King Wilkie is asking fans to submit artwork, songs, poems, videos… anything they might be inspired to create based on the characters featured on their upcoming CD, King Wilkie Presents: The Wilkie Family Singers. They ask that the various fan submissions be either about or from the point of view of the family members portrayed in the music.

Audio for all 12 tracks can be heard on MySpace, where you can also find pages for each of the characters in the fictional Wilkie Family. Submissions can be sent via email.

You can read more about the new CD in our interview with Reid Burgess from earlier this month. It is scheduled to hit on April 28 from Casa Nueva Records.

Not long ago, we posted about the launch of a new record label, Casa Nueva, headed up by former Rounder Records product manager Brad San Martin. At that time, Brad told us that his first release on the new label would be King Wilkie’s next project, King Wilkie Presents: The Wilkie Family Singers.

We had a chance recently to chat with Reid Burgess, a founding member of the group, about the new CD, and the direction the band has taken since they took the bluegrass world by storm back in 2004. That was the year their debut record, Broke, hit on Rebel and they won the Emerging Artist award from IBMA.

Their appeal came from the mix of a very traditional sound, and the stage appeal of fresh-faced, sharp-dressed, personable young men. They worked the bluegrass festival circuit hard for the next two years, and then decided to reinvent themselves as a rootsy, Byrds-inflected studio band, resulting in the 2007 release of Low Country Suite on Zoe Records, a Rounder imprint.

Reid picks up the story at that point…

“A lot has changed since then. Around the time of the last release we started work on a few new songs. We knew that a couple of guys were going to be leaving the band to do their own things, so it came down to primarily John McDonald, Steve Lewis, and myself working on the new material. We were dealing with a drastic change and a different approach to working. John eventually moved out to Oregon part-way through the process and I moved to New York to work closer with Steve. We actually all got together a couple times in Virginia at the old schoolhouse to flesh out some music, but a lot of the creative work was actually done remotely, via the internet.”

The change is their sound is quite striking, sometimes showing the influence of their bluegrass days, but more often drawing of folk and acoustic pop elements in their original songs.

Burgess explained a bit about the new CD, and how he might describe their sound these days.

“This album goes in quite a few directions, but has at its core handmade American music. When we tour its going to be all acoustic with our normal bluegrass instruments. On the record, the band still has retained its idea of making dusty folk songs, even if the tradition sways a bit sometimes. Essentially, its still a string band. (more…)

A new record label has been launched in the greater Boston area, in the shadow of Rounder Records, one of the most successful independent record companies in the US.

Casa Nueva is located in Watertown, MA, and headed by Brad San Martin, former product manager for bluegrass releases at Rounder. Brad worked as Director of Publicity at Compass Records before his time at Rounder, and has freelanced as a music writer since his graduation from the Berklee College of Music in 1999.

Their first project will be from King Wilkie, The Wilkie Family Singers, which is scheduled for release on April 28.

We chatted recently with Brad about his new venture, and the upcoming King Wilkie CD.

“I had been toying with the idea of starting a label for a year or so, but when King Wilkie approached me about collaborating on this release, that kick-started the effort.

This may be a terrible time to start a business, but, frankly, this record is too good — too heartfelt, innovative, and moving — to just languish. So I’m putting my money where my mouth is and trying to get this to the world.”

Brad tells us that Casanueva was his maternal grandfather’s last name, and that he chose it to identify his new company feeling that the words themselves implied the sense of renewel and reawakening appropriate for this new direction in his life. The Wilkie Family Singers – about which we will have more later this week – is the only project he is currently working. He says that others will be forthcoming, and that this first album encapsulizes what Casa Nueva is likely to become.

“King Wilkie’s Reid Burgess and I are in the same boat in a lot of ways. We’re both relatively young and very much in love with bluegrass, and yet we’re also inspired by a lot of other styles, sounds, and ideas. That makes this album the perfect first release for Casa Nueva — it has hard-won roots in classic American string band music, but also looks out over new vistas.

I’m a huge music fan, and I listen to pretty much every style out there with varying degrees of interest. So I’m not limiting Casa Nueva to any one genre. I will say that I’m inclined to not pursue much straight-up traditional bluegrass. It’s a kind of music that’s very important to me and that I love quite a lot, but I feel there are other labels that are better positioned for success in that field.

But who knows — there may be one act that has fallen through the cracks that I just can’t resist.”

A track from King Wilkie’s latest CD, Low Country Suite, has been selected as the Discovery Download in iTunes for this week. Any iTunes subscriber can get the track (Wrecking Ball) at no charge starting tomorrow (8/21) through next Monday (8/27).

This is part of iTunes’ weekly New Music Tuesday, where they highlight new recordings deemed worthy of mention, with one or two free tracks available each week, based on a rotating schedule by genre.

You will see a link for the Discovery Download on the front page of the iTunes Music Store – look for the FREE ON iTUNES link near the bottom of the page. It will also be available from the front page of the Country genre section of iTunes.

Speaking of King Wilkie…

We posted back in June when their video on the making of Low Country Suite was available at Amazon.com. That video is no longer up at Amazon, but we found it on YouTube.

UPDATE 8/21: The direct link to the King Wilkie Discovery Download in iTunes is here. You must have an Apple or AOL iTunes account (free), and be logged in to download this free track. The link is good through 8/27/07.