Wayne Taylor will be stopping by for a chat with Katy Daley at 9:00 a.m. on WAMU’s Bluegrass Country. Taylor spent 20 years performing in the US Navy Band Country Current, and has been a fixture in the DC bluegrass scene just as long. As Brance told us in a post last week, Taylor is recently retired from the Navy, has a new CD, Dear Mom, and will be performing with Bill Emerson and the Sweet Dixie Band.

It sounds like he and Katy will have plenty to discuss.

Over at WorldWideBluegrass.com this afternoon at 1:00 p.m., John Sebastian will join Gracie Muldoon for an interview. The former pop star (Loving Spoonful) and successful solo artist has teamed up with David Grisman for a CD of acoustic duets called Satisfied. All the songs were recorded live in the studio, a mix of folk, blues and traditional music. You can read more about the CD in our post from last fall.

This is by no means a bluegrass recording (obligatory disclaimer), but fans of the music of these two genre-defining acoustic artists are sure to be satisfied with the result. My own bias towards this project comes from the twin facts that I was a huge Lovin’ Spoonful fan as a young boy in the 60’s, and the impact that Grisman’s first Quintet album had on me as a young student of bluegrass and acoustic music in 1977.

The Spoonful was a pop sensation at the time, with Sebastian front and center, the group’s name having come from a Mississippi John Hurt song, Coffee Blues, which is included here. Grisman, of course, charted new territory with his Dawg music, but has always betrayed the heart and soul of bluegrass in everything he has done.

One of the great treats upon opening the CD case was finding photos of both Sebastian and Grisman from their “early days” not long after they met as students at New York University in the early 1960s. Grisman was deep into a study of bluegrass at the time while Sebastian was immersed in Delta blues, but the two became friends and even performed together as members of The Even Dozen Jug Band.

Though their careers went in different directions after college, they found themselves performing an impromptu duo set at a concert in 2005, an event that led directly to this new collaboration.

The tracks were cut a la Grisman’s Acoustic Disc formula – meaning everything was recorded live in the studio, sans overdubs. There is a very raw, and ultimately satisfying appeal to this CD, and this may be a big part of it.

Look for Satisfied to be released on November 6, though it does seem to be available for download sale (MP3 and FLAC) at livedownloads.com.