There has been a good bit of anticipation building up in the bluegrass world, awaiting the release next week of Slidin’ Home, the debut release from John Starling & Carolina Star. Starling is joined in this new endeavor by his original Seldom Scene bandmates Mike Auldridge and Tom Gray, a group whose popularity has endured even as it has been through an almost complete overhaul in membership over more than 30 years performing under that name.

Rebel Records announced yesterday that the entire project can be previewed at CMT.com, where advance orders for Slidin’ Home can also be placed for shipment on the February 20 release date. At that point, the CD will be available wherever bluegrass and acoustic music are sold.

John Starling will join host and general manager Gracie Muldoon on WorldWideBluegrass.com today (2/16) for an interview at 1:30 p.m. (EST). They will discuss John’s new CD with Carolina Star (featuring Mike Auldridge and Tom Gray), and play a few tracks as well. The new project, Slidin’ Home, is due for release next week (2/20) on Rebel Records.

Just visit the WWB site and click on the Listen button to start their live, 24/7 bluegrass feed, available in several different streaming formats for either high speed or broadband connection.

More great bluegrass radio news for the upcoming football weekend.

The Saturday Grand Ole Opry radio broadcast on WSM will include performances from John Starling & Carolina Star, along with Bobby Osborne, Mike Snider, and Del McCoury. The Whites, Emmy Lou Harris and Vince Gill are also scheduled on Saturday night, so the possibilities are better than average that some interesting combinations will appear on stage.

It seems especially likely that Starling and Harris will sing their duet on In My Hour Of Darkness, which is featured on the upcoming CD from John Starling & Carolina Star, Slidin’ Home, as they are scheduled in the same segments (8:30-9:00, 11:00-11:30) in both the early and late Opry broadcasts.

You can hear the song, one that Emmy Lou co-wrote with Gram Parsons, on the band’s MySpace page, .

For those who can tune in to WSM over the air in the south/central US, you’ll find them at 650 AM, broadcasting from Nashville. If not, you can catch the live WSM audio stream online to hear the program, which runs from 7:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 3 (EST).

Emmy Lou, Starling and Del will also appear on tonight’s Friday Opry show (2/2), which is not broadcast. Selections from both the Friday and Saturday shows will be posted in the WSM audio archives page by early next week.

We posted last month about Slidin’ Home, the Rebel release from John Starling & Carolina Star due out on February 20. Assisting John in Carolina Star are fellow original Seldom Scene members Tom Gray and Mike Auldridge, with a guest appearance from Emmy Lou Harris.

The publicist for this new project, Lotos Nile Media, has posted a video interview with both Starling and Harris which includes audio from the new CD, and discussion and remembrances of their early days in the Washington, DC folk and bluegrass music scene, as well as the genesis of their collaboration on Slidin’ Home.

The interview is conducted with George Massenberg, who produced the new CD, as well as several Seldom Scene projects and The Trio CD with Emmy Lou, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt for which he won a Grammy in 1988. Starling speaks quite highly of his experiences with Massenberg.

"George recorded the Seldom Scene’s Act 3 and Old Train, demonstrating to us that a ‚Äòlive’ approach could also sound ‚Äòslick,’ using multi-track recording. As time passed, we, as did others, became addicted to the slick, layered approach offered by multi-track, and strayed from the live studio approach. For the new project, we felt that modern, high resolution digital recording and mixing techniques, a good acoustic environment, and musician practice prior to, not on, recording day, could once again make the process fun for everybody."

Go to the Lotos Nile site to watch the full interview.

You can hear audio samples from Slidin’ Home on the band’s MySpace page, where you will also find their 2007 show dates.