As a young man just gaining an interest in bluegrass music, the bluegrass festival was almost heaven for me. One of the first festivals I can remember attending was at Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. I grew up there in Missouri so it seems natural I would have fond memories of this festival. This is where I first encountered the mandolin playing of Danny Roberts, the flatpicking of John Chapman, and the thrill of excitement of being at a bluegrass festival.

Silver Dollar City has hosted a bluegrass festival since 1975. Back then it was called the Mountain Folks Music Festival. Over the years the festival has changed names and dates more than once. Four years ago it became Silver Dollar City’s Bluegrass & BBQ Festival. The festival is a long running one, starting on May 10 and continuing through June 1, 2008. During these 23 days, the park will be running a total of nine stages throughout each day, with over 60 bluegrass bands performing. Each performance is scheduled at 30 minutes and during the course of the festival there will be in excess of 1000 sets.

I had the chance to speak with D.A. Callaway, the festival coordinator, and he shared some interesting details about the event. With that many stages running for this length of time, the technical staff will be working hard. Callaway tells me they have 25 full time technical staff to run sound and lighting during the festival. The park hours are 9:30 AM to 7 PM each day. The shows begin in the morning and continue throughout the day.

Silver Dollar City is a large theme park that attracts a lot of tourists, but Callaway assures me that of the 10,000 attendees the park will average each day of the festival, 40-50% of them are there for the music. These are fans that might not be at the park if it wasn’t for the festival. Those are great numbers to contemplate on both sides of that equation. 4-5K people per day in attendance specifically to hear bluegrass music is a great turn out. But 5-6K people each day who aren’t there for the music, will surely hear it as they enjoy the other offerings of the park. Perhaps a few new bluegrass fans will be born next month in Branson!

With 60+ bands performing I was curious how artists are selected for inclusion in the festival. (more…)

Bradley Walker will be the guest on this week’s edition of Studio Special on XM Satellite Radio’s Bluegrass Junction. Bradley and his band (David Babb - bass, Dustin Benson - guitar, Jenny Gardner - mandolin, Patton Wages - guitar) will join host Kyle Cantrell for an hour of discussion and live music starting this morning (4/18) at 8:00 a.m. (EDT).

Kyle is especially psyched about this week’s show, as it will mark the 50th airing of Studio Special since he came on board at XM.

Bradley’s show will run six times over the next week, starting with this morning’s debut. Here’s the run down (all times EDT).

Brance posted a few weeks ago that Bradley Walker would be performing on this year’s Jerry Lewis Telethon, aired annually on national television in support of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Walker suffers from the disease, and is confined to a wheelchair - something that has not stopped him from recording and performing at the highest professional level.

We got a note last week from the folks at the MDA alerting us to the fact that an autographed copy of Bradley’s CD, Highway Of Dreams, is being auctioned online as a part of the telethon fund raising effort. It sounds like a great way to pick up a treasured keepsake and support the work of MDA at the same time.

Find the auction site here. Bidding closes on September 6 at midnight.

Bradley Walker has been making a name for himself as a singer since before his breakout album, Highway of Dreams, made such an impact in the ears of bluegrass fans. Bradley has performed on stage at the historic Ryman Auditorium, The Grand Ole Opry, and showcased at IBMA. He’s living his dream.

Bradley is an inspiration to all those around him. Born with Muscular Dystrophy, he has been in a wheelchair his entire life. That has never slowed him down though.

Next month, September 2-3, Bradley will perform on stage, and national television, in support of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. It’s their annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, which raises support for the organization’s many research, service, and health education programs.

Bradley first performed for the telethon in 1989 with the Oak Ridge Boys. He has since performed for the telethon in 2001, 2002, and 2006.

MDA National Chairman and Telethon star Jerry Lewis commented on Bradley’s participation.

I’m excited to welcome Bradley Walker back to the show this year. He’s an extraordinary talent, and I’m sure his performance and story will inspire our Telethon viewers.

I’m sure it will. I know his masterful vocal performances have always inspired me.

CMT.com has a very nice feature up on Bradley Walker, written by Craig Shelburne. Unlike the recent review of his Highway Of Dreams CD on NPR’s Fresh Air program, the CMT piece accurately reflects Bradley’s love for, and interest in bluegrass music.

Shelburne describes how Walker first experienced bluegrass about ten years ago when a fellow member of a country band in Athens, AL popped JD Crowe’s classic Rounder 0044 album into the CD player. His subsequent investigation into bluegrass developed into his current penchant for combining the older sounds of country music with the instrumentation usually found in a bluegrass ensemble.

From the CMT article:

“I’ve always incorporated traditional country music with acoustic instruments,” he says. “Doing something like ‘Today I Started Loving You Again’ with a banjo, guitar, fiddle and mandolin, you can do those songs acoustically and they sound pretty good. And nine times out of 10, most of your bluegrass fans are also going to be fans of traditional country music because they’re a lot alike. I think there’s room for both styles and a mesh of both styles in one. That’s what I wanted to do with this record, to show my love for traditional bluegrass — the straight-ahead, pure bluegrass stuff — but also go along the lines of traditional country and showcase the two together.”

The entire piece is available at CMT.com.

There was a review of Bradley Walker’s debut release, Highway Of Dreams, featured on yesterday’s edition of Fresh Air, carried on most NPR affiliate stations.

The review by Ken Tucker focuses almost entirely on Bradley as a country singer, and discusses his MD briefly - about as much as he mentions the bluegrass aspect of his music.

You can listen to the review on the NPR web site.

This morning I was surfing around the net and discovered that Rounder Records has a video online about Bradley Walker. They’re calling it an ecard, but it’s more like a mini-documentary. It contains some obvious promotional elements, but that’s ok. It also features some great background info, pictures, old video footage, and comments from other artists and producers. Of course it centers around Bradley himself so you get to hear him talk about where he grew up and what his dreams are for the future, and of course, you get to hear him sing. In fact, it starts out with him sitting on a front porch and singing with no accompaniment.

If, like me, you are a fan of Bradley’s music, then the video is worth the time it takes to download it. It’s available in Windows Media and Realplayer formats, sadly no Quicktime version is available. I was able to open the WM version in QT and give it a watch. It is a 30 MB download so be prepared for it.

I should note that I discovered the video thanks to Craig over at String Theory Media. He produced the piece for Rounder and blogged about it recently.

Watch it.

GAC was present at IBMA’s World of Bluegrass last month taping interviews that will begin running this week on Edge of Country, hosted Kylie Harris. The interviews were taped at the Awards Show and in the Exhibit Hall. John and I were there watching and snapping a few photos while GAC conducted interivews with both Cherryholmes and Mountain Heart.

GAC interviews Cherryholmes in the Exhibit Hall

Here’s the schedule beginning this afternoon.

Monday, October 9
1:00 p.m. EST, 11:00 p.m. EST, 3:00 a.m. EST
The Grascals
Del McCoury
Steep Canyon Rangers
Tim O’Brien
Tom T. Hall
Claire Lynch
Instrumentalist Award Winners: Jim Mills (banjo), Rob Ickes (Dobro), Missy Raines (bass), Bryan Sutton (guitar), Michael Cleveland (fiddle) & Adam Steffey (mandolin)
Curley Seckler

Tuesday, October 10
1:00 p.m. EST, 11:00 p.m. EST, 3:00 a.m. EST
Sonya Isaacs
Doyle Lawson
Vince Gill
Rhonda Vincent

Wednesday, October 11
1:00 p.m. EST, 11:00 p.m. EST, 3:00 a.m. EST
Darryl Adkins (proder, Album of the Year, Celebration Of Life, Musicians Against Childhood Cancer)
Marty Stuart & Connie Smith

Thursday, October 12
1:00 p.m. EST, 11:00 p.m. EST, 3:00 a.m. EST
Cherryholmes
Mountain Heart
Carmel Sheerin and The Ravens
Randy Kohrs and The Lites

Friday, October 13
1:00 p.m. EST, 11:00 p.m. EST, 3:00 a.m. EST
Keith Sewell
Doyle Lawson
New Found Road
Cadillac Sky

Saturday, October 14
1:00 p.m. EST
Mark Newton Band
Rhonda Vincent
Alecia Nugent
Infamous Stringdusters
Tripping Lily
Ronnie Bowman
Nashville Bluegrass Band
Casey Driessen
Bradley Walker
Shawn Camp

The name Bradley Walker might not be that familiar to a lot of bluegrass fans, but you may have heard it whispered before in the halls at late night jam sessions at IBMA as one person quietly asked another who that singer was as he jamed with some of the best players in the business. Now Bradley will be performing with those jam friends of his at the Ryman Auditorium the evening of September 24th, 2006. This is the Sunday night before the IBMA World of Bluegrass begins. The show starts at 7 PM and the cost is $25.

Last year the show that Sunday night was the Moody Bluegrass show and it was very entertaining. I expect this show will be just as much so, while proving to be more strait up bluegrass. The line up of friends Bradley has joining him for the evening’s performance is quite impressive.

• Carl Jackson
• Bryan Sutton
• Alecia Nugent
• Larry Cordle
• The Grascals
• Aubrey Haynie
• Rob Ickes
• Randy Kohrs
• Adam Steffy
• Clay Hess
• Andy Falco
• Kevin Grant
• Brandon Rickman
• Jimmy Van Cleve
• Longview featuring J.D. Crowe, Lou Reid, James King, Don Rigsby, Ron Stewart, and Marshall Wilburn

In addition to this concert, there is one more piece of news where Bradley is concerned. September 12, 2006 is the release date for his first CD project Highway of Dreams. We could find little information about the CD itself except that it will be released on Rounder Records and was produced by Carl Jackson. One assumes that many of the players listed above for the concert performance also accompanied Bradley on the recording. If you want to hear some audio clips, and trust me you do, you can hear them on Bradley’s myspace page.