Music has long been a medium for the expression of social comment. This is certainly so in country music, if less so within bluegrass. Also, most of the genre’s progenitors and many from later generations have come from a rural environment and have first hand knowledge of the struggle to make a living from the land.

The forthcoming release, on June 24, of Moneyland, (MCM 0005), from McCoury Music adds much to the catalogue of songs that speak of economic depravity. The multi-artist collection offers a hard-hitting look at the economic hardships and perceived injustices experienced by both rural and urban working people and their families.

On a personal level, Del McCoury has direct experience of life in rural America - having been born in North Carolina and spending good part of his life in York County, Pennsylvania - so it will not come as any surprise that he should lend his name to this project and express his solidarity with those who are suffering in current economic circumstances.

Among the personnel heard on this 16-track collection are the Del McCoury Band, Mac Wiseman, Merle Haggard, Patty Loveless, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Tim O’Brien, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.

Some of the recordings were ‘bought in’ from previously available sources, others were done specifically for this set.

Book-ending Moneyland are a Franklin D Roosevelt Fireside chat, parts 1 and 2, and in the one instance a 1931 recording of Breadline Blues 1932 [from Bernard ‘Slim’ Smith] and at the end Breadline Blues 2008, a contemporary arrangement of the 1932 song with additional verses.

Moneyland is an unashamedly political message to the powers that be. I’ll not be surprised if it prompts debate; it may help to inform opinions, just like a book or other piece of literature.

The McCoury Music web site has personal messages about the project from Del McCoury, Stan Strickland of McCoury Music, and CD producers Strickland, Ronnie McCoury, and Rob McCoury. Del expresses the project’s goal explicitly in one of these messages:

“I’m in a position where I can make good choices. And aside from just doing what I do musically, I can help others do the same themselves, and get a message out that people need to hear and think about - and, especially in an election year, take action on. This isn’t about party politics, it’s about doing what’s best for our country and everyone in it, not just a lucky few.”

[Editor’s note] If you are curious which end of the political spectrum this project occupies, our friend Craig Havighurst makes it plain at String Theory Media:

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if Moneyland is on Obama’s iPod by this summer’s Democratic convention.”

Audio samples from several tracks can be heard online. File under Americana.

Jimmy Gaudreau and Moondi Klein, whose Rebel CD 2:10 Train was released earlier in March, are scheduled to tour with Emmylou Harris this summer.

They will open for her starting in mid-June, with dates currently booked running through the end of July.

More shows could be added, and all will be listed on the duo’s web site.

The Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville has just announced the list of this year’s inductees, all of whom have a bluegrass connection.

The honorees are selected annually in three chronological career categories: pre WWII, WWII to 1975, and 1975-present.

Ernest V. (Pop) Stoneman will be honored in the first (pre WWII) category. He was the patriarch of the Stoneman Family, one of the most prolific and infuential of the early country recording artists. One of his sons, Scotty Stoneman, is claimed as a primary influence by successive generations of bluegrass and old time fiddlers.

The next category (WWII to 1975) produced a tie. Both Tom T. Hall and The Statler Brothers will share this year’s honor. The Statlers have not done much bluegrass - though they belong in every hall of fame for giving us Roadhog Moran & his Cadillac Cowboys - but many of their songs have found their way into the bluegrass Gospel repertoire.

Tom T. Hall, of course, has dedicated his recent career to writing, recording and promoting bluegrass music, and with his wife Dixie, has left a legacy to the music in the form of a bequest to the IBMA upon their passing.

In the modern (1975-present) category, Emmylou Harris, gets the nod. Though she is more generally regarded as a country artist, her contributions to bluegrass are legion, from performing/recording with Seldom Scene to having hired, performed with and promoted the careers of artists like Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice and Sam Bush.

Congratulations to this year’s inductees!

HT: Jon Weisberger

When Emmy Lou Harris appears on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Monday, September 17, she’ll have John Starling & Carolina Star in tow as her special guests. They will be performing a vocal version of Get Up John to help promote the release of her 4 CD box set, Songbird, due out on Rhino on 9/18.

Carolina Star is made up of several original members of Seldom Scene: John Starling on guitar and vocals, Mike Auldridge on dobro and Tom Gray on bass. Rickie Simpkins on fiddle and Jimmy Gaudreau on mandolin round out the band. Their debut CD, Slidin’ Home, featured Emmy Lou as a guest artist, so the guys are returning the favor on Leno next week.

They will recording a spot with her for the BBC next week as well.

Songbird will contain 78 Emmy Lou Harris songs from 1970-2006, plus a DVD with 9 videos. Harris chose each of the tracks which span her long career as a recording artist, including her acclaimed work with Gram Parsons and her later Hot Band era.

See the full track list online.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno airs at 11:30 p.m. in most NBC markets, immediately following local 11:00 news. Look for Emmy Lou and Carolina Star near the end of the show, closing in on 12:30 p.m.

More great bluegrass radio news for the upcoming football weekend.

The Saturday Grand Ole Opry radio broadcast on WSM will include performances from John Starling & Carolina Star, along with Bobby Osborne, Mike Snider, and Del McCoury. The Whites, Emmy Lou Harris and Vince Gill are also scheduled on Saturday night, so the possibilities are better than average that some interesting combinations will appear on stage.

It seems especially likely that Starling and Harris will sing their duet on In My Hour Of Darkness, which is featured on the upcoming CD from John Starling & Carolina Star, Slidin’ Home, as they are scheduled in the same segments (8:30-9:00, 11:00-11:30) in both the early and late Opry broadcasts.

You can hear the song, one that Emmy Lou co-wrote with Gram Parsons, on the band’s MySpace page, .

For those who can tune in to WSM over the air in the south/central US, you’ll find them at 650 AM, broadcasting from Nashville. If not, you can catch the live WSM audio stream online to hear the program, which runs from 7:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 3 (EST).

Emmy Lou, Starling and Del will also appear on tonight’s Friday Opry show (2/2), which is not broadcast. Selections from both the Friday and Saturday shows will be posted in the WSM audio archives page by early next week.

We posted last month about Slidin’ Home, the Rebel release from John Starling & Carolina Star due out on February 20. Assisting John in Carolina Star are fellow original Seldom Scene members Tom Gray and Mike Auldridge, with a guest appearance from Emmy Lou Harris.

The publicist for this new project, Lotos Nile Media, has posted a video interview with both Starling and Harris which includes audio from the new CD, and discussion and remembrances of their early days in the Washington, DC folk and bluegrass music scene, as well as the genesis of their collaboration on Slidin’ Home.

The interview is conducted with George Massenberg, who produced the new CD, as well as several Seldom Scene projects and The Trio CD with Emmy Lou, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt for which he won a Grammy in 1988. Starling speaks quite highly of his experiences with Massenberg.

“George recorded the Seldom Scene’s Act 3 and Old Train, demonstrating to us that a ‘live’ approach could also sound ‘slick,’ using multi-track recording. As time passed, we, as did others, became addicted to the slick, layered approach offered by multi-track, and strayed from the live studio approach. For the new project, we felt that modern, high resolution digital recording and mixing techniques, a good acoustic environment, and musician practice prior to, not on, recording day, could once again make the process fun for everybody.”

Go to the Lotos Nile site to watch the full interview.

You can hear audio samples from Slidin’ Home on the band’s MySpace page, where you will also find their 2007 show dates.

Last month, we posted about Sam Bush appearing on The Tonight Show (with Emmy Lou Harris) in support of his then newly-released CD, Laps In Seven.

I just noticed that someone has made a video of Sam’s Tonight Show performance available on YouTube, for anyone who didn’t catch the show live.

Sam Bush will be the musical guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this Friday night, September 8. Emmy Lou Harris is listed as appearing with Sam, suggesting that they will perform The River’s Gonna Run from Sam’s new CD, Laps In Seven.

The Tonight Show is broadcast on NBC affiliated stations all over the US at 11:35 p.m. (EDT). As a rule, the musical segment runs at the end of the show, after the guest interviews.

The first music video from Sam Bush’s new CD, Laps In Seven on Sugar Hill, has been released for online viewing. It is for the song The River’s Gonna Run, a duet with Emmy Lou Harris.

You can watch the video on CMT.com, or for folks who have difficulty using CMT’s video viewer (like any Mac users), it has also been posted on YouTube, and on Sugar Hill’s MySpace page.

No word yet on when or whether it will be featured on CMT’s cable television programming, but we’ll report whatever we hear from Sugar Hill on that front.

UPDATE 4:22 p.m.: We just heard back from Sugar Hill that the Bush video is in rotation on CMT’s Wide Open Country, and The Edge Of Country on GAC. It is also running on CMT Pure.

The video was directed by Traci Goudie, whose credits include videos for Merle Haggard, Patty Loveless, Marty Stuart, Patty Griffin, and Kelly Willis. It was shot on location at Marathon Village in Nashville - the home of Tennessee’s first and only automobile, the Marathon of Marathon Motor Works.