As always seems to happen this time of year, a number of top bluegrass bands are making personnel changes.

Aaron McDaris is leaving The Grascals, and Kristin Scott Benson will be leaving Larry Stephenson’s band to accept the job. She will start with The Grascals in two weeks.

The guys are stoked to have Kristin on board…

“The Grascals are VERY PLEASED that the 2008 IBMA Banjo Player of Year, Kristin Scott Benson, will be their new banjo player!  This is a very exciting time and the guys are truly thrilled that Kristin will be the newest Grascal.”

Pinecastle Records recently announced the upcoming release of four new projects during the first two months of 2009.

Promos are being sent to radio this week, despite the lag of as much as three months between now and the actual street dates for these new albums.

• Second Season – Kristin Scott Benson (1/13/09)
• Lord Bless This House – Nothin’ Fancy (1/27/09)
• The Hangman – Ernie Thacker & Route 23 (2/10/09)
• Three Silver Dollars – David Parmley & Continental Divide (2/10/09)

We asked Matt Hood, Pinecastle’s Director of Radio promotion, why they send promos out so early for new releases, and about their promotional download service for radio.

“For some time we have been using a new schedule for our mainstream releases. There are a few reasons why we send out CDs to radio so far in advance. The first one has to do with the production timelines of the major bluegrass print magazines. It takes a magazine a certain amount of time to prepare each issue for printing and it takes the printer a certain amount of time to print the magazine. There can be a lag time of a couple of months. In order to chart a single during the month of the release date the DJs have to have a CD in time to review it, put it in rotation, and (if the CD merits it) report it to the folks that publish these airplay charts. The same issue applies to album reviews.

Also, many folks in the media have such a backlog of CDs to review that it can take them several months to even review a CD. The point is to get as much exposure during the immediate timeframe of the street date as possible and we’ve found that shipping CDs several months in advance of the street date helps us do that.

Our first real proof of concept was with Special Consensus’ The Trail Of Aching Hearts, which appeared on the National Bluegrass Survey in Bluegrass Unlimited the month of the release date. Almost every album we’ve released since then has done the same. We’ve also had similar results with the chart in Bluegrass Music Profiles that they started in 2007.

All of the charts, reviews, and airplay provide invaluable information to sales reps from our distributor who then work to place Pinecastle product into stores.” (more…)

Blue Circle Records has announced the release of Bluegrass Bouquet (BCR-017), what they describe as “an organic all-female album” from the IBMA Recorded Event of the Year award-winning Daughters of Bluegrass.

This CD, the second album for the Blue Circle Record label by the Daughters of Bluegrass, is a landmark extravaganza featuring over 50 daughters and 17 songs.

The opening cut, Proud To Be A Daughter Of Bluegrass, certainly is an extravaganza with Dale Ann Bradley leading 20 other ladies in a remembrance of their forebears in bluegrass and delighting in their own involvement in the music. Such esteemed members of the fairer sex as Heather Berry, Lisa Martin, Gloria Belle, Sierra Hull, Rhonda Vincent, Lisa Ray, Linda Lay, Sally Jones, Carol Lee Cooper, Jeanie Stanley, Sonya Isaacs, Becky Isaacs Bowman, Michelle Nixon, Jeanette Williams, Sophie Haislip, Louise Tomberlain, Mindy Rakestraw, Lizzy Long, Frances Mooney, Lorraine Jordan, Annette Kelly, Lily Lieux, Dixie Hall, Judi Marshall, Beth Lawrence, Melissa Lawrence, Donica Christensen, Rebecca Frazier, Jenni Lyn Gardner and Lisa Manning all share in that pride.

In varying combinations that cast of songstresses, re-enforced by the talents of vocalists Janet McGarry, Valerie Smith, Stacy York, Dara Wray, Alecia Nugent and Jennifer Strickland bring to luscious life some exceptional songs each of which was written by the people at Good Home Grown Music, namely Dixie Hall, Tom T Hall and Troy Engle, with an assist on one song by Billy Smith, who is himself no slouch with a guitar and a pen.

Providing the instrumental drive and finesse are Gena Britt, Vicki Simmons, Megan McCormick, Becky Buller, Tina Adair, Kristin Scott Benson, Rebekah Long, Jenee Fleenor, Jeana Martin, Janice Martin, Larita Martin, Martha Adcock, Amber Burks and Beth Stevens.

Song samples and ordering can be found at the Daughters’ website and on CD Baby. Albums are also available for purchase from most of the featured artists at their live performances and their respective websites.

This has been quite a year for banjo picker Kristin Scott Benson. When 2006 dawned, she was a member of Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time, and teaching in the bluegrass music program at the East Tennesse State University in Johnson City. In June, it was announced that she and her husband, Wayne Benson (mandolinist with The John Cowan Band), were expecting their first child.

That news led her to pass on the teaching job, and continue performing until the arrival of their son, Hogan, in October. Kristin left Lonesome Standard Time to be with the baby, but she has now returned to the stage, in familiar surroundings.

Kristin has accepted the job playing banjo and singing with The Larry Stephenson Band, with whom she traveled for nearly five years while she was in college. Both she and Larry are delighted to be working together again.

You can find their schedule on the official band web site.

UPDATE 1:15 p.m. Dreama Stephenson tells us that Kristin never actually left LST when Hogan was born. It just turned out that there was a hole in the band schedule at that time. Kristin was still a memebr of LST when she left to join Larry Stephenson.