Brance and I will soon be packing our grip, and all the rest of it…

We are heading for Nashville and the IBMA World Of Bluegrass, where we will report on the very many activities that occur during this brief span of days. It can be overwhelming to even fathom the sensory and intellectual overload, not to mention the stress that results from trying to “take it all in.” That is what led to the now-somewhat stale joke that IBMA stands for “I’ve Been Mostly Awake.”

With the near impossibility of covering such a wide-ranging event, we have enlisted some extra help for the 2009 festivities.

Brance’s wife, Lauren Gillihan will also be working IBMA with us. She is a talented videographer and we expect that her presence will allow us to get more videos posted, and sooner, than we have been able to do in the past.

Casey Henry will serve as a roving reporter, posting news and impressions based on her multiple responsibilities next week. In addition to her work for The Bluegrass Blog, Casey will have official duties as an exhibitor with The Murphy Method, and as a performer with The Dixie Bee-Liners. She is also able to stay up later than I can, so I look forward to her coverage of what goes on in the wee-wee hours.

We will also have news photographer Dean Hoffmeyer working IBMA, posting frequent galleries of the people, places and sights from World Of Bluegrass. We are especially excited about Dean’s participation during Thursday’s Awards Show. If all goes according to plan, he will be able to post photos from the show while it is occurring.

I should mention that Brance and Lauren’s daughter, Haddie, will also be with us, though her contributions are expected to be limited to pre-verbal expressions of glee.

Our Thursday coverage is our most comprehensive to date for the Awards Show. Brance and I will be live-blogging the show from the press area at The Ryman. I am convinced that we have resolved our issues with page loads from prior years, and will be able to announce the award recipients as they are announced in a single post that refreshes itself automatically.

We will also expand our Red Carpet coverage, with both Katy Daley from WAMU’s Bluegrass Country and Doug McKelway of WJLA serving as co-hosts. They will do brief interviews with the many award nominees just before the show, which we will edit and post on The Bluegrass Blog as soon as possible – hopefully by the weekend. Katy tells us that she has found a “killer dress” – I can’t wait.

There will be all sorts of news that breaks at IBMA, and you can be sure that we will be on top of it all. Artists, labels and festivals regularly schedule major announcements during IBMA week, and we will be following several that have already been scheduled.

Keep your eyes on The Bluegrass Blog all week.

Our friend Dean Hoffmeyer sent along some great photos from yesterday’s 2009 SPBGMA Awards in Nashville.

Dean is a professional photojournalist (Richmond Times Dispatch), banjo enthusiast, and free-lance photographer with an interest in bluegrass music. He has shot a number of recent CD covers and has a fascinating collection of National fingerpick photos online, complete with historical data.

The SPBGMA photos he sent show performances from the awards show, several of the winners with their trophies and a few candids from the vending area. We are still trying to run down a complete list of winners, and will post them as soon as possible.