Last Friday, June 13, the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame held a ceremony inducting its charter members. The ceremony took place at the Walker Center on the campus of Wilkes Community College, the home of Merlefest.

The Hall of Fame is located on the second floor of the Wilkes Heritage Museum, housed in a turn of the century (1902) historical courthouse. The exhibit actually opened on May 29, featuring instruments, biographies, and historical recordings. Intending to include both famous musicians, as well as those who have worked behind the scenes to make the music possible, from a geographic area ranging from northern Georgia into northern Virginia, the Hall of Fame inducted the following persons.

• Doc Watson
• Dolly Parton
• Wayne Henderson
• David Johnson (a studio musician and performer from Wilkes County)
• Earl Scruggs

Deceased inductees:

• The Carter Family
• Ralph Epperson (the founder of radio station WPAQ in Mount Airy)
• Tommy Jarrell (an influential banjo player and fiddler from Surry County)
• Folklorist Ralph Rinzler of the Smithsonian Institution
• Sam Love Queen Sr. (known as the Square Dance King of Western North Carolina)

You can see photos and short bios of each inductee at this link.

Art Menius, a longtime fixture at MerleFest and now director of Appalshop, a nonprofit group in Whitesburg, Ky., that documents and celebrates the culture of Appalachia, will be an honorary inductee. He did much of the preliminary work for the hall of fame.

Art is an active member of the online bluegrass community and we congratulate him on this well deserved honor.

Earlier this year Old Wilkes, Inc. and The Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame (BRMHoF) committee announced the initial induction of several prominent musicians from the Blue Ridge region.

The charter inductees to be honored at the first annual Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony, to be held at the Walker Center on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro on Friday, June 13, 2008, are: Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, The Carter Family, Tommy Jarrell, Dolly Parton, David Johnson, Ralph Rinzler, Ralph Epperson, Wayne Henderson and Sam Love Queen, Sr.

Each of these individuals is well noted for their considerable contributions to the special cultural and musical heritage of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with many having world-wide influence.

The Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame, created in 2006, will be housed on the second floor of the Wilkes Heritage Museum (in the restored, famous old Wilkes Courthouse) located at 100 East Main Street, Wilkesboro, NC. Wilkesboro is located less than twenty miles from milepost 235, or the halfway point on the Blue Ridge Parkway, easily allowing a visit the Hall of Fame or Museum.

Tickets for the June 13 concert and induction ceremony, to be emceed by Mike Cross, are on sale now and may be purchased from the Walker Center box office (336-838-6260). A limited number of dinner tickets are available with a cost of $75 that includes seats for the ceremony. Tickets for the Concert and Induction Ceremony are $25.

Dollywood, the entertainment theme park co-owned by country star Dolly Parton and located near her childhood home in Sevierville, TN, has announced open auditions in four US cities starting later this month. They will be looking for singers, actors, specialty acts, small
bands, stage managers, technicians and dressers for its ‘08 season, which runs from March 21, 2008 to January 3, 2009.

Among the categories they are seeking is bluegrass bands willing to perform daily at the park.

Auditions will be held as follows:

• 1/19/08 - Cincinnati, OH Xavier University’s Schiff Family Conference Center at the Cintas Center, 1624 Herald Ave., 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
• 1/26/08 - Pigeon Forge, TN Dollywood’s DP’s Celebrity Theatre, 1020 Dollywood Lane, 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
• 2/2/08 - Atlanta, GA Hyatt Regency Atlanta on Peachtree St., 265Peachtree St. NE, 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
• 2/16/08 - Nashville, TN Sheraton Downtown Nashville, 623 Union St., 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

The park puts on seven live stage shows daily during their main season, and six during their Smoky Mountain Christmas celebration. They promote these opportunities as a chance for artists and technicians to earn a competitive salary (with benefits) while gaining stage experience at a recognized facility. Relocation packages are also offered.

Complete employment and audition requirements can be found on the Dollywood site.

Whisperin’ Bill Anderson may not be among the first names which come to mind when you start talking bluegrass. His success came as a country singer and songwriter, and he has managed to thrive as a songsmith in the modern era of mainstream country music when many of his 1960s contemporaries can’t get a meeting on Music Row.

Earlier this year, Bill released a bluegrass recording, Whisperin’ Bluegrass, with 8 of the 16 tracks being Anderson originals. The instrumentation is bluegrass all the way, and the material and arrangements show how closely modern bluegrass and old school country music are related.

On Monday, The Post Star newspaper in Glens Falls, NY ran a lengthy interview with Bill which covers a wide range of topics. He offers a good bit of commentary on where the music business is headed, and how he has stayed viable as the music market has changed.

Post Star writer Doug Gruse also brought up Anderson’s bluegrass CD, which prompted this exchange:

This year he released ‘Whisperin’ Bluegrass,’ a CD and DVD featuring tracks with Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Jon Randall, Willie Nelson and Jan Howard. Anderson is glad to see the recent interest by younger generations in the bluegrass tradition.

“A lot of these young kids are learning to play guitars and mandolins. They’re bringing a whole new interest to the genre,” he said. “Mainstream country music has drifted pretty far from the shore, and bluegrass music is somewhat of an alternative.”

For Anderson, who was born in Columbia, S.C., and spent his youth in Atlanta, the msuci has always been a part of his life.

“When I grew up, the music wasn’t even called bluegrass. It was called hillbilly music then,” he said.

The new recording is a way for Anderson and his Nashville friends to reconnect with their roots.

“For me to go back and do a bluegrass album, it’s going back to where I started,” he said.

You can read the entire article online, and find audio samples from Whisperin’ Bluegrass on Anderson’s web site.

The Grascals have been getting a lot of attention recently. They opened Parton”s arena tour last year after recording a duet with her, “Viva Las Vegas,” on their self-titled Rounder debut. They have gone on to open other shows for her and perform with her at various events. Earlier this month they opened Brooks & Dunn”s sold-out concert at Irving Plaza in New York. They won both Emerging Artist of the Year and Song of the Year from the IBMA.

It has now been announced that they will open ten upcoming dates on Dolly Parton”s The Vintage Tour.

For more information, including event dates and locations, you can visit grascals.com.

There is a feature story in the current issue of Country Weekly (October 24), on stands this week, titled “The Grascals Take Manhattan.” It describes their trip to the Big Apple to open for Dolly Parton at Radio City Music Hall and includes the group’s own photos from the trip.

Having toured for some time now with Dolly, and having her as a guest vocalist on their own CD, it comes as little surprise that she called on The Grascals to help her out with her latest release, Those Were the Days. John previously blogged about this release both here, and here. All six of the band members performed on multiple tracks. The band also spent two weeks with Dolly prior to the recording sessions, working up the arrangements for the collection.

The Grascals will perform at Radio City Music Hall on August 18 as the opening act for Dolly Parton. This show will be the second stop on Dolly’s Vintage Tour and will feature a guest performance by the country superstar during their set, a joint rendition of Viva Las Vegas, which they also sang with her on ABC’s CMA Music Festival program a few weeks back.

Look for The Gracsals back in Nashville the following day, performing at The Station Inn Friday evening to help raise funds for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, donating all of the evening’s ticket sales to the museum.