Songs that first charted in January 2008 and spent the whole year on the chart would have had an unfair advantage over songs that first charted the previous October and had a shorter run on the chart during the calender year of 2008. For that reason, if a song spent at least five months on the chart in 2008, I gave it credit for its points for its entire run, including late 2007. For songs that spent at least five months on the chart at the end of 2008, I extrapolated how the rest of their chart run might actually go, so as not to give them short shrift.

So it’s not an official chart, just an approximation.”

The BU charts are derived from votes cast by prominent bluegrass radio show hosts and syndicators world wide.

You can listen to Lee’s Top 40 countdown tonight and tomorrow morning at www.bluegrasscountry.org. It will also be rebroadcast during the Special Programs slot in the Bluegrass Country schedule later in January.

The Fauquier Times-Democrat newspaper, in Warrenton, Va, is running a story in today’s paper detailing the story of how/why Pete Kuykendall began the magazine all those years ago as a newsletter, whose annual subscription rate was $3. Considering the increased content and the inflation over 40+ years, I’d say the current subscription rate of $25 is a bargain indeed.

With the world changing drastically around us, bluegrass music continues to thrive, and so has Bluegrass Unlimited.

“If you had asked me 10 years ago about the future of Bluegrass Unlimited, I would have said it would be dead by now," said Kuykendall. "But we are still healthy, and bluegrass music continues to grow."

Thanks Pete for helping the music grow, and for keeping us all reading for all this time.

Any subscription purchased until October 31 (new or renewal) will qualify for a free compilation CD of their choosing. The choices are sampler discs from Rounder, Rebel and Rural Rhythm Records, each featuring tracks from recently released projects from the labels.

The offer is only available online, and limited to US subscribers.

BU Managing Editor Sharon McGraw tells us that the upcoming November issue has a lengthy cover feature on Cherryholmes written by Casey Henry, and articles on guitarist Jim Hurst and folkgrass trio, Red Molly.

Case sees the situation from the perspective of a booking agent trying to book, schedule, and route shows for bluegrass artists. He talked about the increased price of fuel for tour busses, the increased cost of airfare and the decreased availability of flights, and the increased cost of rental vehicles.

Case relates the story of a recent short, three show tour, for Ralph Stanley.

He went from home [in southwest Virginia], played three dates that were all closely routed in Texas. He came back and his [roundtrip] fuel bill was almost $2,000.

Since these dates were all booked a year or more ago, the artists are really feeling the financial crunch from these fuel costs. My own conversations with artists indicate that many acts are unable to increase their asking price for a festival date because the promoters are simply unwilling to invest more in artist fees for next year while uncertain what attendance will look like a year from now.

Case ties a decline in CD sales to the increase fuel costs as well. Indicating that it not only costs the band more to get to the show, it also costs the fans more. Having spent much of their available cash on gas, the fans are buying less once they reach the festival.

…people are spending so much to go to festivals, as far as fuel costs go, that they are not spending as much at the festivals.

Interestingly, the author of the article then converses with a tour buss rental company manager concerning attendance at a couple of country music festivals. He then returns to bluegrass with Skaggs and Sharon McGraw.

Sharon shared that her research indicates no noticeable decline in bluegrass festival attendance, this year.

I think people have been a little more selective in how far they’ve gone [to attend festivals]. But attendance-wise, from what I’ve seen, it seems to be steady.

I think next year is when it’s all going to trickle down, when artists will say, ‘Well, we were just going to bite the bullet. Now we’ve bitten it, and it’s biting us.’ That may be where some of it comes apart.

We’ve run two polls this year, one at the beginning of the festival season, and one just recently, asking our readers if increased fuel costs would have an affect on their festival attendance this year. The results show 60% of readers indicating they are/have attending fewer festivals this year as a result of the increase in fuel costs.

If Ralph Stanley and Ricky Skaggs are feeling a financial crunch, it must be even more difficult for bands with lower booking fees, as fuel costs eat a larger percentage of their revenue. What all this means for he future of bluegrass is yet to be seen. Perhaps more bands and fans will take some advice from the title of the new Grascals CD!

Helland includes quotes from founder, Pete Kuykendall, and from newgrass legend, Sam Bush.

“No one loves traditional bluegrass more then Pete does,” says Sam Bush, who bought his first issue of Bluegrass Unlimited at the second Roanoke Bluegrass Festival in Virginia. “At the same time, no one has been more supportive of young bands that come out and try to make their own sound.”

Doyle Lawson is also quoted. Read the full article at grammy.com.

They get right to the point as the piece begins:

“When my brother decided to quit the road and completely retire, the days of the Osborne Brothers were over,” Bobby said. “I couldn’t see any point in me trying to just keep the Osborne Brothers as just one brother.” Left with the choice to step down from the business or venture out on his own, the elder brother, 74, didn’t hesitate on his future. “I’m not going to [retire] myself. I’m going to go on as long as I can. I feel like I was put here to sing, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

The bulk of the article is about Bobby’s new direction, new CD (Try A Little Kindness) and his new band (Rocky Top X-Press), but he also responds to some questions about the legacy of The Osborne Brotehrs, and the impact they have had on bluegrass and country music.

The September issue also includes features on The Steep Canyon Rangers, Nothin’ Fancy fiddler Chris Sexton, and Chris Stuart & Backcountry’s trip to perform in the Sultanate of Oman (which we posted about earlier this year).

You will be able to find more details about the new issue on the Bluegrass Unlimited web site when the September 1 issue date rolls around, where you can also find subscription information and search their archives.

When the magazine launched in 1966, it was available for dues of $3 per year. This first issue was a typed, mimeographed pamphlet with a hand drawn logo – quite a contrast from the slick, full color magazine we now see each month.

There are some real gems in the insert, like this short review of the then new single release from The Osborne Brothers, Hard Times/World Of Unwanted:

“About nine parts Nashville hokum to one part grass.”

The main portion of the magazine includes some more choice bits from past issues, including a piece John Duffey wrote in 1967, responding to the critics of the early Country Gentlemen who took them to task for deviating from the “true bluegrass’ way.

They also feature a version of how their National Bluegrass Survey might have looked for July 1966, with The Country Gentlemen’s Bringing Mary Home topping the list.

Subscribers should see their copies in the next few days, and news stands will surely sell out quickly, so pick one up if you want to have this as a keepsake.

Also included this month are features on Blue Moon Rising, Shad Cobb, and The McCormick Brothers. You can get more info on Bluegrass Unlimited, including subscription details, by visiting their web site.

Within the next week or so, you’ll be able to view selected content from the new issue online, including most of the reviews, the National Bluegrass Survey, and at least one or two of the feature articles. The May issue is still up on the site now.

John adds: The new issue also includes a great review of our new Acoustic Endeavors CD, On A Farm. Yee hah!

“Louise Scruggs stands out as the most prominent leader in the music industry for women. She was absolutely the pillar of strength in most any business transaction. Louise will be remembered for her strong will as well. I begged her for years to allow us to feature her in the magazine and always received the same reply, “maybe soon.” We actually had begun work on an article just prior to her health declining.

She will be sadly missed.

Sharon McGraw, Managing Editor, Bluegrass Unlimited

In the last year or two, as he’s rounded the curve of 80, he’s recorded as a guest with the likes of Johnny Cash and Charlie Daniels. And he maintains a steady, though limited, touring schedule. Perhaps most notably, Wiseman recently recorded three CDs worth of the great old songs he loves to sing.