Gold Heart is another of the official IBMA showcase acts invited to perform at the 2009 World Of Bluegrass. They will perform on the Monday night event at 8:30 p.m., following the Keynote address from Pete Fisher of The Grand Ole Opry.

The band is a youthful sister act, featuring the three Gold sisters, Alanlise on mandolin, Jocelyn on guitar and Shelby on fiddle. All three write and sing, and the group tours with papa Gold (Trent) on bass and Russ Carson on banjo.

Their new CD, My Sisters And Me, recently-released on Rural Rhythm, highlights their many talents. All but 3 of the 12 tracks are Gold sisters originals, and these skillful young ladies sound like studio pros – which they are, with two previous releases as Gold Heart.

We had the chance to discuss the new album with all three of them this week, and the interview shows just how thoughtful and serious the Gold sisters are about their music. Read it all (and hear several audio samples) after the jump.

Our first question involved the differences they have seen working with a label versus releasing self-produced projects.

“Wow! It is so cool! The Passamano family and Rural Rhythm Records are great people to work with. They have put a lot of confidence in us, believing that our project would be a success. We felt we couldn’t go wrong with Rural Rhythm Records and it was a true honor to sign on with them. It’s business, but it is also a relationship between families. They are very close knit and so are we.

Ironing out details has never been a problem and My Sisters And Me has been one  smooth experience from start to finish. We’re really, really happy and look forward to working with Rural Rhythm on future projects. We are truly blessed!

Just four years ago we were trying to figure out how to hold our instruments correctly and now we’re on the same label as Mountain Heart, Lonesome River Band, and IIIrd Tyme Out!  (No pressure here!)” (more…)

Tina Adair made quite a name for herself in bluegrass before many performers her age had played their first show. Her family band, The Adairs, won the 1996 Pizza Hut Bluegrass Showdown when Tina was 17 years old, and within a few weeks, she had signed a recording contract with Sugar Hill Records.

Her first Sugar Hill album, Just You Wait And See, came out in ‘97. Produced by Jerry Douglas and featuring such luminaries as Chris Thile, Bryan Sutton, Aubrey Haynie, Viktor Krauss, Charlie Cushman, Keith Little, and Alan O’Bryant, the project sold well and garnered praise from radio and critics. After four years touring, Tina pulled back from music to study in college, though she did release one self-produced CD, All You Need, in 2000.

After completing undergraduate studies, she went to work in Nashville while also attending graduate school. But the music just can’t be denied. She will be debuting her new band, The Tina Adair Band – with whom she is currently recording – just after IBMA.

The new band features Tina on mandolin and lead vocals with Justin Carbone on guitar, Sim Daley on banjo and Tim Dishman on bass. They have a gutty, snappy, modern bluegrass sound, anchored by Adair’s powerful and aggressive singing style.

We caught up with Tina recently and she shared some of the music cut with the new group, and an update on her activities of late.

Now Forever’s Gone – Listen Now    

“One of my goals was to always get a college degree and was highly encouraged by my family. My brother and I were first generation college students, and my parents worked very very hard in order to pay for both both of our college educations.  I’m very blessed!

Another goal was to live in Nashville, TN.  Therefore, I found Belmont University where I studied and obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration degree majoring in Music Business, perfectly suited to my goals. Boy…it would have come in much handier if I’d only had that knowledge about five years earlier when everything in my music career begin taking off!!

Upon graduating from Belmont, I began work in the Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business at Belmont, where I still reside.  I am the Director of the Advising Center in the Curb College and I teach a couple of Senior Capstone courses currently.  I’m also pursuing my Masters of Education in Organizational Leadership and Communication.

Needless to say…I have a LOT of irons in the fire!!” (more…)

This just in from Greg Cahill, founder and fearless leader of Special Consensus…

Justin Carbone is leaving the band at the end of September! His final performance as a Special C member will be at the Denton, NC festival on September 25.

Justin Carbone has performed with The Special C as guitar player extraordinaire, lead and harmony vocalist and songwriter for nearly six years. He has recently made some life changing decisions; in the last month, Justin became engaged, relocated from Nashville to Sellersville, PA and resigned his position with the band. We will miss his presence greatly and wish him the best with his new endeavors that will include his work with partner Troy Engel in their Unplugged Demos company. We encourage any songwriters who need excellent demos of their work to contact Justin and Troy at info@unpluggeddemos.com.

We now welcome the multi-talented Canadian Ryan Roberts to the band. Ryan is an award winning singer/songwriter/guitar player well known to Canadian audiences and we are fortunate that he has agreed to relocate to Nashville to join The Special Consensus. Ryan and Justin have co-authored and recorded songs together and Ryan has performed with his wife Roxeen and the Janet McGarry band for several years in addition to writing and performing music for countless commercial jingles, recording projects by numerous bands, and film scores.

We invite everyone who plans to attend the IBMA World of Bluegrass Music gathering later this month to welcome Ryan to the band at one of our several after hour showcases and our Friday Fan Fest performance.

Here’s a live festival video of Ryan on guitar and vocal.

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.