Cherryholmes invited the video cameras into the studio during the recent sessions for their third Skaggs Family project. They captured a behind-the-scenes look at how the family records, and a few tastes of some of the new songs, still in progress.

All of the studio clips can be seen on the Skaggs Family web site.

The label is currently projecting a late September release.

Our good friend Wichita Rutherford is hosting the family band Cherryholmes on his XM Radio show this afternoon.

Wichita’s show is called The Grand Old Time Machine. He travels back and forth through time playing the best of bluegrass from today and years gone by.

The Cherryholmes portion of the show includes an interview with the band and a lot of their music.

If you’re curious what Wichita’s show is like, he’s uploaded a short excerpt from the 30 minute show and has made it available as an mp3 on his blog. Head on over and check it out.

The Grand Old Time Machine airs today at 5 PM EST and then again Saturday night at 12 Midnight (EST).

If you don’t have XM, but would like to listen to the show, XM offers a free three day pass that allows you full online access to all the stations they offer.

Wichita Rutherford, the duly elected Mayor of Bluegrass, presented the family band, Cherryholmes, with the key to the “City of Bluegrass” last week.

This is the first time the key has been awarded in bluegrass history and Wichita was understandably excited at the prospect of presenting such an honor. The Cherryholmes family were quite overwhelmed by it. Speaking on behalf of the whole family, Jere had this to say.

Uh… yeah… It’s an honor? I mean, it’s really small… but hey, you know… It’s an honor I guess?… yeah… It’s an honor.

Admittedly, the key was quite small as such keys go, but it’s still an honor. The family was a little apprehensive about being in such close proximity to the Mayor though. It appears they have a slight issue with Wichita’s somewhat eccentric personality.

Well, we keep the doors locked and everything, but he still drives up and down the street in front of our house a lot.

He used to do that to me when I lived in Nashville. It’s no big deal, he’s harmless, and precious.

Read the full story over on Wichita’s Blog.

This morning (2/29) on Lonesome Pine RFD, Cherryholmes will join Carol Beaugard from 11:00 a.m. until noon for some live music and discussion. The show is broadcast on WFDU at 89.1 FM in the New York City metro market, and online via live streaming.

The Cherryholmes segment will also be recorded for a later broadcast on the Open Mic show on WAMU-HD in the DC market and BluegrassCountry.org.

The various live performances from the recent Celtic Connections festival in Scotland that have been aired on BBC Scotland can be accessed online.

Cherryholmes is among the acts whose appearances were aired, and three songs from their set (Black & White, Turn Me Down and Tell Me Why) can be seen on the BBC site.

Performances from The Packway Handle Band are also featured, including a couple of web exclusive videos.

This past week in Nashville a number of bluegrass and country acts came together to participate in the taping of the next Gaither Homecoming DVD. This time around it’s country and bluegrass gospel music throughout.

Of course, all the performances are centered on the common theme of faith that runs through both the country and bluegrass genres, creating the overlap into the gospel world inhabited by Gaither.

From the seasoned hall-of-famers and pioneers to the young up-and-comers, most every singer in attendance learned to sing in church, and it is those enduring truths to which they keep coming back.

Here’s the list of artists who were present for the taping.

Vince Gill, George Jones, Marty Stuart, Ralph Stanley, Dailey & Vincent, Jimmy Fortune, Buddy Greene, Jason Crabb, The Isaacs, Gordon Mote, Doyle Lawson & QuicksilverRhonda Vincent, The Booth Brothers, Cherryholmes, Jeff and Sheri Easter, Larry Sparks and The Lonesome Ramblers, The Grascals, Lisa Daggs, Ernie Haase & Signature Sound, Ben Speer, The Collingsworth Family, and The Gaither Vocal Band.

That’s quite a lineup and should be a great product for those looking to get their hands on some bluegrass gospel music in DVD form.

The Country-Bluegrass Homecoming is scheduled for release on both VHS and DVD sometime in mid to late 2008. In the meantime, the Gaither website was just updated to include a photo gallery of images taken both out front, backstage, and behind the scenes during the taping. A quick perusal revealed pictures of The Grascals, Dailey & Vincent, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Cherryholmes, Vince Gill, Ralph Stanley, and many more.

Tonight’s (11/27)edition of the Tuesday Opry has both Rhonda Vincent & The Rage and Cherryholmes scheduled to perform. This will be Rhonda’s last show for 2007, as she and the band are taking December off to recuperate from a very busy year.

The show runs from 8:00-10:00 p.m. (EST), and airs in the Nashville market on WSM AM 650, simulcast via online streaming at wsmonline.com.

Kyle Cantrell, host of XM Satellite Radio’s Bluegrass Junction (track 14), passed along news about a few special programs and features coming up this week on XM.

The current edition of Studio Special, XM’s live-in-the studio bluegrass show, airs tonight (11/5) at 8:00 p.m. Cherryholmes is the featured guest, offering both live performance and some chit chat with Kyle during the program. It re-airs on Wednesday (11/7) at midnight (technically 11/8), and again on Thursday afternoon (11/8) at 3:00 p.m.

Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. finds Kyle with Frank Ray of Cedar Hill for a track-by-track run through of their latest release, Poverty Row. That show will re-air on Sunday (11/11) at noon, on 11/14 at 9:00 a.m. and on 11/16 at 3:00 a.m.

On Wednesday (11/7), bluegrass legend Curley Seckler will join Kyle in the studio for a live interview.

Then on Friday (11/9), Studio Special is rebroadcasting a live studio appearance from the US Navy bluegrass band Country Current in honor of Veterans Day. That show will also air on Saturday (11/10) at 6:00 p.m., on 11/12 at 8:00 p.m., 11/13 at midnight and on 11/15 at 3:00 p.m. All times for all shows are EST.

Kyle also passed along Bluegrass Junction’s Top 40 chart for November ‘07, based on October listener requests and how often individual albums were featured.

The top 5 albums for October were:

You can see the full Top 40 chart on the Bluegrass Junction web site. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see a link to download the chart as a PDF file.

CMT.com has an article on Cherryholmes up today by Edward Morris.

The article describes how the popular family band came to be - a story that will be familiar to their many fans - and includes a lengthy interview with patriarch Jere Cherryholmes.

Among the topics covered are the family’s closeness with Jimmy Martin, and how they came to sing at his memorial service.

“We brought our instruments over there and played music with him and went out to eat with him. He called on the phone quite frequently. … Then he got real sick [with cancer], and we’d call on him. His last Christmas was the Christmas of 2004. He called on Christmas morning and asked us what we were doing. We said we were just going to have Christmas dinner, that we didn’t have any relatives out here. So he said, ‘Well, I’m here by myself. Why don’t you come over and visit me?’ So we went and spent the day with him and ate pecan pie and ice cream and talked. …

“The last time we saw him was about four days before he passed [on May 14, 2005]. We hadn’t taken our instruments over that time because we thought he’d be kind of tired and wouldn’t be up to it. But he asked us to sing for him, and we sang a couple a cappella. One of them, he really liked, and he teared up pretty good. Before we left, he asked me if we would sing that at his funeral. … So we did.”

That song was the Louvin Brothers’ “No One to Sing for Me,” which Cherryholmes recorded on its first Skaggs Family album.

Read the full article at CMT.com.

Cherryholmes will be featured on Opry Live this Saturday, during the televised portion of The Grand Ole Opry broadcast on GAC TV.

The show airs at 8:00 p.m. (ET) on Saturday (8/18), and again that same evening at midnight. It repeats at noon and 7:00 p.m. on Sunday (8/19), and once more on Tuesday (8/21) at 9:00 p.m.

You can hear the entire Saturday Opry radio show on WSM 650 AM from 7:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., or via live streaming at WSMonline.com. Highlights from the show will be available in the WSM audio archives next week.

Cherryholmes has announced the winners in a contest we told you about in late May, drawn from customers who pre-ordered a copy of their new CD, Cherryholmes II - Black and White, from their web site.

The grand prize of a Bourgeois Country Boy guitar was won by Mark Coffee of Penrose, CO. Other winners received Cherryholmes CDs, T-shirts and autographed posters.

You can see the complete list of winners on the band’s web site.

Brance posted last month about Kentucky House Bill 71, which made bluegrass the official music of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He also mentioned that a ceremonial signing of the bill would occur during the live taping of Michael Johnathon’s Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour, with KY Governor Ernie Fletcher on hand with his sharpie.

The video of that show is now available for viewing online at the Woodsongs site. The show features performances by Cherryholmes, teen-aged grassers Kentucky Sassafras, and Kentucky bluegrass legend JD Crowe.

Governor Fletcher shows his bluegrass street cred by mentioning how he would go to the Holiday Inn in Lexington while he was in college to catch JD Crowe perform.

Visit the Woodsongs site to watch the video and see/hear songs from Cherryholmes new CD, Cherryholmes II: Black & White, tunes by Kentucky Sassafras and a banjo mandolin duet featuring Scott Napier on mandolin, and both Cia Cherryholmes and JD Crowe on banjo.

Cherryholmes have been a favorite with bluegrass fans since they hit the national scene just a few short years ago. Recently they released a new CD titled, Cherryholmes II Black and White.

The new album just debuted in the #1 position on Billboard’s Bluegrass Chart, the family band’s previous record had debuted at #3.

In addition to topping the charts, Cherryholmes will also be found on the newsstands for the next couple months. Issue #70, the July/August issue, of No Depression magazine will feature a three page story about the band and their new CD. The same edition also sports a glowing review of the band’s performance at this year’s Merlefest. The issue hasn’t hit the newsstands yet, but it should be available next week.

It looks like things are off to a good start for Cherryholmes II. Be sure to check out the band’s tour schedule here.

The state of Kentucky has a long history of association with bluegrass music, but this coming Monday, June 25, 2007, it will become official.

The state’s Governor, Ernie Fletcher, will be making a special appearance, along with banjo legend J.D. Crowe and IBMA Executive Director Dan Hays, for the signing of House Bill 71. The bill will make bluegrass music the offical music of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

The event will be marked by the performance of some bluegrass music by the bands Kentucky Sassafras and Cherryholmes. Most of you are probably familiar with 2005 IBMA Entertainer of Year, Cherryholmes, but you may not be so familiar with Kentucky Sassafras. This is a young band of teenage pickers from the Boston, KY area.

Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour will be on hand to film the proceedings. The Woodsongs Webcast due to air that evening from 6:55-8:15pm EST will feature performances from both bands as well as J.D. Crowe and The New South.

While all but one state have official state songs, as best I can tell Kentucky will be the first state to adopt an official state music. It’s quite an honor for bluegrass music to have that distinction.

Skaggs Family Records has indicated that June 12 is the official release date for the long awaited sophomore release from Cherryholmes on their label. The CD has been promoted for some time with the title, Cherryholmes II, but as you can see from the CD cover, it has both that and Black And White displayed in text.

There are no audio samples up yet on the Cherryholmes site, but we’ll be sure to update when we find them.

Advance orders are being accepted now on the band’s web site, and all online pre-orders will be entered in a prize drawing to coincide with the project’s release. The grand prize winner will receive a brand new Bourgeois Country Boy guitar, with other winners getting strings, posters, T-shirts or CDs.

Downtown Nashville will soon become home to the 2007 CMA Music Festival. The event is held annually in downtown Nashville, TN and features over 70 hours of concerts in four days. Each year upwards of 160,000 country music fans attend the event to hear, meet, and interact with their favorite country music artists. This year’s event is schedule to be held June 7-10, 2007.

While the festival is mainly about country music, bluegrass does have a presence. One such presence is the Bluegrass Booth in the exhibit hall. Dave Burley hosts the booth and encourages all bluegrass fans in attendance to stop by for a shake and howdy.

The artist lineup for the event also includes a number of bluegrass performers. I looked over the list and plucked out a few names that caught my eye, but this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of bluegrass artists at the event, just a sampling. The complete list is available here.

• Alecia Nugent
• Cherryholmes
• The Grascals
• The Infamous Stringdusters
• Carolina Road
• Kassie DePaiva (more info here)

A ticket for the four day event will set you back $110 at least, with higher prices for better seats. Tickets are available online through TicketMaster.com or by calling the festival box office at 1-800-CMA-FEST (262-3378).

The Grand Ole Opry broadcasts this weekend will feature some terrific bluegrass music, worth the effort to find their signal on the radio (650 AM from Nashville), or catch the live cybercast at WSM online.

Friday’s show (4/20) will feature Cherryholmes during the 9:00-9:30 p.m. segment, and a very special Opry performance in the 10:30-11:00 slot from Alison Krauss & Union Station with Tony Rice.

The AKUS/Rice spot is the last warm up for their joint tour, which begins the next day, and runs through the month of May. The AKUS site describes the focus of the tour this way:

The tour will consist of a limited number of concerts comprised solely of Rice’s material. The performances will give audiences a rare opportunity to experience the depth and breadth of his distinguished career, and drawing from his full catalog, the concerts will feature Rice on guitar accompanied by the vocals and fiddle of Krauss; Dan Tyminski on guitar, mandolin and vocals; Ron Block on guitar, banjo and vocals; Barry Bales on bass; and longtime Rice associate Jerry Douglas on Dobro.

The Saturday (4/21) Opry show has a bluegrass feature as well, with The Grascals appearing in the 9:30-10:00 p.m. segment.

All times shown in Eastern Standard Time.

Highlights of the audio broadcast will be available early next week in the WSM audio archives if you miss the broadcasts.

Easter Sunday (4/8) marks our first chance to hear the upcoming CD from Cherryholmes. They will all be with Kyle Cantrell on XM’s Bluegrass Junction (Channel 14), as he features each of the tracks from Cherryholmes II, offering comments and insights about the songs and the recording process.

The CD is expected by mid-May on Skaggs Family Records, with 14 new songs including several band originals. Produced by Ben Isaacs, it features the many members of Cherryholmes, along with special guests Ricky Skaggs, Rob Ickes, Sonya Isaacs and Jeff Taylor.

The official World Premiere of Cherryholmes II occurs on XM this Sunday (4/8) at noon (EDT), and then again at 6:00 p.m. Sunday evening. The show will run again on Friday (4/13) at 9:00 p.m., Wednesday (4/18) at 8:00 a.m., Saturday (4/21) at 4:00 p.m. and Tuesday (4/24) at 3:00 p.m. All times eastern.

Cherryholmes will be back to XM’s Bluegrass Junction later this spring for a set on Studio Special, where they will perform songs from the new CD live in the XM Nashville studio.

There’s been so much bluegrass on The Grand Ole Opry this past few months that I feel like I’m repeating myself each Friday when I point out who’s on. This week is no exception, with Mountain Heart performing on both the Friday and Saturday night shows from The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

If you have yet to catch their recently revised lineup - with new vocalist Josh Shilling front and center - and will be near a radio receiver or an Internet connection, you’ll have the chance tonight (2/16) between 9:00-9:30, and again on Saturday evening (2/17) between 8:00-8:30 and 11:00-11:30 (EST).

Also appearing on Saturday’s Opry broadcast will be Jesse McReynolds & The Virginia Boys (8:30-9:00), Cherryholmes (9:30-10:00 and midnight to 12:30) and The Whites (9:00-9:30 and 10:30-11:00). All times are Eastern.

The Opry broadcasts can be heard online via streaming audio from the WSM web site, and their radio can be heard over a wide portion of the southern and central US at 650 AM. Friday’s show runs from 9:00-11:00 p.m., and Saturday’s from 7:30 p.m. until 12:30 a.m.

If you miss the live broadcasts (or audio streams) you can find selected performances posted on the WSM audio archives page by early next week.

We posted last week that Cherryholmes would be Dennis Jones’ in-studio guest on WNCW this Thursday (12/7), but suggested at the time that the show would not be available on the station’s internet stream.

Dennis now tells us that the show will be offered live on-line, and will begin at noon (EST) tomorrow afternoon. WNCW shows are not archived on the site, so you’ll want to log on (or tune in - 88.7 FM in Charlotte, NC) to catch the show. It will be a mix of live performance and interviews.