A video overview of Gold Heart’s recent tour to the UK is now available online. It was created by Gold Heart along with Jens Koch, who played banjo with the band while they were gone across the sea. The video mixes audio from the current CD with photos and live video from their ten day visit to Scotland and England in late April.

Gold Heart, a primarily family venture, is recently signed to Rural Rhythm Records. At the heart of the group are three singing sisters, Analise (mandolin), Jocelyn (guitar) and Shelby Gold (fiddle), with dad Trent on bass.

The girls sent along this report with the video…

We have returned home from our tour of the UNITED KINGDOM! What a lovely and beautiful part of God’s wonderful creation! We’re happy to report that we had an awesome tour. It was a true learning experience for all of us! The band definitely had a good two-week workout while on this trip. Sorry, about not being able to keep our UK tour blog up and running. Telephone & internet services were extremely limited and we didn’t have a moment to spare anyway.

We managed to squeeze in quick visits to the Edinburgh Castle, The Royal Mile, Mary Queen of Scots Palace, Stonehenge, Sherwood Forrest, the Scottish Highlands & others. We saw thousands of miles worth of heavenly countryside. We ate Scottish Haggis and English Pasties. Delicious! We stayed extremely busy and didn’t waste a second. Our shows all went exceptionally well and attendance was very high. (more…)

Here comes Gold Heart – the latest sister act to take bluegrass music by storm.

This trio of young siblings – Analise (19), Jocelyn (16) and Shelby (13) Gold – has been turning heads and pricking up ears this past two years on the festival circuit, starting with appearances near their home in Northern Virginia.

They caused quite a stir at this past fall’s IBMA convention in Nashville, where they requested a meeting with Sam Passamano of Rural Rhythm Records. Passamano was impressed immediately with the band’s originality, poise and musicianship, but also with the aura of professionalism and seriousness from such young and relatively inexperienced performers.

Gold Heart has just signed a record deal with Rural Rhythm, and are currently in Nashville working in Brent Truitt’s studio to complete their first project for their new label. Justin Carbone (of Special Consensus) is producing, as he did for their previous CD, Never Let Go, released in the fall of 2008.

Nine of the twelve songs for this new album were written by Jocelyn Gold, who plays guitar with the group. Sister Analise plays mandolin, and Shelby is on fiddle. All three contribute vocally and are assisted by their dad, Trent Gold on bass, and Owen Piatt on banjo.

Truitt and Carbone are very pleased with the tracking so far, and the band is excited by this opportunity to share their music with a wider audience.

“Gold Heart is thrilled to have recently signed on with Rural Rhythm Records. Less than 4 years ago, we were just dreaming up how cool it would be to ‘be a band’ and knew nothing about the instruments we now love to play. Little did we know that our dream would so soon come true with a record deal to top it off!!”

Their sound is fresh and very much shaped by the “Virginia style” of contemporary bluegrass. I would be very surprised if Gold Heart doesn’t create a buzz as soon as these tracks hit the airwaves and the digital streams later this year.

No release date has been announced, but should be determined soon.

Subscribers to the venerable British Bluegrass News will soon receive their Winter 08/09 issue in the mail.

Though BBN has been published continuously each quarter for many years by the British Bluegrass Music Association (BBMA), this (#47) will be the first issue of the revised, newly-refocused magazine. Declining membership in the organization in recent years had led to a decline in the quality of British Bluegrass News, with only a sole staff member responsible for each issue’s content.

With new leadership in the person of BBMA chairman John Wirtz, a new team has been assembled to create the magazine, with an eye towards returning it to the standards that existed during the mid-1990s. That team includes Dave Bresnen (Editor In Chief), Richard Partridge (Sub Editor), Richard F. Thompson (Features Editor) and Pat Francis (Production Manager).

The BBMA web site is also being upgraded, and is expected to be up in its new form within a few days.

In the meantime, anyone interested in joining BBMA to support them as they support bluegrass music in Great Britain can contact Membership Secretary Trish Hockley by email.

Under the auspices of the Scottish Bluegrass Association (SBA), John Sheldon has organised a 10-day tour for the northern Virginia – soon to be Louisville, Kentucky – based family band, Gold Heart.

Gold Heart is dominated by the three very talented Gold sisters, Analise (mandolin) 18; the songwriter in the band Jocelyn (guitar) 16; and fiddle player Shelby only just turned 13. Supporting them on upright bass is their father Trent and the very latest recruit on banjo is award-winning 17 year old Owen Piatt from Nashville, Tennessee.

There were obviously several people impressed with this band’s musical maturity demonstrated during recent showcases at the IBMA WoB Convention earlier this fall.

The UK tour will take at the end of April/beginning of May 2009.

Full details are as follows …..

• Friday, April 24 Heart of England Bluegrass Venue, Kenilworth, 02476 312258
• Saturday, April 25 Jumpin Hot Club, Live Theatre, Newcastle, 0191 2321232
• Sunday, April 26 Comfort Hotel, Nottingham, 01159 120080
• Monday, April 27 Zebra Club, Maidstone, 01622 744481
• Tuesday, April 28 Montrose Folk Club, Links Hotel, Montrose, 01674 830658
• Wednesday, April 29 SBA, Regal Theatre, Bathgate 01506 433634
• Thursday, April 30 Wildwood Flower Mountain Music, South Molton 01237 472083
• Friday, May 1 Tacchi Morris Arts Centre, Taunton, 01823 414141
• Saturday, May 2 Bluegrass Plus Club, Croydon, 01737 551191
• Sunday, May 3 University Arms, Sheffield, 01298 871645

Those interested in learning more about Gold Heart can find information on their website.