Bentley has a long history of including bluegrass music on his chart-topping releases, and has collaborated several times with The Grascals and other Nashville grassers. He was a fixture on the bluegrass scene in Music City prior to his country career taking off, and even studied bluegrass mandolin with Butch Baldassari.

From The Boot…

“Nashville is my hometown; I’ve been here 15 years, so I know a bunch of the grassers, a lot of the country guys, a lot of songwriters and musicians,” Dierks explains. “Every album I’ve done has a bluegrass song on it, so it’s not a surprise that one day I might make a bluegrass record. It would be a cool thing for me.”

We hope to learn more about this soon.

His new CD, Feel That Fire, will be released on February 3, and the last track is a remake of Last Call, written by Ronnie McCoury and originally recorded on his 2000 solo project, Heartbreak Town. The Dierks cut features him in duet with Ronnie along with Alan Bartram on bass, Bryan Sutton on guitar, Randy Kohrs on resonator guitar, Jason Carter on fiddle and Rob McCoury on banjo. Ronnie also plays mandolin.

Dierks has been telling Ronnie for the last several years that one day he was going to record Last Call, and so he has.

GAC has a pre-release Feel That Fire TV special which debuts this evening (1/29) at 10:00 p.m. Ronnie will be part of the show, singing with Bentley on this bluegrass song.

The show will air several more times over this next week, in case you miss tonight’s initial broadcast. All times EST.

• 1/31 – 10:00 p.m.
• 2/1 – 2:00 a.m.
• 2/1 – 11:00 a.m.
• 2/3 – 8:00 p.m.
• 2/4 – 12:00 a.m.

UPDATE 3:00 p.m. – We just heard from Dierks’ people that they are uncertain whether the performance of Last Call made the final cut for the GAC special.

We should also mention that Bryan Sutton plays acoustic guitar on almost every track of Feel That Fire, and plays banjo on several as well.

His first, self-titled, CD included personnel like Shad Cobb, Glen Duncan, Terry Eldredge, Randy Kohrs, and Bryan Sutton, among others. The final track on the CD was recorded with the Del McCoury Band.

His second CD, Modern Day Drifter, again included a track recorded with the Del McCoury Band. His third CD, Long Trip Alone, included a track recorded with The Grascals.

Feel That Fire will be released on February 3rd and includes a duet with Ronnie McCoury, Last Call.

It seems Dierks is consistent in his dedication to introducing his country fans to his love of bluegrass. Thanks Dierks!

UPDATE 12:50 p.m. -  Furthering his “bluegrass cred,” Dierks is also quoted in Peter Cooper’s Tennessean piece on the occasion of Butch Baldassari’s death on 1/10.

In October 2007, Dierks Bentley, Mark O’Connor, Ricky Skaggs, Bela Fleck and many others performed a benefit concert at the Blair School.

"Butch really encouraged me, musically," Bentley said at the time. "I took mandolin lessons from him, and he’s full of information."

The video shows them running through the tune, complete with an extended jam section – where Dierks even trades a few G runs with the Delster himself!

The band was initially formed late in ‘06 by Ashby Frank and a number of other hot young pickers when Frank was living in Nashville and working with Alecia Nugent’s band. It included Jim Van Cleve on fiddle, Darrel Webb on guitar, Greg Martin on bass, Aaron McDaris on banjo and Frank on mandolin. Their plan was to play at Nashville’s Station Inn on occasional Tuesday evenings, much as a group know as The Sidemen had done a few years ago, assembled from members of other Nashville-based bluegrass bands.

Now that Ashby is off touring with Special Consensus, the membership at Mashville Brigade shows fluctuates wildly, and the show this past Tuesday was set to feature a number of high-profile guests, including Scott Vestal and Josh Williams.

We hear that even more unexpected special guests were on hand, and before the evening was concluded, country star Dierks Bentley joined the band for a song, as did Shawn Camp and Tina Adair. Sounds like a night of good fun and great music.

Ashby actually emailed from the Salt Lake City airport, to say that he had hated to miss that show, but had an interesting one of his own.

“Special Consensus did a show with the Idaho State Civic Symphony in Pocatello, Idaho last night in their beautiful new symphony/performing arts center. It went over amazingly well!

The crowd gave us such a warm reception, and called us out for an encore. It’s not every day that a symphony plays a full set with a Bluegrass band (we played a few new songs by ourselves, but did most of the set with the symphony), and its not every day that a bluegrass band plays in Pocatello, ID!”

In a web exclusive for Country Weekly magazine, country music star Dierks Bentley plays reporter and sits down with the father of Newgrass, Sam Bush, for an interview.

Sam seems reluctant to accept that title though.

For years, I fought calling stuff "newgrass" just cause people were saying "You’re the father of newgrass." I always thought it was John Duffey with the Country Gentlemen who made the first new bluegrass. But so did the Osborn Brothers and so did Jim and Jessie. Jim and Jessie did a whole Chuck Berry album in the ’60s called Berry Pickin’ Time in the Country.

A couple questions later though, Sam does accept the label of Newgrass:

The word newgrass probably applies, especially now that ‚Ķ I’ve got a banjo player, and if we want to play bluegrass we feel that we can really play bluegrass. And if we want to vary off, we have Byron House on bass ‚Ķ who’s great on the upright.

Other topics covered in the interview include baseball and dogs, two passions shared by both Bush and Bentley.

You can read the interview on Country Weekly’s website.

That show is set to re-air tonight (3/13), so a second chance is in the offing for Grascals fans who missed it the first time around. The Late, Late Show airs at 12:35 p.m. (ET/PT) on CBS.

Their performance is also available on YouTube, for online viewing.

The show is on CBS and will air tonight at 12:35 AM ET/PT. More info about the performance can be found in our original post.

Bentley is a long-time friend of The Grascals’ Terry Eldridge, and he sang a duet with Terry for their latest release, Long List of Heartaches on the song Being Me. Terry returned the favor for Dierks’ latest CD, Long Trip Alone, and they will perform this duet, Prodigal Son’s Prayer, on The Late, Late Show.

The show airs at 12:35 a.m. (ET/PT) on 2/12 (technically 2/13 for those who are sticklers about such things).

Mark your calendar – and set your TiVo if you’re early to bed – to see Dierks and The Grascals on TV.

Jamie discusses the special guest appearances they have on the CD from George Jones, Dierks Bentley, and Steve Warner. He aslo talks about being in the band, what their vision is for their music, and more.

We’ve included some short clips of several songs mentioned in the interview.

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They are especially excited about the duet between The Grascals’ Terry Eldredge and country super star Dierks Bentley. The two are long time friends, and trade verses on a new song by Harley Allen, Being Me, which tells the story of a man fighting between his better and darker sides. Wonder which guy sings which part of the story?

Below are a couple of shots from the recording studio, with Dierks Bentley and George Jones, both of whom appear as guests on the new CD. Click either image to see a larger version.