You didn’t know Lincoln was a bluegrasser? He was. Well maybe not in a bluegrass music sense. But he was a native Kentuckian.

The Museum’s celebration takes the form of a musical drama about the life of Lincoln. The music, of course, will be bluegrass music. Rick Miller, a local postman, wrote the script and much of the music, and approached the museum about producing. Museum Director Gabrielle Gray suggested it take the form of a musical set to bluegrass, and that the production be a community-wide effort. The Museum’s education program director, Randy Lanham, has also contributed compositions to the work. His band will provide most of the music, and will be joined by over 300 elementary school children.

[The drama is] set to music by Randy Lanham (the director of our education programs), acted by community actors (mostly from Theatre Workshop of Owensboro), with bluegrass music performed by Randy Lanham’s Bluegrass Band, danced by the African American Dance Troupe at Foust Elementary and Barry Lanham’s Foot Stompin’ Express clogging troupe (who represented the Museum in China last year), and composed by Miller, Lanham, AND over 300 elementary school children who took elements of Lincoln’s life and wrote songs about them under Randy’s direction. They will perform them, as well.

The performance will take place at 7 PM on Thursday, February 12, 2009, in the RiverPark Center’s Cannon Hall, Owensboro, KY. Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for students.

The Museum is managing, overseeing, and producing the musical. They are also raising the money for it. If you’re in the area, it’s be a great way to enjoy some good entertainment and support the Museum at the same time.

Gabrielle tells me that this is a preliminary work meant to give them some practice before the big show.

This is actually a pilot program for the musical we will produce on the life of Bill Monroe during his centennial in 2011 – work out the kinks on Abe so we can get it right for Bill!!

We’ll be looking forward to that one!

The two also spoke about what else the Museum has to offer for anybody interested in the genre.

One very interesting aspect about which Ms. Gray spoke is the part that bluegrass music had to play in a twinning arrangement between Owensboro and its Japanese sister city, Nisshin (Aichi).

There is an eight minute audio recording of the interview at the station’s website.

George McKnight will take over the duties from founding host Fred Bartenstein effective November 29. George has a long history in both bluegrass music and commercial radio, serving as stage emcee on numerous festivals each year near his home in British Columbia, and has hosted the syndicated radio program Uptown Bluegrass since 1982.

Banks of the Ohio runs three hours each week, broken into 30 minute segments that focus on music from different periods in the brief history of bluegrass music. Their mission is to both educate and entertain, offering historical background to the songs and artists, geared to long-time fans and new listeners alike.

Bartenstein welcomes McKnight as he prepares to dedicate his time to other museum work.

“I am pleased and excited about George McKnight taking over the program, as I turn my attention to other projects at the International Bluegrass Music Museum.  I hope you get a chance to tune in to my farewell show, airing the week of November 22, and to George’s maiden voyage the following week.”

Fred tells us that he has plenty on his plate moving forward…

“I’m already working with the International Bluegrass Music Museum on planning for the Bill Monroe Centennial in 2011, and also expect to be helping them with editing video oral histories of bluegrass pioneers. I will continue to be the facilitator for IBMA’s Leadership Bluegrass program. I’m participating in the Bluegrass Hotel project, celebrating the 40th anniversary of events in Kentucky which revitalized both traditional bluegrass and initiated newgrass.

In early 2009, I will be facilitating an all-Europe bluegrass music summit in Germany. All those projects are in the context of my ongoing organizational consulting practice, which goes beyond the music industry.”

The exhibit, which will remain up for one year, includes photos, posters and LPs from Seckler’s 70 plus years in bluegrass music, as well as a guitar case, stage clothes and a hat.

After the unveiling ceremony, Seckler, accompanied by his friends Willis Spears and Larry Perkins, sang for the museum board members, trustees and other VIPs, Other featured performers included Dewey Murphy, Gloria Belle, Fletcher Bright and Ronnie Reno.

Prior to that, on October 8, Seckler went along to the WSM radio studio where he was a live guest of Eddie Stubbs during the latter’s evening show.

Two days later he joined with the Steep Canyon Rangers for a show at the Station Inn in Nashville.

On October 24, Curly was in Durham, North Carolina, to tape The State of Things for WUNC radio. He chatted with host Frank Stasio about his career and performed several songs backed by the Steep Canyon Rangers.

The State of Things is broadcast on weekdays from 12:00 noon to 1:00pm Eastern time on WUNC. The program featuring Curly Seckler is tentatively scheduled to be transmitted in December. Watch for details soon or check the WUNC web site.

During the following day Seckler visited Crewe, Virginia, for a live interview and performance on WSVS radio. This station was the home base for Curly Seckler in 1954, while he was with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs. In addition to doing daily programs on WSVS and weekly appearances on WRVA’s Old Dominion Barn Dance in Richmond, Virginia, the Foggy Mountain Boys taped all of their Martha White radio programs at WSVS and sent them back to WSM to be broadcast. At that time, WSVS radio’s most popular DJ was Little Jody Rainwater, who had worked with Seckler in the Foggy Mountain Boys in 1950. Rainwater joined Seckler for the interview, thus the duo were reunited in the WSVS studios for the first time in 54 years. (WSVS programs bluegrass and classic country music, and you can tune in online.)

That evening (10/25) Seckler, showing the stamina of someone half his age, and the Steep Canyon Rangers gave a fantastic performance to an enthusiastic audience at the Kenbridge Town Hall, in Kenbridge, Virginia. WSVS station manager Chris Gowin co-ordinated the events as well as attending to the sound system. A portion of the proceeds of the show went to benefit a local chapter of the Salvation Army.

Curly Seckler is now looking forward to his next big event in his life: his 89th birthday, on December 25! He and his wife, Eloise, will also celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary on December 26.

It is expected that Seckler will do more shows with the Steep Canyon Rangers in 2009, while he will also perform at several bluegrass festivals with Big Country Bluegrass next year.

For additional information, bio, and photos, please you can visit Curly’s official web site.

The 79 year old from North Carolina still plays at bluegrass festivals, but his 1924 Lloyd Loar mandolin will go to a good home. Gabrielle Gray, the museum’s executive director, has described the instrument as…

“…worth a mint. It’ll be right up there with Pete Seeger’s banjo among our most valuable assets. We’ll install a special case for it.”

The full story, which appeared originally in the Owensboro Messenger-Enquirer, is available on-line at Kentucky.com. It also references recent staff cuts at the museum.

A self-described “cultural historian,” Charles K. Wolfe was born August 14, 1943, in Sedalia, Missouri, and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. His intense interest in old-time fiddle music, plus a desire to learn more about Southern popular country music, led Wolfe to accept employment at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) in Murfreesboro in 1970, where he taught English, science fiction and folklore until his retirement in 2005.

Gifted and well-respected in all genres of traditional country and bluegrass music as a writer, historian and storyteller, Dr. Wolfe documented musical histories and wrote liner notes for scores of albums. His work is an integral part of several collections released by Bear Family Records, including the last set of Bill Monroe recordings and the Mac Wiseman box-set, Tis Sweet To Be Remembered.

Wolfe was the author or editor of 21 books, focusing mainly on early bountry and bluegrass music, providing a priceless written and photographic documentation of the early days of Southern country music and its people. Titles include Classic Country: Legends of Country Music, A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry, The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music, Tennessee Strings: The Story of Country Music in Tennessee, Kentucky Country: Folk and Country Music of Kentucky, The Devil’s Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling (1997), DeFord Bailey: A Black Star in Country Music (1991), The Women of Country Music: A Reader, Grand Ole Opry: The Early Years, 1925-35 and a definitive study, The Music of Bill Monroe, co-authored with Neil V Rosenberg and published in 2007.

A Good Natured Riot won both the prestigious Ralph Gleason Award and the BMI award for the best book on American music.

In addition he wrote numerous of articles for a variety of scholarly journals and music industry magazines, such as the Journal of Country Music, while also acting as the editor of the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin.

An avid collector, he validated the study of old time and bluegrass music, writing in an entertaining style that demonstrated a genuine love for his subjects.

Middle Tennessee was like paradise for Wolfe – a 30-minute drive from Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, 15 miles from the birthplace and home of the legendary Uncle Dave Macon in adjoining Cannon County, and with easy access to numerous musicians and entertainers who lived in the area. Here he did invaluable research and interviews with surviving members of the early bands that were preserved in his later writing. In the process he became the most recognised authority on string band music of the 1920s and 1930s.

Soon after moving to Tennessee, Wolfe joined the Tennessee Valley Old-Time Fiddlers Association, judging many of their contests, contributing to their quarterly magazine and getting to know many of the fiddlers personally.

For more than 25 years Wolfe was active in the production of the Uncle Dave Macon Days celebration, held each July in Murfreesboro, and he received three Grammy nominations for his work in producing and annotating albums, including a set of obscure, previously unknown Macon recordings.

One of his last projects was the writing of the script for the PBS television series American Roots Music.

Dr. Wolfe served for several terms on the IBMA Board of Directors, representing the print media and education constituency. The IBMA honoured him in 1990 with its Distinguished Achievement Award.

Also he was recognised with several lifetime achievement awards for music scholarship and received the Governor’s Award in the Arts in 1988 for helping to preserve Tennessee’s folk heritage.

To emphasise the fact that Wolfe was not forgotten, the International Country Music Conference remembered him when they held a discussion group in his name during the 25th Anniversary International Country Music Conference (ICMC) in May this year.

He died prematurely on February 9, 2006, in Murfreesboro. He was 62 years old.

Wolfe’s wife Mary, who learned of the honor a week before the official announcement, was understandably delighted, speaking on behalf of their two daughters, Stacey and Cindy ‚Ķ‚Ķ.

“We are very pleased and grateful that Charles is being recognized by the IBMA in this way. He was a long time supporter of the IBMA and its efforts. Were he alive we think he would rank this honor among his most treasured accomplishments and recognitions.”

Paul Wells, director of the Center for Popular Music at MTSU, says of his former colleague’s induction ‚Ķ‚Ķ.

“It’s terrific to see Charles Wolfe being inducted into the IBMA Hall of Fame, and is remarkable recognition. I can’t think of another case in which a music hall of fame has honored a writer alongside the performers. That the IBMA is honoring Charles in this way is testimony not only to his contributions to research and writing about bluegrass, but also to the lack of distance between him and the music and people of bluegrass. Charles was no Ivory Tower academic. His love for the music and its players was deep and genuine, and this affection was returned by both the serious fans of bluegrass who read his work, and by the people he wrote about.”

The Hall of Fame inductions will be one of the high points of the International Bluegrass Music Awards, scheduled for October 2, 2008 at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee

Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, September 19, by calling the Ryman box office at 615-889-3060 or Ticketmaster at 615-255-9600.

For more information, contact IBMA at 1-888-438-4262 or visit www.ibma.org.

The Hall of Fame is housed in the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky.

The International Bluegrass Music Museum

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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).

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.

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!

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.

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.