Porter Wagoner may not be among the names that come to mind when you think of bluegrass music, but he has recently produced a recording of bluegrass and Gospel by his former duet partner, Christie Lynn. The CD, Christie Lynn Sings Country, Gospel & Bluegrass on Gusto Records, features Lynn on a dozen cuts with such guest vocalists as Dolly Parton, Ralph Stanley and Wagoner himself.

The tracks also features some of bluegrass music’s most celebrated sidemen, with contributions from Bryan Sutton, James Alan Shelton, Ronnie McCoury, Rob Ickes and Mark Fain.

This is actually the second project Wagoner has produced for Christie Lynn, but the first, Dixie Girl, was a private pressing sold only at her live appearances. Her background has included performing in a variety of stylistic forms, from old time country to southern rock, and it was a conversation with Wagoner that got her started thinking about releasing a bluegrass/acoustic recording.

There are a few audio samples up on the Gusto Records site – a loop that plays through a number of the tracks, starting with Wagoner’s song, Bluegrass Boogie.

Sugar Hill is set to release an interesting 4-disc set from Dolly Parton on October 10. The box set will consist of three audio CDs and a DVD, and will be distributed as Dolly Parton, The Acoustic Collection 1999-2002.

The set will include three previously released Sugar Hill projects, all with an acoustic, even bluegrassy sound: The Grass Is Blue, Little Sparrow and Halos & Horns.

The DVD offers up five new mixes (Seven Bridges Road, Travelin’ Prayer, Train, Train, Shine and I’m Gone) and three music videos (Shine, I’m Gone and Dagger Through The Heart) not previously available on DVD. It also features the duet performance by Dolly and Norah Jones on The Grass Is Blue from the CMA Awards show, and a number of other special features.

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.