His first big hit came in 1973 with Uneasy Rider, a countryfied talking blues, years before the rap craze began. The hilarious song, following on the recent success of the Dennis Hopper film, Easy Rider, told the tale of a stranded, long-haired motorist who stumbles into the wrong bar looking for a phone in the deep South. It was a hit primarily in the rock music world, with a story that appealed to the “hippie” culture more than the country music world of the day, where Merle Haggard’s Okie From Muskogee had been a 1969 hit.

In 1978, Daniels’ Devil Went Down To Georgia was an even bigger hit, mixing a rock beat with an old time fiddle in a timeless story of dueling with the devil. Charlie worked the southern rock scene for many years, but always as a fiercely independent artist who went his own way. As pop and country formats moved away from his signature sound, he formed his own label, Blue Hat Records, and has released new projects annually, without regard for radio play.

In 2005, Charlie released his first bluegrass CD, Songs From The Longleaf Pines, featuring Earl Scruggs, The Del McCoury Band, Mac Wiseman, Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs and Chris Thile. Since then, two other releases have featured substantial bluegrass content, while it is also included in his live show.

For the end of 2009, Daniels has a new CD/DVD project with a bluegrass Christmass theme. Joy To The World – A Bluegrass Christmas has an audio CD with 12 new studio tracks and a DVD with 10 live performances of the songs from the CD. The Grascals join Charlie for Christmas Time’s A Comin’, Dan Tyminski is on hand for The Christmas Song, and Kathy Mattea for O Come All Ye Faithful – on both discs.

Other guests include Aaron Tippin, Jewel, and Suzanne and Evelyn Cox.

Audio samples can be heard in iTunes, and the CD/DVD set is available from the Charlie Daniels web site and wherever recorded music is sold online.

There have been a few years where hosting duties were split between a number of co-hosts, but this marks the first year that a full band has served in that capacity. Hot Rize consists of Pete Wernick, Tim O’Brien, Nick Forster and Bryan Sutton.

Professional members of the IBMA are through the second round of three ballots in 17 categories, with awards announced and distributed at the show. It will be held on October 1 at the Ryman Auditorium during IBMA’s week long World Of Bluegrass event.

This is always a gala affair, and a feel-good night for bluegrass music. The Bluegrass Blog will be on hand again this year providing live blog coverage, and posting photos from the show.

We encourage anyone who cares about bluegrass music to make a point to attend the Awards Show when you can make it fit your schedule.

We also mentioned briefly that the 19th International Bluegrass Music Awards would be held at the Ryman Auditorium once again.

Greg Cahill, IBMA President/Board Chair spoke about the show’s return to the Ryman Auditorium ‚Ķ‚Ķ‚Ķ

“The decision by the IBMA Board of Directors to move the Awards Show back to the Ryman Auditorium was twofold. Attendees at the annual World of Bluegrass convention, which includes the Awards Show, have consistently mentioned that they appreciated seeing the Awards Show in the hallowed Ryman Auditorium hall and the Board saw moving the show back to the Ryman as both a response to the wishes of the fans as well as an opportunity to make the show more conveniently accessible to the World of Bluegrass attendees, who can simply walk across the street from the convention center to the Ryman. Although there were more available seats at the Grand Ole Opry House, Awards Show attendees had to either drive to the facility or pay to take a shuttle from the convention center.

We are excited about once again having the IBMA Awards Show in the historic Ryman Auditorium and look forward to another wonderful show that will honor our award recipients and will include dynamic musical performances by many of the nominees.”

The award ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, October 2, 8:30pm CST.

Del McCoury and Kathy Mattea will announce final nominees for the 19th Annual International Bluegrass Music Awards at a Press Conference on Thursday, August 14, at the Ford Theater, Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum, in Nashville. The IBMA Hall of Fame inductees and Distinguished Achievement Award honorees will also be announced.

Rounder Records duo Dailey & Vincent will perform at the beginning and conclusion of this press conference.

We will have full coverage of the nominees announcements on The Bluegrass Blog as soon as the press conference has concluded, by noon on August 14.

Mattea grew up in West Virginia, raised in a family of mine workers, so the music is very personal for her. Many of the titles will be familiar to bluegrass fan – The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore, Dark As A Dungeon and Blue Diamond Mines, just to name a few – and the treatments are largely acoustic in nature.

WAMU’s Bluegrass Country is the new name for the free 24/7 bluegrass radio service previously known as BluegrasCountry.org, and streamed at that web address and on HD WAMU-Channel 2 in the Washington, DC metro area.

You can read more about Coal in a piece Richard posted here earlier this year. Audio samples can be found on Mattea’s web site.

You can also see a set of photos from Kathy’s recent visit to the Robinson Run Mine in West Virginia last week online.

Raised near Charleston, West Virginia, Grammy-award winning singer Mattea is to release a CD, simply entitled Coal, on the newly formed label, Captain Potato Records, on April 1. From what I can glean, it is one that is sure to attract some bluegrass fans – it’s her first album minus drums, even.

Being from the coal-rich hills of West Virginia, Mattea is readily aware of the nature of the industry. She is still haunted by memories of the Farmington Mine disaster of 1968 near Fairmont, West Virginia, and both her grandfathers were miners while her mother worked for the United Mine Workers Association. Nevertheless, it’s a project that wasn’t taken lightly. In fact, Mattea said the Sago Mine Disaster (also West Virginia) and the death of 12 of its miners made her realize it was time to tackle the Coal project, which, she says, has been on her mind since she was 19, when she first heard Dark As A Dungeon.

“This record reached out and took me. It called to me to be made. When Sago happened, I got catapulted back to that moment in my life and thought, ‘I need to do something with this emotion, and maybe this album is the place to channel it’. I knew the time was right.”

The album features traditional and contemporary songs, many of them by songwriters with Appalachian roots; Jean Ritchie, Billy Edd Wheeler, Hazel Dickens, Utah Phillips, Merle Travis, Si Kahn and Darrell Scott. Some of the highlights are Black Lung, The L & N Don’t Stop Here Anymore, Coal Tattoo, Green Rolling Hills [with Tim and Mollie O'Brien providing harmony vocals], Blue Diamond Mines [with Marty Stuart and Patty Loveless - background vocals], The Coming Of The Roads, Red-winged Blackbird and Lawrence Jones. As Mattea says, the songs were chosen because they articulate “the lifestyle, the bigger struggles,” and “speak to the sense of place and sense of attachment people have to each other and to the land.”

The backing musician includes names that are no strangers to bluegrass aficionados, beginning with Mattea’s hand-picked producer [who also plays guitar and mandolin], Marty Stuart, who plays guitar, mandolin and mandola on the tracks and joins Patty Loveless for background vocals on one song also. Bryon House (bass) and Stuart Duncan (fiddle, mandolin and banjo) are household names in the bluegrass world. Lesser known are Bill Cooley, who has been with Mattea for 20 years, handles the guitar duties, while John Catchings (cello), Randy Leago (keyboards and accordion) and guest steel player Fred Newell round out the album’s sound.

Kathy Mattea’s web site features an interview from her recent appearance on NPR’s Living On Earth that features some of the music from Mattea’s forth-coming album Coal as well as some personal insight into growing up, living in a coal mining community and the environmental effects of the coal industry.