The International Bluegrass Music Museum has announced a special day of honors for the people they describe as the First Generation of bluegrass.

The day long event, dubbed The Pioneers Of Bluegrass Gathering, will include an honors ceremony, Legends Concert and a Legends Supper, all in conjunction with the ROMP 2008 festival in Owensboro, KY.

60 artists and businesspeople will be honored on June 26, including Eddie & Martha Adcock, Jim Smoak, Tom Ewing, Kenny Baker, Gloria Belle, Doug Dillard, Ramona Jones, Curtis McPeake, Roland White, Paul Williams and Bill Emerson - just to name a few.

The Museum exists to preserve the history, stories and important artifacts that relate to bluegrass music, like these two stellar photos taken by Ron Petronko.

        

You can find more details about the Museum, The Pioneers Of Bluegrass Gathering and ROMP 2008 on the IBMM’s web site.

On Saturday, February 16, 2008, Girl Scouts will have the opportunity to earn a unique patch. The History of Bluegrass patch is only available by attending one of the two group tours being offered that Saturday at the International Bluegrass Music Museum.

The tours will be offered at 10 AM and 11:30 AM. The Scouts will tour the museum and learn about the first generation founders of the genre.

2008 marks the second year the IBMM has partnered with the Girl Scouts in offering this patch. In 2007, 56 girls participated in the event. Any of the returning Scouts this year, will have the opportunity to attend a Hand-on-Mandolin Experience tour at either 1 PM or 2:30 PM. The hands-on experience is basically an introduction to the mandolin, including a lesson in which the girls will learn to play the basic chords on the instrument.

The cost is $5 per Scout for the morning tours, and $8 per Scout for the afternoon experience.

Pre-registration is required for attendance, and can be arranged by calling Kristi Harrison from Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana at 1-888-771-5174 or visit www.kyanags.org

November 3 will see four new exhibits unveiled at the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, KY.

Three will focus on the pioneering work of members of the IBMA’s Hall of Honor:

• Pete Kuykendall - founder of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine
• Lance Leroy - booking agent for Lester Flatt, Jimmy Martin and The Bluegrass Cardinals
• Bill Vernon - radio host, writer and archivist whose 7,000 bluegrass LPs have been donated to the IBMM.

The fourth exhibit celebrates The McCormick Brothers (Lloyd, Kelly and Haskel), who performed in the 1950s and 60s and recorded for Hickory Records. Red Hen Boogie, released in 1954, became a signature song for the band and was a radio hit for them as well.

The IBMM says that…

The historic exhibits contain photos, record contracts, instruments, radio equipment and clothing that document these forerunner’s contributions to bluegrass music.

Find out more bout the IBMM and their important work on their official web site.

We just received an update from Dennis Satterlee, author of the upcoming biography of Red Allen, Teardrops In My Eyes.

Dennis tells us that he expects to have copies of the book available within the next few weeks, and that the publisher, Plucked String Foundation, is offering free shipping on all orders received by October 31.

Satterlee is donating his royalties from this book to benefit the work of the International Bluegrass Music Museum.

This Saturday (9/15), Radio Bluegrass International (RBI), an online radio service of the International Bluegrass Music Museum, will feature portions of their interviews with Jake Quesenberry, an important figure in west coast bluegrass, and a co-founder of the California Bluegrass Association.

Jake passed away on July 3 of this year, but his reminiscences had been recorded by the IBMM as a part of their Video Oral History project. This is the museum’s crucially important mission to capture audio interviews with the early generation of bluegrass pioneers before their first hand reportage is lost to us.

Jake’s contributions to bluegrass music are fondly remembered on the Pleasant Valley Music blog site.

You can catch the RBI program on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on the IBMM site. For now, there is no charge to access the online audio feed at RBI, but a $4/month subscription will be required starting on October 1.

On the evening of September 8, 2007, downtown Owensboro Kentucky will be ringing with the sounds of bluegrass mandolin played in the traditional style of Bill Monroe. The International Bluegrass Music Museum is hosting their annual Monroe-style Mandolin Camp, and September 8th is the faculty concert.

Faculty at this year’s event include Frank Wakefield (Greenbriar Boys), Mike Compton (Nashville Bluegrass Band), Roland White (Kentucky Colonels, Blue Grass Boys), Skip Gorman (Rabbit in a Log) and David Long (Little Country Giants). These mandolin experts will be joined for the evening by former Blue Grass Boy guitar player and lead singer, Tom Ewing.

The concert will take place at The Owensboro Symphony Academy, just steps from the IBMM. Tickets for the show can be purchased for $20 at the door, or by calling 888-692-2656.

This post was written by Matthew Dudman, whose wife Jenny is the granddaughter of Vern Williams, recently departed bluegrass legend. It was originally posted in The B, our reader-dominated section of The Bluegrass Blog, where any registered user can submit items for publication.

The International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, KY has recently acquired various personal and related items of the great Vern Williams intended for a future exhibit centered around Vern. Curator Liz Fuhrman Bragg and Executive Director Gabrielle Gray immediately indicated extreme interest in including the items in a rotating piece on seminal first generation bluegrass performers.

Vern’s granddaughter Jenny and Matt Dudman traveled to the museum on June 23^rd with certain key personal items of Vern Williams and band-members, contributed by the Williams family, Keith Little, Ed Neff and others. The items included the fine Stetson hat he wore on the cover of the eminently important Bluegrass From the Gold Country, a mandolin that Vern made himself, Keith Little’s western-style herringbone jacket (also worn on the Gold Country cover), setlists, a copy of the Sounds From the Ozarks LP Vern made with his long-time partner Ray Park, as well as several carefully chosen photographs of Vern and company.

The museum intends to organize and prepare the items for display shortly in a rotating exhibit on first generation bluegrass musicians. They currently regularly run Vern’s DVD produced by request of the museum as a part of the Video Oral History Project on Bluegrass Masters. This tribute and exhibition is another significant monument to Vern’s influence upon, and importance to, our beloved music.

Hoorah Vern!

The 100th anniversary of the birth of Bill Monroe is still four years away, but long term strategic planning is already underway to commemorate the occasion. This morning’s (6/25) edition of the Owensboro, KY Messenger-Inquirer has a story about this effort, and the collaboration among a number of entities to bring it all together.

The article notes that the centennial efforts hope to tie together the Birthplace of Bill Monroe in Rosine, KY (and the nearby site of the Jerusalem Ridge festival), The International Bluegras Music Museum (IBMM) in Owensboro and the Bean Blossom festival which Monroe started more than 40 years ago in Indianna. The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) is also expected to be involved.

From the article by Keith Lawrence:

“We need a commission to work on this,” said Gabrielle Gray, executive director of the bluegrass museum. “This has enormous potential for Kentucky - if we’re unified in our approach. In one short weekend, you could walk the paths Bill Monroe walked as a boy, visit his boyhood home and grave and explore the whole history of bluegrass music at the museum.”

“I strongly suspect it will be big,” said Dan Hays, executive director of the Nashville-based International Bluegrass Music Association. “Some folks are already talking about what needs to be done. It is, and rightly should be, a big deal. We’ve got it on our long-range planning agenda.”

The article doesn’t seem to be available online from The Messenger-Inquirer without a paid subscription, but it is posted at PopMatters.com.

We ran a piece earlier this week about the International Bluegrass Music Museum’s fourth annual festival, ROMP.

At the time we mentioned the names of several of the bluegrass artists who would be performing at the festival. Since that time another group has come to my attention and I thought the group was interesting enough to share with you here.

They call themselves the Professors of Bluegrass. No, they’re not music teachers. They are professors though, well most of them anyway. They hail from Connecticut’s Yale University. The band has been around since the early 1990’s and the only remaining original member, Peter Salovey, is now Dean of Yale College, the undergraduate program. Salovey plays bass and sings in the band.

Salovey is joined by Craig Harwood on mandolin. Harwood serves as Dean of Davenport College, one of Yale’s residential colleges.

Oscar Hills, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, plays banjo in the band. Josh Viertel, Director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project, plays guitar and sings. Doctoral student Katie Scharf is the band’s fiddle player and also contributes vocals. And local artisan woodworker, Sten Havumaki contributes guitar and vocals as well.

This group sure defeats the stereotype of bluegrass musicians being uneducated!

You can visit the Professors of Bluegrass online either at their website or their MySpace, where you can hear them perform Earl’s Breakdown. Or just stop by ROMP this weekend and check them out.

This weekend those that are able should make plans to attend the ROMP 2007 event in Owensboro, KY. ROMP is the music festival sponsored by the International Bluegrass Music Museum (IBMM), and features a line up that will make you want to be there.

There are over 30 artists scheduled to perform at this year’s event, including Marty Stuart, Del McCoury, Jesse McRynolds, Byron Berline, Dan Crary, Doyle Lawson, Tim O’Brien, The Grascals, Michael Cleveland, and more.

In addition to all the great performances you can expect from this line up, there are other events worth noting. The festival will once again host the Bluegrass Masters Film Festival, Bluegrass Legends Concert, new exhibit openings at the museum, Bluegrass Hall of Honor plaque unveilings, instrument workshops, and a Sunday open house at the museum.

The entire event will be recorded by a joint effort of Kentucky Educational Television (KET) and Rounder Records. The recording will then be televised as part of KET’s Jubilee series and released to DVD in the near future by Rounder.

ROMP takes place June 21-22-23, 2007, in three Owensboro venues.

Indoor performances and exhibits are held at the museum, 117 Daviess Street.

The Legends Concert takes place June 21 next door at the RiverPark Center’s Cannon Hall, 101 Daviess Street.

All outdoor performances are held at Yellow Creek Park, 5710 Highway 144.

Tickets for the three day event are $60 for adults and $35 for seniors and students, and may be purchased online at RiverofMusic.org or by calling 888-MY-BANJO. Single day passes will be available at the event for $25.

All proceeds from the festival are used to fund the IBMM’s Video Oral History Project (VOHP).

Award-winning bluegrass photographer and author Stephanie Ledgin will see images from her most recent book, From Every Stage: Images of America’s Roots Music, highlighted in a new exhibit which opens on June 21 at the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, KY.

The IBMM exhibit will open during the museum’s annual music festival, The River of Music Party (ROMP), and will remain on display through June 2008. It contains 40 of the 200 original photos, along with text panels from the previously unpublished interviews, contained in the book.

Find out more about Ledgin’s books and photography on her official web site.

The online home of the International Bluegrass Music Museum has undergone a redesign recently. The new look has taken the mandolin motif that used to be found in the museum’s logo and expanded it to the entire site design.

One part that is particularly interesting the sidebar featuring a short clip from the Video Oral History Project. It’s a short video of Lance Leroy and Jimmy Martin, but there appears to be spaces intended for other clips from the project in the future. That sidebar is there on all but the main page.

If you haven’t visited the museum’s website in a while, click on over and browse around. And if you happen to be in the area (Owensboro, KY) stop by in the real world and browse around, they’d love to have you!

The International Bluegrass Music Museum quietly launched a new internet radio station the first of this month, but now they are making some noise about it.

RBI (Radio Bluegrass International), as it is called, is a non-commercial, 24-hour streaming internet broadcast available on the museum’s website. The stated goal of launching such a station is to

provide bluegrass news, classic tracks, new releases, disc reviews, in-studio performances, international recordings, archived radio shows from around the world, vintage vinyl, festival announcements, festival recordings, and museum news

Long range plans include adding forums, blogs, and calendars to the website as the station grows, including multi-lingual programs in the stream, updating the museum’s website to be multi-lingual, and streaming the audio and video recordings the museum has collected as part of the Video Oral History Program.

The museum has fully licensed the stream and will keep up with all royalties and licenses necessary. The new royalty rates for internet broadcast have been discussed at length here on The Bluegrass Blog and the museum’s solution should be of interest.

The station is currently live and free, in what the museum refers to as the “Open House” phase. But on July 5, 2007 the “Open House” ends and the stream will no longer be free. At that time RBI listeners will need to pay $4 per month to access the stream, while museum members will will receive unlimited access with their annual membership.

An official “Grand Opening” show will be broadcast Friday, May 18, at 7:30 AM EST. This particular show will be hosted by the museum’s Assistant Director Mike Lawing and engineer/program director Rob Calhoun.

NOTE: The stream is only available in a Windows Media format and is not compatible with Macintosh. Flip for Mac opened QT to play the stream but then told me the url was not valid. The museum has no plans at this time to offer the stream in any other format.

We failed to mention this when it was announced recently, but in case any readers don’t know about it, here it is.

The International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, KY is moving forward with plans for it’s second Monroe-Style Mandolin Camp. The museum held this camp last year and it was quite successful.

This year the dates for the camp are September 7-9, 2007.

The focus, of course, is the mandolin style of Bill Monroe. Accordingly, the museum is bringing in some of the best authorities on Monroe’s mandolin playing around. Instructors include: Frank Wakefield, Mike Compton, Roland White, Skip Gorman and David Long.

These prestigious yet accessible ambassadors of Monroe-sytle mandolin will present classes and workshops examining issues related to the development and execution of Monroe’s mandolin style, songwriting, musical influences, and other “Billisms.” Topics include specific eras in the evolution of Monroe’s style, right hand technique, and the blues, fiddle, and church music that helped to shape Monroe’s musical expression.

In addition to the instructional aspects of the camps, the faculty will perform a concert on September 8th with special guest Tom Ewing. Tom Ewing is a former Bluegrass Boy and will play guitar and sing. Tickets for the concert are available for $15 at the door, but Camp registrants get premium seats as part of the registration package.

Registration cost is $500 and includes all classes, mid-day meals each day, 2 nights of hotel rooms, the concert, a group picture and a road trip to Rosine, KY.

Registration is limited to 45 individuals on a first come first serve basis. To make your reservations call the museum at 1-888-692-2656 or visit bluegrass-museum.org.

The International Bluegrass Music Museum is taking their Video Oral History Project (VOHP) to the high seas this summer. The VOHP is a series of film documentaries about first generation bluegrass musicians. The films will be shown and hosted by Fletcher Bright, the museum’s national chairman, onboard the Carnival cruise ship Victory from May 28 through June 2, 2007 as part of the Bluegrass Jamming Cruise.

The cruise is being put together by the IBMM, Carnival Cruise Lines, ibluegrass.com, WAMU, bluegrasscountry.org, Caybe Consulting, and bluegrass artist Abigail Moore. The ship sails from Charleston, SC to Nassau, Bahamas and then back again.

Events on the cruise include the screening of the VOHP films, instrument workshops, private lessons, and live shows. Instructors/performers for the cruise include:

• Jimmy Heffernan: dobro
• Abigail Moore: fiddle
• Tony Brewer: guitar and mandolin
• Cheryl Chunn: fiddle
• Dennis Bottoms: banjo
• Fletcher Bright: fiddle

Also onboard will be Russ and Becky Jeffers from the Grand Ole Opry, Alex Leach from WDVX-Knoxville, and Daniel Boner who teaches in the ETSU music program.
More information can found online at jammingcruise.com.

The International Bluegrass Music Museum (located in Owensboro, KY) has just entered a promotional partnership with WSM-AM 650 (home of The Grand Ole Opry) and the Owensboro-Daviess County Tourist Commission to promote bluegrass music, the museum, and regional tourism.

Beginning tomorrow night, February 1, 2007, the Bluegrass Museum and the Tourist Commission will become sponsors of The Eddie Stubbs Show. The show airs three times weekly on Monday, Thursday, and Friday at 7 PM CT.

This is a natural partnership, a formidable union of the historic radio voice of bluegrass and the only international bluegrass museum in the world, preserving the history of bluegrass as it was in the beginning, capturing and gathering it now as it occurs. Eddie Stubbs has been of great assistance to the Bluegrass Museum as interviewer on many of our Video Oral Histories of bluegrass music’s first generation, including that of Earl Scruggs, sponsored by none other than WSM.

Gabrielle Gray, Executive Director of the Bluegrass Museum

The reciprocal nature of the partnership includes WSM as a sponsor of the museum’s annual music festival, ROMP. The festival takes place June 21-23, 2007 at the museum in downtown Owensboro and at Yellow Creek Park just outside town. More information about the festival is available here.

The museum and the tourist commission will have both sponsorships on Grand Ole Opry broadcasts which feature bluegrass artists, and banner ads on the station’s website.

WSM Broadcasts at 650-AM to 39 States and on the web at www.wsmonline.com

The International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, KY is offering a special bonus for anyone enrolling or renewing a membership during 2006. It’s a 90 minute DVD of the Legends Concert at their River Of Music Party in 2005. It features performances by Josh Graves, Kenny Baker, Wade & Julia Mainer, Jesse McReynolds, Curly Seckler, Tom Gray, Allen Shelton, Tony Ellis, Gerald McCormick, and Les Woodie, as well as candid footage of rehearsals, back stage conversations, and a group discussion forum.

The offer expires on December 31, and the Museum wants to remind everyone of this opportunity to support their work by joining (or renewing), and perhaps get a nice gift for someone who would enjoy this look at some of the true legends of our music.

You can join or renew on the Museum web site.

The IBMM has also recently become involved in a program called Shop For Museums, which donates a portion of items you purchase online to the museum of your choice. To support them with your holiday shopping, simply visit the Shop For Museum’s IBMM page, and select IBMM as your museum partner.

You can then make purchases from retailers like Barnes & Noble, Hickory Farms and CompUSA as well as eBay, iTunes, Amazon.com and many others. You can visit the Shop For Museums site when you anticipate making an online purchase, and search for the store you expect to patronize to see if a portion of your purchase can be donated to the IBMM.

The folks at the International Bluegrass Music Museum and the River of Music Party, both located in Owensboro, KY, passed along notice that they recently received the 2006 Dorothy Mullen Arts and Humanities Award.

This award is given to honor innovation in humanities and arts programs by the National Recreation and Park Association. Five awards are given each year, with competition among localities of equivalent population.

From the NRPA site comes this description of the award:

Dorothy G. (Dotti) Mullen, a pioneer in the field of recreation and parks and its diversified applications, pursued her many interests with vigor and enthusiasm. Among these pursuits was establishing a program to recognize excellence in arts and humanities programs throughout recreation and leisure. The Dorothy Mullen Arts and Humanities Award program selects national winners from five population classes. The program aims not only to recognize those who demonstrate excellence in art and humanities, but also to inspire others who may be interested in developing similar programs.

The Dorothy Mullen Arts and Humanities Award program exists to honor the most innovative and effective arts and humanities programs across the nation. Through the national awards, recognition is given to the importance of arts and humanities programs and to the leisure service agencies that provide them. Winners are announced annually at the NRPA Congress and Exposition.

Congratulations to the staff of the Museum and the ROMP festival for this recognition.

Carl Pagter recently presented Pete Seeger’s extended neck Vega banjo to the International Bluegrass Music Museum. He made the presentation during a recent trustees meeting in Owensboro, KY.

This is the same banjo that Seeger donated to Sing Out! magazine during a subscription drive in the ’70s. Pagter obtained the banjo from the estate of Rick Abrams who won the banjo from the magazine.

After the presentation was made, Kitsy Kuykendall, secretary of the board, had this to say.

He’s not a bluegrass musician, but that’s what sets us apart from other museums. We celebrate not only bluegrass, but its roots and branches as well.

Hat Tip: The Back Porch News

The Associated Press is reporting (via News Channel 5 in Nashville) that Gabrielle Gray has switched positions within the leadership of the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, KY.

Gray had been serving as the museum’s Executive Director, a post she leaves to assume duties as Director Of Development.

We have contacted folks at the museum for additional information, and will post more details as we obtain them.