CMT will soon begin their 3rd annual Music City Madness, where artists compete in head-to-head video competition online. Video entries can be submitted until October 6, 2008 and in-person auditions will be held in several locations over the next few days.

The format follows very closely to the “bracketology” of the NCAA basketball tournament. 64 contenders will compete for viewer votes in subsequent rounds of online balloting until just four finalists remain, from which one will chosen.

The winner will be flown to Music City (Nashville, TN) to tape a segment of Unplugged at Studio 330 for CMT.com and a showcase with Warner Brothers A&R execs. A mentor session with country star Randy Travis is also included.

Bluegrass acts are specifically invited to enter, and have done quite well in the competition in the past, though not yet reaching the finals.

To submit a video online, or by mail, you need to submit your information online. Live local auditions will be held on August 23 in Pittsburgh and Atlanta, and in Nashville on August 27. At least one act will be chosen at each live audition site.

Full rules and competition details can be found at CMT.com.

CMT News ran in interesting story yesterday concerning the relationship between fuel costs, festival attendance, and CD sales. The story’s primary focus is the affect on artists’ bottom line produced by increasing fuel costs. The story is primarily based on an interview conducted with Keith Case, but also includes quotes from Ricky Skaggs and Sharon McGraw, managing editor of Bluegrass Unlimited.

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!

The live (in studio) performance by The Dan Tyminski Band on CMT’s Studio 330 Up Close which we mentioned a few weeks back will be aired on CMT Pure starting later this week.

The songs and interview clips from the show can be viewed now online. Dan and his crack band play four songs from his upcoming Rounder release, Wheels (Heads You Win, Tails I Lose, Wheels, How Many Times and Knock, Knock), and he spends several minutes discussing the project and his move from side man to solo artist on camera.

The Tyminski broadcast on CMT Pure will debut on Saturday, May 31, at 10:00 a.m. (EDT), with encore presentations over the course of the following week (all times eastern US).

• Saturday, 5/31 – 10:00 a.m.
• Sunday, 6/1 – 12:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.
• Monday, 6/2 – 7:30 p.m.
• Tuesday, 6/3 – 11:00 a.m.
• Wednesday, 6/4 – 3:30 p.m.
• Thursday, 6/5 – 11:30 p.m.
• Friday, 6/6 – 1:00 p.m.

CMT Pure is a sister digital television network to CMT’s primary feed, which offers all-day music videos, as opposed to the broader lifestyle programming on CMT. It is available on most digital packages from cable and satellite providers.

Rhonda Vincent’s 10th career video, I Gotta Start Somewhere from her latest album, Good Thing Going, has been added in medium rotation to CMT’s main television channel. It premiered May 1 on CMT’com’s Country Music Blog and debuted on CMT Pure in heavy rotation on May 5.

The video, filmed in Bryson City, NC in the heart of the Smokey Mountains with Los Angeles director Dallas Henry, features Vincent trying to get over a broken relationship by retreating to the mountains. The piece is Vincent’s first Hi-Def video. The Hi-Def format brings into sharp relief the beauty of early spring in the Smoky Mountains as well as the beauty of the seven time IBMA female vocalist of year.

The video can be viewed here at CMT.com.

Released in January, Good Thing Going has topped Billboard’s Top Bluegrass Albums Chart (currently #8), Bluegrass Unlimited’s Top 15 Bluegrass Albums Chart (currently #2), and Bluegrass Music Profile’s Top 10 Bluegrass CDs Chart (currently #1).

The Dallas Morning News says this of Rhonda …..

“She has everything it takes to appeal to the masses: the pedigree, the pipes, the chops and the looks.”