Nashville banjo player Charlie Cushman underwent emergency coronary bypass surgery yesterday (7/28). He suffered a mild heart attack on Monday, and was immediately scheduled for a triple bypass.

His good friend, and fellow banjo picker, Larry Perkins tells us that everything went well.

“I’m pleased and grateful to say Charlie came through his surgery just fine, and is in recovery. There was no damage to his heart detected during the procedure, and the doctors expect a full and complete recovery for him.

Charlie and his family are so very appreciative of all the thoughts and prayers – thanks!”

Johnny Warren and Charlie Cushman will mark the release of the new CD A Tribute To Fiddlin’ Paul Warren with a special show at the Station Inn in Nashville on Saturday, May 2.

The CD features Johnny Warren playing a superb collection of old-time fiddle tunes that he learned from his father, the legendary Paul Warren, and banjo playing partner Charlie Cushman. The elder Warren spent many years performing with Flatt & Scruggs, and later with Lester Flatt & The Nashville Grass.

The Station Inn CD release party will feature Johnny Warren on fiddle, Charlie Cushman on banjo, Kent “Superman” Blanton on bass, and special guest Curly Seckler. Further special guests are expected to join the quartet as well.

Earl Scruggs, Marty Stuart and Tim Graves are featured on the CD in addition to Johnny Warren, Cushman, Blanton and Seckler.

The new CD will be available at the show and can also be ordered from Charlie Cushman‘s website.

Paul Warren has, rightly, been lauded as the greatest "breakdown" fiddler in a career that saw him work with Johnnie & Jack, Kitty Wells, the Wilburn Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs and Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass.

Now Paul’s son Johnny – a fiddle player in his father’s style – assisted by banjo ace Charlie Cushman, has reminded us of the finesse that is captured on recordings with those great names in country and bluegrass music by reprising some of the tunes that Warren Sr. played, plus a couple of original compositions.

Johnny Warren shared his observations about A Tribute To Fiddlin’ Paul Warren (no label or number) ‚Ķ‚Ķ‚Ķ‚Ķ.

(There are) "17 fiddle tunes on the project, lead instruments being fiddle and banjo only, cut in the old time tradition of my dad and Earl Scruggs. I can tell you that we got the sound we were after. I felt a strong presence of my dad while cutting the tunes, all of which I learned from him. Four of the tunes I learned off a home recording done around 1964 by my dad, Charlie Collins and Larry McNeeley. Seven others from a home recording done in 1977 by dad, with me accompanying him on guitar at our old home-place in Madison, Tennessee, only a short time before his passing in January of 1978.

Charlie Cushman did an awesome job on banjo. We have known each other since our late teenage years and have played a lot of music together. He really captured the Scruggs style on these recordings, probably because he truly loves their sound as much as I do. There are a lot of really good fiddle players out there but nothing stirs me inside like my dads style. The energy and precision in which he played stands alone. Unfortunately, he was never allowed to record on his own while he was still at his best.

However, I hope that some of the new Flatt and Scruggs DVDs that are being released by the Country Music Hall of Fame will help those that never got to see Paul Warren play see that he deserves to be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

I am very honored that Earl Scruggs helped me on one of the fiddle and banjo tunes. Charlie played banjo on all the other tunes including five other fiddle and banjo tunes. He also doubled on guitar. Curly Seckler (rhythm mandolin) played on one of the tunes. My good friends Marty Stuart (mandolin rhythm on all band tunes except one), Kent Blanton (upright bass) and Uncle Josh’s nephew Tim Graves (dobro riffs on three tunes) round out the musicians." (more…)

The more, the merrier! That’s my personal reaction each time there is news of another mainstream pop or country artist who dips a toe into the bluegrass realm. Some, like Merle Haggard, come to bluegrass as an artistic exercise late in their career, while others are returning to their roots with a grassy outing.

Such is the case with country hit maker Aaron Tippin, who is finishing up a bluegrass project now for a 2007 release on his label, Nippit Records. When I spoke with him about it earlier in the week, he was genuinely excited about the CD, both artistically and because he was eager to let his fans and the country music media know that he had been a bluegrass guy from way back.

Aaron said that he was a country music fan growing up in the South Carolina mountains, but once he was exposed to live bluegrass, he knew he had been bitten by the bug.

“I had a high school teacher who would take a bunch of us guys out to hear bluegrass, and I fell in love with the sound. I started learning to play banjo, and before long, we had put together a little band. We called ourselves The Dixie Ridge Runners. We weren’t great by any means – most of the time we were just plain bad – but we had a bunch of fun.”

All of the rhythm tracks are finished, and with only Aaron’s vocals left to be tracked. Pickers featured on the CD include Charlie Cushman on banjo, Ward Stout on fiddle, Danny Roberts on mandolin, Mike Bub on bass and Jeff White on guitar.

The as yet untitled project will include a few original songs, but it will mostly consist of bluegrass classics and songs that will be accessible for his manistream country fans.

“A lot of people who come to my shows may not be serious bluegrass fans, so we wanted to make sure to record songs that would be familiar to them. One that we had a lot of fun with was Petticoat Junction, the theme to the old TV show that Flatt & Scruggs recorded. We also cut a bluegrass version of Sonny & Cher’s, I Got You Babe, and I’m sure that bluegrass fans will recognize our cut on Brown Mountain Light, one of my favorite songs of all time.”

Tippin’s current album, Now & Then, is a departure in itself. It’s the first since he launched his own label, and it has more of a southern rock edge than his previous country projects, six of which went gold, with one platinum. Following this rockier release with a bluegrass CD shows that his newfound independence is something he takes seriously.

I joked with Aaron when he told me that he would be including songs from the bluegrass project in his stage show, suggesting that he might dust of the old banjo and strap it on once again on stage.

“I don’t think you’ll see that happen. I never got very far on banjo, and working in the studio with Charlie Cushman really made that plain to me. I just love bluegrass music, and am delighted to have a chance to be singing it again. I can’t wait to see what people think when the CD is released.”

He wasn’t sure when I asked if a video from the bluegrass project would be forthcoming, but he did say that they filmed a large portion of the recording sessions.

Aaron promised to keep us posted about the CD’s progress, and we’ll update when audio samples are available online.

Here’s a hearty “Welcome Back!” to Aaron Tippin from The Bluegrass Blog.