The first album that the Gibson Brothers have done for their new label, Compass Records, is now available. (Catalogue # 4506)

The collection of a dozen songs features six original pieces (including a co-write with Bob DiPiero); new songs by Shawn Camp/Paul Kennerly, Chet O’Keefe, Joe Newberry and Marshall Warwick; and a relatively obscure Tom Petty song, Angel Dream. Staying true to their farm boy roots, the Gibson Brothers recorded two agricultural-themed songs for this record, one written by Leigh (Bottomland) and one by Eric (Farm Of Yesterday). The latter was written as a tribute to their parents and the family dairy farm that belonged to the Gibson family from 1865 through to 2000.

Of the album as a whole says Eric Gibson …

“I think everything about it – from the album cover to the songs – is an attention getter and I hope folks will notice. Brother bluegrass acts are almost as old bluegrass itself, but I feel like we’ve carved out a special niche for ourselves. We’ve hung in there and toughed it out – we’re still in our 30’s but I feel like we’re bluegrass lifers.”

Produced by the two brothers plus bassist Mike Barber, Ring the Bell has an elated intensity. Eric agrees …

“There is a lot of joy in the music. I think you can tell in listening that we poured our hearts out – not that you can’t tell on our other records – but the joy in our playing and singing. At the same time, it feels like our most hard-driving bluegrass album; there’s more thump on it, a bigger sounding record than we’ve ever had.”

That bigger sound comes from having the whole band – Mike Barber (upright bass), Clayton Campbell (fiddles) and Joe Walsh (mandolin and guitar) – playing on every track. Guest Mike Witcher, from Missy Raines & The New Hip (resonator guitar), is added on a few tracks.

Audio samples are available on the Compass Records web site and in iTunes.

The Gibson Brothers – Eric on banjo, Leigh on guitar – began their musical journey at the age of 11 and 10 respectively. Eric began playing saxophone in the 5th grade, as did Leigh. A year later they started taking banjo and guitar lessons at Dick’s Country Store in Churubusco, New York.

They were raised on a dairy farm – a farm that had been in their family since 1865 – in the most north-eastern section of New York, in the foothills of the Adirondacks in the Champlain Valley two miles from the Canadian border.

Their parents listened to bluegrass on the radio on Saturdays. They also liked Irish music and the brothers heard a lot of the Chieftains, Ryan’s Fancy, the Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, and the Irish Rovers. They listened to lots of different stuff and still do. This variety is something that shapes both their writing and performing.

Eric and Leigh listened to country radio a lot in the 1970s and early 1980s. Their favorites were Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Don Williams, Tom T. Hall, Ricky Skaggs. Their cosmopolitan tastes meant that they heard Tom Petty, Credence Clearwater Revival, the Eagles, the Everly Brothers and Willie Nelson as well as folks like Gordon Lightfoot.

Eric Gibson was really ‚Äòturned on’ to bluegrass when their teacher, Eric O’Hara, gave him a tape of Flatt and Scruggs at Carnegie Hall.

Their education was further enhanced by listening to a tape of Ricky Skaggs’ Sweet Temptation, and then the brothers became familiar with some of the great duo singers of the past; firstly great favourites Buck Owens and Don Rich, and then the sibling harmonies of the Louvin Brothers, the Delmore Brothers, the Blue Sky Boys, the Everly Brothers and the Stanley Brothers. After the prompting of their minister, the Gibson brothers began singing themselves. With their singing of songs like Lonely Me, Lonely You, Satan’s Jewelled Crown and Gone Home, one of the many Gospel songs that they used to sing in church, the Gibson Brothers have joined that glorious pantheon.

In the early 1990s, they formed a bluegrass band with Junior Barber on resonator guitar, and Junior’s son, Mike, on bass. The quartet recorded three albums for Hay Holler Records and earned the recognition of their peers when they won the 1998 IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year award.

The brothers then had an abortive attempt at breaking into country music. With the aid of Ricky Skaggs they tried to get some major label interest in a traditional-sounding country record. However nothing materialized. "The timing wasn’t right,” they kept hearing.

So Eric and Leigh signed for Sugar Hill Records, who let the brothers make the records they wanted to make. They are very proud of their Sugar Hill years, recording four albums that all went to No.1 on the Bluegrass Unlimited chart.

Now they are signed to Compass Records and have a new album, Ring The Bell, on release today (May 5). It features six originals (including a co-write with Bob DiPiero). Staying true to their upstate New York farm boy roots, the Gibson Brothers recorded two agricultural-themed songs for this record, one written by Leigh (Bottomland) and one by Eric (Farm Of Yesterday). The former, originally recorded for the unreleased country record, is given an old-timey treatment here and touches on the lives of sharecroppers. Farm of Yesterday was written as a tribute to their parents and the family farm.

The interview that follows was conducted with Eric Gibson.

When did you first start writing songs and why?

I started writing just for the fun of it in my teens. I wrote about love before I knew a thing about it, a lot of horrible songs early on. I got them out of the way though.

Which other songwriters have influenced you and in what ways?

I love so many writers. I love the simplicity of Harlan Howard — so many perfect country songs. Merle Haggard might be my favorite. his songs just seem so honest — like they needed to be written. I hope can write songs i that vein. I don’t want to write just to fill up a record. I want to write songs that sound like they needed to be written.

Gordon Lightfoot. Who is better? Nobody that I can think of. Tom Petty is a GREAT writer. I love the imagery in his songs. If he’d written only Southern Accent, I’d still call him a great writer. Tom T. Hall. He’s so intelligent.

What was the first song that you wrote and what prompted you to write that particular song?

I wrote a terrible song called The Echo Of The Slamming Of The Door when I was fifteen trying to impress an 18 year-old girl. It didn’t work.

As far as I can tell, you have written most of your songs independently of your brother. Is that correct? Why did you work that way?

I’m stubborn and don’t like being told what to do. However, we’ve started to write together more. I had to admit to myself that most of Leigh’s suggestions are right on the money. It’s hard taking advice from a llittle brother, but he’s really, really good.

However, for your most previous album, Iron & Diamonds, you were writing together. Is this correct and what prompted this new way of writing?

I think we’ve grown up a lot and have sunk a lot of years into this together. We’re a good team and we SHOULD write together as much as possible. Really, I think a lot of our independent writing had to do with the fact that Leigh moved 3 hours south of me about 10 years ago. We’ve been trying to write together more on the road the last couple of years. Writing on the road is a bear. It’s hard to get in the right frame of mind. I love putting on a pot of coffee and sitting in my kitchen with my guitar, all by myself. I can’t do that on the road.

Did writing with a partner mean that you had to make changes to the way in which you wrote?

Yes, you have to learn to compromise. A lot of my songs are so personal that I hate giving up anything. However, I think I’ve learned that there’s a fine line between being independent and bull-headed. I’m not a know-it-all, because the moment I think I’m getting somewhere as a writer, I’ll hear a Lightfoot song or something by Rodney Crowell. Then I’ll think, ‘They’re songwriters. I’m a hack.’ But I keep writing. I think Leigh and I are getting pretty good at it and part of it is our willingness to listen to each other without taking a suggestion too personally. We’re in this business together.

Tell me about the songs that you have written for your first album for Compass Records.

Leigh wrote one of the best songs I’ve ever heard (I mean it completely, and not because he’s my brother) called Bottomland. We recorded it originally for the Skaggs record, and Ricky did such a masterful job producing it that we never wanted to touch it. I think we held it on a pedestal since 2000! Every time I’d suggest it, Leigh would back away from it. The original recording was big and lush with a lot of instrumentation that we wouldn’t use on a bluegrass recording.

I finally said, ‘Let’s go more old-timey with it. What would Tim O’ do?’ I think that’s a great question to ask if you’re a roots artist! I love how it turned out, this song about a sharecropper’s son. We weren’t sharecroppers, but this song has imagery that I surely recognize.

I wrote one called Farm Of Yesterday that may be hard to sing if I think about it too much. That farm had such an impact on who we are, whatever that is. I still wake up and think I’m there after all this time. Crazy, isn’t it?

We wrote a Everly-flavored thing called Forever Has no End. My wife told me we needed to write more love songs. I love the chorus.

We dusted off an old one of ours from the 90s called I Can’t Like Myself. We re-wrote it with Mike Barber and Joe Walsh on our way to Nashville. We hit a real good groove on it in the studio.

We wrote What Can I Do? with hit-maker Bob DiPiero a few years back. He’s so fun to write with. Leigh had the melody and we all put our heads together and came up with this. Clayton Campbell put twin fiddles on it. Is there a better sound than twin fiddles?

Leigh and I wrote a hard-driving song called That’s What I Get For Lovin’ You. My son Kelley said, ‘That sounds like a Del McCoury song.’ there’s nothing wrong with that.

Have you had any of your songs recorded by other bands? Who has recorded you songs and what are the titles of those songs?

We haven’t had any kind of major success in that vein. We’re starting to get quite a few local and regional acts cut our songs. I’m always thrilled when anyone picks one of our songs for a record.

The Crowe Brothers have one of your songs, Holdin’ On When You’ve Let Go ‚Ķ this was written by you and Miss Dixie Hall. How did that come about? What was it like to write with Miss Dixie?

That was a pleasant surprise. I love that cut. After I heard it, I thought, ‘Why didn’t we cut that one?’ I like the Crowe Brothers a lot. They sound old school, and if you know me, you know that’s a compliment.

I love Miss Dixie. I wrote a version of that song when I was in my teens and my sister used to sing it. We were staying with Tom T. and Miss Dixie when we were working on the country record. I showed her that song, and she thought it needed to be changed. I wasn’t completely in love with the song and felt it needed improvement. She asked if I’d let her take a stab at it. We went to the Opry as Ricky’s guest, and when we returned the song was waiting on the dining room table. While we were having fun backstage at the Opry, Miss Dixie was working! She made that song into something worthwhile. I love her.

Which of your songs have charted/won you an award?

She Paints A Picture, Picture In The Moonlight, That Bluegrass Music, The Open Road, Iron & Diamonds, Picker’s Blues. We’ve had several others chart, but they weren’t originals. We haven’t won any awards, but That Bluegrass Music was nominated in 2003 by IBMA for Song of the Year.

You’re not from the bluegrass heartland; how does your environment colour what you write about?

We try to write about things we know. We know the North Country quite well.

From all the songs that you have written which gives you most satisfaction and why?

Arleigh is probably my favorite. I think I wrote a song about my grandfather that wasn’t over-the-top sentimental but was accurate. I bet choked up sometimes still, even though he’s been gone since 1988.

How do you feel about being described as the "bluegrass Everly Brothers"?

Well, I’d be honored to be mentioned in the same sentence as those guys. I don’t think we sound that much like them, but I’ve heard that comparison more than any other brother comparison.

A recording of their studio performance, during which they sang Ring the Bell and Bottomland, both on their new CD, will be broadcast on Tuesday, March 3, at 9am ET during Katy Daley’s Morning Show. Ring The Bell will be released by Compass Records on May 5.

In addition they played some of their standards and a couple of gospel songs, Satan’s Jeweled Crown and When God Comes and Gather His Jewels. The show, which Katy Daley says provides “The Best Seat in the House,” is available live on the Internet also at bluegrasscountry.org.

If you miss the Tuesday morning programme, the show will air again in the Special Programming slot starting March 21. Special Programming details are as follows; Sunday. 6pm. ET, Tuesday 6am. ET, Wednesday 12pm. ET, Thursday 5am. ET, and Friday 3am. ET.

WAMU transmits on 88.5 FM and 105.5 FM from Reston, Virginia.

While talking of The Gibson Brothers, the band played to a 200-strong audience in Hughsville, Maryland, on Saturday. The general view of their show was very positive, with one reviewer indicating that they seemed "tighter than ever.”

Tennessee Shines is a monthly live broadcast from the Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, Tennessee, on the last Wednesday of the month. It is hosted by country/bluegrass singer Jim Lauderdale. The program, which commences at 8:00 p.m. (EST), showcases both local and national artists, with some of the latter including Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Marty Stuart and Joe Ely.

The Gibson Brothers will perform during this evening’s show along with Pinetop Perkins, Erick Baker and Megan McCormick.

Tennessee Shines is a project of the Knoxville Americana Music Foundation, produced by AC Entertainment and broadcast on WDVX.

The program Blue Plate Special airs on WDVX on weekdays at noon also.

Thanks are due to Katy Daley for the tip off.

As with previous albums from Eric and Leigh Gibson, this next one will be heavy on their original songs. In addition to six Gibsons compositions, the CD will include new songs from Shawn Camp, Paul Kennerly, Chet O’Keefe, Joe Newberry, and Marshall Warwick – and a grassed up cover of Angel Dream, a Tom Petty song from the mid-1990s.

This project was recorded with the Gibsons’ road band – Mike Barber on bass, Clayton Campbell on fiddle, and Joe Walsh on mandolin – with Leigh on guitar and Eric on banjo. Resonator guitarist Mike Witcher is also featured as a guest artist.

Compass tells us that the guys came in to cut at the label’s Nashville studios, and got all the tracking done during a single six-day visit. Eric and Leigh produced, with the assistance of long-time bassist Mike Barber.

Eric Gibson shared a few thoughts about the new album…

“I think this might be our hardest-driving record to date. We have not lost sight of the ‘brother duet thing’ at all, but I think this record has a lot of energy. It will fun to play these songs on stage, and we’ve already started doing some of them. We wrote half the songs (one a co-write with Nashville hit man’ Bob DiPiero) and new songs by Marshall Warwick, Chet O’Keefe, Shawn Camp, and Joe Newberry. We also cut Tom Petty’s Angel Dream, my wife’s favorite song on the record.

It would be hard for me to pick a favorite. I find myself listening to a great Joe Newberry song called I Know Whose Tears a lot. Leigh’s harmony makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He does the same thing on Chet O’Keefe’s Ring The Bell. We also did a couple of songs that deal with farming. We grew up on a dairy farm, and I still dream about the farm all the time. One of the songs is called Farm Of Yesterday, and I think it pays tribute without being over-the-top sentimental.  I wrote it like it really was.”

More details, including a firm release date, should be forthcoming in the next few weeks.

We posted a report in May 2006 when Joe was still a student at the Berklee College Of Music, and performed with other Berklee bluegrassers at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. When he joined up as a member of The Gibson Brothers this past November, we covered that as well.

In the meantime, Walsh has released his debut solo CD, Saturday Night Waltz, which showcases his mandolin playing and his skills as a composer and arranger. Joe has been a prominent picker in the Boston area, and throughout New England since he moved there from Minnesota to study, and it is from this pool of musicians that he draws his accompanists.

Not all of the names will be immediately familiar, but these are very talented young musicians who stand leave a mark on bluegrass and progressive string music before they are finished with them.

Joe shared some thoughts with us recently about Saturday Night Waltz, the songs and tunes included, and the people who performed on it with him.

“When I set out to make the record, I of course wanted to try and find material that wasn’t all worn out and overly familiar.  Obviously original tunes take care of that, and I tried to tried to write as many tunes as possible prior to starting that project.  A lot of them just didn’t seem to fit the scope of the project when it came together: as a whole it’s not a strictly bluegrass’ record, but it didn’t seem right to be tossing in tunes that at weren’t at least peripherally related to bluegrass.

Filling in the gaps with some of the other tunes was one of the funnest things about the whole project. Boston (and New England in general) is home to an amazing collection of acoustic musicians and singers, and in choosing tunes and songs like The Good Part, I’ll Go On Downtown, and Fall and I’m Not Falling, I got to share what I liked most about some of my friends writing, playing and singing. These were the folks that I worked with on any number of gigs, and these tunes were the ones I’d always try to get on the set list.  It’s a pleasure getting to share them.

Just as with choosing the songs, I got to choose from amongst my favorite musicians in the Northeast to pick with me. It seems like Boston is a continually changing and continually amazing music scene, and this is a like a snapshot of who was singing and playing at the time I recorded it.  (I started tracking two years ago, but it took a while to get it released)  Some of the folks from the record have moved elsewhere, and a number of phenomenal musicians have since moved to Boston, but the collection of folks on this record was and is, for me, the cream of the crop.

Wes Corbett is playing the banjo, and quite capably.  He worked with the Biscuit Burners for a year, and splits his time between Joy Kills Sorrow and a band called the Bee Eaters, who just recorded an insturmental record that I think of as our generations’ Strength in Numbers.

The guitar playing is covered by Lincoln Meyers, Matt Arcara, and Flynn Cohen.  These three are amongst the finest guitarists you’ll hear in the Northeast.  They’ve all got different takes on acoustic guitar playing, but are each hugely creative and inspired players.  The guitar well is deep up here.

As is the fiddle well: Mike Barnett covers most of the fiddling on the record, with a couple of cameos by Tristan and Tashina Clarride.  These three are on the short list of my favorite living fiddlers, and it’s amazing to get to play and record with them.  Mike is a prodigious bluegrass monster, having logged tours with Tony Trischka and Jesse McReynolds while not yet twenty, and the Clarridges have both won national fiddle contests, including Weiser, and are both in the Bee Eaters with Wes.

Bass duties are split were split between Ashleigh Caudill and Karl Doty.  I expect we’ll hear a lot more from both of them.  I felt lucky to get to record a tune with cellist Natalie Haas, who plays with scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser and who brings a deep rhythmic palette to any musical situation.

Though he’s only on two tracks, Roger Williams adds a lot with his exceptionally tasteful dobro playing.  He’s a force, and New England is better for his presence.”

I also asked Joe to give his impression of his time studying at Berklee…

“Berklee was great for me. Though there weren’t a huge amount of bluegrassers at the school while I was there, just being surrounded by people who took the craft of music so seriously was hugely inspiring. At Berklee there’s always someone who can play circles around you, no matter how good you are, and that just made me want to work harder. Now there’s a quite a few really talented bluegrass players at the school. To me it just seems to be getting better and better. I really enjoyed the presence of so many other styles, too. I think it made me step back and examine what’s unique about bluegrass, and it also was a great way to find other things for inspiration.

The New England scene is great… really great! And it just keeps getting better. The level of playing is high, and there are a lot of players around. I really appreciate the degree of risk-taking and creativity amongst acoustic musicians up here, too. People are willing to try out new combinations and try to invent new genres (like banjo rap), and that energy is a wonderful thing to be around.”

You can hear audio samples from Saturday Night Waltz on CD Baby, or on Joe’s MySpace page.

Eric and Leigh Gibson are happy to welcome young mandolinist Joe Walsh in Rick’s stead. Joe is a recent graduate from The Berklee College Of Music and has been performing with several bluegrass and acoustic bands in the northeast, and teaching mandolin and guitar in Portland, ME.

Joe was Berklee’s first mandolin student and moved from Duluth, MN to Boston to study there. One of his professors at Berklee, David Hollender, shared a few thoughts.

“Joe has great time, beautiful tone and he really knows how to connect with other players and make a band groove. His playing has contemporary elements but retains a deeply rooted, down to earth quality that not that all young players have. When Joe is in the band you can be sure the music will just feel good.

I think everyone who knows Joe knew it was just a matter of time until he’d land a gig like the one he has now. It’s said that success comes mainly from motivation, determination and perseverance. Joe exemplified this when he was a student at Berklee. He had to struggle to stay in school. You’d see him on his bike on cold winter days with his mandolin on his back headed to class after getting up to drive a bread truck at 4:00 am every day. Later you’d see him at night heading off to jam. Nothing would stop him and it’s great to see all that work starting to pay off.”

He will do his first show with The Gibsons on January 2, 2009 at the New Year’s Bluegrass Festival in Jekyll Island, GA. Joe joins Eric (banjo and guitar), Leigh (guitar), Mike Barber (bass), and Clayton Campbell (fiddle) to make up the band’s new look.

In a story by staff writer Doug Miller, the Gibsons are interviewed about the album, and growing up in a baseball tradition.

Eric and Leigh both played for the Lyon Mountain Miners out of high school and witnessed a juggernaut of a team, a perennial league championship contender with some serious Major League ties.

The local Kowalowski family, for example, had several players on the team, including Tom, who was signed by the Yankees, although he never made it to the Major Leagues.

“He coached my team and had tons of stories,” Eric says. “Like getting to catch Whitey Ford and hitting a home run off Don Drysdale, who yelled at him and knocked him down the next time he was up.”

Eric says there’s a local legend that the Yankees tried to get in touch with a few other Kowalowski boys for tryouts, but the mining company got the letter and never gave it to them.

“I don’t know how true that is,” Eric says, “but it’s still a good story.”

The article also makes note of how Bill Monroe was a great baseball fan, and how Eric and Leigh make a point to catch as many major league games as they can during teh summer touring season.

You can read the full piece at MLB.com.

The video ratings are based on the site’s Multivariate Audience Meter, which measures a video’s popularity of “audience engagement.” In addition to online views, this measure includes how often a video is selected as a favorite, forwarded to others, embedded elsewhere, tagged, receives comments and is rated by Y’all Wire users.

Here’s how this measurement system rates bluegrass videos for 2008:

1. Rhonda Vincent, Heartbreaker’s Alibi
2. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Sadie’s Got Her New Dress On
3. The Grascals, Me and John and Paul
4. The Gibson Brothers, I Got A Woman
5. Sam Bush, The Rivers Gonna Run
6. Lori Willcuts, Black Eyed Susans
7. Ryan Shupe and The Rubberband, Banjo Boy
8. Yonder Mountain String Band, Classic Situation

Y’all Wire also publishes a weekly list of the top 7 bluegrass videos, and you can browse all of them on their site.

Artists or labels who would like to see their videos appear at YallWire.com can register online.

Carol’s show, Lonesome Pine RFD, is broadcast from 9:00 a.m. to noon (EDT) on 89.1 FM in the NYC area, and streamed live online at WFDU.fm.

Rick will phone in at 10:30 a.m. to talk about his solo project, the latest from The Gibsons, Iron and Diamonds, the handcrafted mandolins he builds, and his recording studio and graphics business.

Busy guy…

They performed music from their new Sugar Hill CD, Iron & Diamonds, and chatted with Katy about all things Gibson.

You can catch their show during the second hour of Bluegrass Country’s Open Mic show, starting Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. (6/7). The first hour features a set from The Whitetop Mountain Band.

After this coming week, the Gibsons set will switch into the online radio outfit’s Special Programming slot. The complete schedule for both shows can be found on the BluegrassCountry.org web site.

The CD, Iron & Diamonds is released today, April 8, 2008. The guys, along with the folks at Sugar Hill Records, are making these two tracks avalable for free download by our readers here on The Bluegrass Blog

Today’s track offering is the tune Picker’s Blues.

Enjoy the music!

UPDATE: The offer has now ended. Thanks to all who participated, and thanks to The Gibson Brothers and Sugar Hill Records for making this possible.

This first track we offer is the title cut from the CD, Iron & Diamonds.

Don’t forget we’ll be offering another free track download from the CD again tomorrow.

UPDATE: The offer has now ended. Thanks to all who participated, and thanks to The Gibson Brothers and Sugar Hill Records for making this possible.

On Monday and Tuesday (4/7-8) any registered user of the site will be able to download a free track from the new Gibson Brothers CD, Iron & Diamonds. The free track will be in MP3 format, and a different track will be offered each day.

Also starting on Monday will be a contest to win tickets to see Mountain Heart performing with Tony Rice at The Paramount Arts Center in Bristol, TN on April 12. Tony will actually be sitting in with the band, and the performance will feature primarily Tony Rice material, with the songs sung by members of Mountain Heart.

5 winners will each receive 2 show tickets and a chance to meet Tony and the band at the show. Winners will be selected at random from all entries, and only registered users will be eligible to enter.

Registration here on The Bluegrass Blog is free and easy, and we don’t nag you with emails every week. Look for more details on both promotions on Monday morning.

Thanks to Ryan Baker at Sugar Hill and Jim Van Cleve with Mountain Heart for their help setting up these free offers for our readers.

The winner will receive 2 tickets to the festival and 10 runners-up will get a copy of the CD. There is no purchase required to enter and it can all be done online.

The Bluegrass Blog will also be running a special promotion here for Iron & Diamonds next week. Sugar Hill is allowing us to offer a free track download on Monday (4/7) and another on Tuesday. Each track will only be available for a single day, and only to registered users here on The Bluegrass Blog.

You can read more about the new CD in our earlier interview with Eric Gibson. Three full audio tracks can be heard on the Gibsons’ MySpace page.

Pre-release orders can be placed now at www.sugarhillrecords.com.

Rick Hayes,

Hayes handles the lead vocals as well, with the exception of a guest lead each by his bandmates Eric and Leigh Gibson. Harmony vocals were provided by Dwight McCall, the Gibsons and Clay Hess. The CD will also include a bonus track sung by his father, Green Hayes.

Hess contributed three new songs to the project, and Mark Cole, formerly of Larry Sparks & the Lonesome Ramblers, has two.

Fly By Night was recorded in Rick’s studio, Hayes Productions, where he has previously tracked projects like Dwight McCall’s Kentucky Peace of Mind and Clay Hess’s Red Haired Boy. It will be released under his new label Kang Records ‚Äì an homage to the bluegrass pronunciation of the legendary King Records.

This album is their first recorded with the touring band – Eric Gibson on banjo/vocals, Leigh Gibson on guitar/vocals, Rick Hayes on mandolin, Clayton Campbell on fiddle and Mike Barber on bass.

Like most of Bluegrass Junction’s exclusive programming, the Gibson Brothers feature will run several times over the next two weeks. It will debut on Thursday (3/20) at 9:00 a.m., with rebroadcasts scheduled as follows (all times EDT).

• Tuesday (3/25) at 6:00 p.m.
• Sunday (3/30) at 10:00 a.m.
• Saturday (4/5) at 4:00 p.m.
• Tuesday (4/8) at 3:00 p.m.

Eric also shared some thoughts about the new CD with us during an interview posted late last year. He offered some insight into a number of the originals he and Leigh composed for this project, as well as the theme in the title.

“The ‘Iron’ in the title concerns the mines, while the ‘Diamonds’ is a baseball image. Leigh and I played for the Lyon Mountain Miners of the Champlain Valley Baseball League in the late 80s, early 90s. They were sons and grandsons of real Miners, but those guys all had that same us-against-the world attitude that I imagine their ancestors had.”

Read the full interview here.

“Leigh Gibson and his wife Alison welcomed Joseph Arleigh into the world at 1:30 a.m. this morning.”

Congratulations to all the happy Gibson family as they build a bluegrass dynasty!

The album was recorded with the touring band – Eric Gibson on banjo/vocals, Leigh Gibson on guitar/vocals, Rick Hayes on mandolin, Clayton Campbell on fiddle and Mike Barber on bass. Junior Barber guests on dobro and Erin LaClair (a Gibson sister) adds vocals.

I had a chance to catch up with Eric recently, and got a few comments about the material on this next project.

“The title cut is one we wrote, kind of a tribute to the Lyon Mountain Miners. There’s a town near us in New York called Lyon Mountain that was a mining town for many years — the mines have been closed since the 60s. The town spawned many fine baseball players. It seemed like the miners would come out of the mines with a vengeance, playing a hard-nosed brand of baseball. We imagine that baseball was such a release for those guys after being underground all week.

The ‘Iron’ in the title concerns the mines, while the ‘Diamonds’ is a baseball image. Leigh and I played for the Lyon Mountain Miners of the Champlain Valley Baseball League in the late 80s, early 90s. They were sons and grandsons of real Miners, but those guys all had that same us-against-the world attitude that I imagine their ancestors had.”

I was especially intrigued by the notion of a Tom Petty cover on a Gibson Brothers CD…

“We’re big Tom Petty fans., and we recorded his ‘Cabin Down Below.’ We’ve been jamming on that song for the last year or so in hotel rooms, in green rooms, etc., just for fun. Whenever we’d get the instruments out, our fiddler, Clayton Campbell, would say, ‘Let’s play that Tom Petty song.’

It’s a great feeling to play a song that makes the whole band smile. We’re very excited with how that song turned out. The energy is through the roof.”

Eric mentioned a few of the other originals that will be on the new CD.

Besides ‘Iron & Diamonds,’ we recorded a Gospel song called ‘One Step Closer To The Grave,’ kind of a dark-sounding, ‘mountainy’ thing. For a couple of the original songs, we recorded with just two guitars and a bass to highlight the brother duet.

Another original is ‘Picker’s Blues,’ a title that’s pretty self-explanatory. It’s not a ‘woe is me’ road musician song though — one of the lyrics is ‘No one makes me sing my songs.’ We do this stuff because it’s what we want to do. We grew up on a farm — now THAT’S hard work!

He mentioned how pleased he and Leigh were that they had recorded this project with their regular band, and a couple of special guests which they knew quite well, musically and personally.

“Our sister Erin laid down some vocals and [bass player] Mike’s dad – and our former band mate – Junior Barber supplied some resonator guitar.

We are really pleased with the sound of the vocals on this project. Leigh and I recorded our vocals on the same mic, laying them down simultaneously, and it’s the best vocal blend we’ve achieved to date on record.”

We’ll be sure to post again when audio samples for Iron and Diamonds appear online.

This online chat forum is hosted monthly by Rick Lang, and is designed to give songwriters an opportunity to interact with successful bluegrass writers from the comfort of their computer screens.

There is no fee to participate, and only a very brief registration is required to join in.

You can find transcripts from previous Songwriter Chat sessions by scrolling to the bottom of The Bluegrass Guide Chat Room page.

The Gibson Brothers were also the featured artists in the 2007 print edition of The Bluegrass Guide, an annual listing of festivals and bluegrass events.