All four songs are Keel originals, with Diamond Break a co-write with Chris Jones.

Natural Bridge is Larry on guitar and lead vocals, Jenny Keel on bass, Mark Schimick on mandolin and Jason Flournoy on banjo.

To get the free tracks, just click the widget below which will prompt you for an email address, and then send you to the band’s Reverb Nation site. Once you verify that you want to sign up for their email alerts, the audio files will be there for the taking.

He catches the band in the van, backstage and onstage with Keel. It’s a wild – and sometimes psychedelic – ride.

Mark tells us that they will be calling him Riley, after Gid Tanner and the Skillet Licker’s guitarist Riley Puckett – and that he has an insatiable appetite!

Congratulations to the happy Schimicks from The Bluegrass Blog!

In addition to the Rangers, members of SFTRB are drawn from The Emmit Nershi Band, Shannon Whitworth and the Refugees, Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, Town Mountain, Super Grit Cowboy Band and The Grit Pixies. Pickers include Charles on bass, Mark Schimick on mandolin, Andy Thorn on banjo, Nicky Sanders on fiddle, and Sam Wharton on guitar. Vocalists are Robert Greer, Lance Mills and Shannon Whitworth.

Audio samples can be found on the band’s MySpace page. CDs can be purchased from CD Baby and downloads are available at iTunes.

Backwoods features 10 tracks, with 7 originals from the band, all performed in the high-energy, ultra-progressive style that is the hallmark of their popular live show.

It features Keel on guitar and vocals, Mark Schimick on mandolin, Jason Flournoy on banjo and Jenny Keel on bass

The CD was produced by Keller Williams, and audio samples for two songs can be found on the band’s MySpace page.

UPDATE 1/6:  Larry Keel fans may also want to check out audio from the band’s recent performance on Mountain Stage. The show was recorded on December 12 of ‘08, and Natural Bridge does three songs – Crocodile Man, Diamond Break and Bitten By a Snake/Blackjack.

Audio for the show can be accessed online. Little Big Town, Catherine Russell, Rose Cousins and the Davisson Brothers Band are also featured.

Their debut CD, Songs From The Road, was released in 2006, produced by Charles Humphrey III of Steep Canyon Rangers, who also played bass.

A second project is in the works, Songs From The Road Vol II – As The Crow Flies, is due on January 15, 2009. A download-only, three song EP will be released shortly featuring a sneak peek of material from the upcoming CD. It will be available from CD Baby and iTunes.

The lineup on the new CD has Charles on bass, Mark Schimick on mandolin, Andy Thorn on banjo, Nicky Sanders on fiddle, and Sam Wharton on guitar. Guest vocalists include Robert Greer, Lance Mills and Shannon Whitworth.

One song from As The Crow Flies can be heard now on the band’s MySpace and ReverbNation pages. The songs is Taxman, and the lyric is one that may grab the attention of a lot of folks in the US during an election year.

Taxman, taxman leave me alone.
Stop knocking on my door ’cause there ain’t noboby home.

They perform several songs – including some new ones not yet released on CD -  and chat briefly with Woodsongs host Michael Jonathan.

Folk duo Blue House also perform on this show.

Watch the full program on the Woodsongs web site.

Larry and Tony have performed together many times, and you can be sure that there will be some fiery flatpicking at each of these concerts.

• 12/5: The Birchmere – Alexandria, VA
• 12/6: Satellite Ballroom – Charlottesville, VA
• 12/8: Neighborhood – Charlotte, NC
• 12/12: Mountain Stage – Charleston, WV

More show details can be found on the Larry Keel web site.

If you’ve ever seen Keel and band in concert you know what kind of energy you’re in store for. If you haven’t seem them live, you should make a point of catching this show. It’s coming to a radio and computer near you.

The show is broadcast from The Kentucky Theatre in Lexington, KY. The show starts at 6:45 PM EST, and is broadcast to 900,000 listeners on over 400 radio stations, including a number of international stations, and now XM Radio Channel 15.

In addition to the radio broadcast, the show can also be heard, and seen, online. The WoodSongs Webcast is a multi-camera weekly broadcast made available online as a streaming cybercast, and also as a downloadable podcast. Join the fun at 7 PM to watch the 60 minute show live as it happens, then stay tuned at 8:05 PM for the encore performance. The encore is not broadcast on radio due to time restraints.

The webcast happens live and the show is made available as a podcast soon after the show date. Visit this page for more information about the WoodSongs Podcast.

If you’d like to be part of the studio audience, the ticket cost is $10. More information is available here.

This time around it’s a Tony Rice model Santa Cruz guitar signed by Tony Rice himself. This guitar is built to Tony’s personal specifications with Adirondack spruce and Indian rosewood. It features a shorter scale at 25.25″ which provides for a fast and supple action. It also has the signature 4 9/16″ soundhole and a hand-tuned top.

Tony says this is:

a guitar you can go to war with

In addition to Tony’s signature, the instrument also boasts the autographs of Del McCoury and Larry Keel. Once again this instrument does come with its own hard shell case. Both the guitar and case were graciously provided by Smoky Mountain Guitars in Pigeon Forge.

The bidding began yesterday evening, Friday February 9th, and will continue through the auction’s closing date of Sunday February 18th, at 6PM EST. More photos of the instrument are available on the ebay auction page.

The February 2007 issue of Guitar Player Magazine includes a feature on flatpicker Larry Keel. This is the current issue, now available in stores.

Larry has skirted the line between modern bluegrass and the jamgrass scene for years, consistently confounding those who seek to place him in one camp or the other.

Guitar Player is geared towards musicians, and this feature is likely to focus on Larry’s contributions as a professional guitarist.

Editor’s note: We had erroneously posted this morning that the feature on Larry was in Acoustic Guitar magazine. Oops…

Only five stops are planned on this tour so if you’re interested you’ll need to act now. Here are the tour dates.

• 12.13.06 Georgia Theatre in Athens, GA
• 12.14.06 Freebird Live in Jacksonville, FL
• 12.15.06 Pour House in Charleston, SC
• 12.16.06 Rafters in St. Simons Island, GA
• 12.17.06 Gottrocks in Greenville, SC

Here’s a press release with some great background info about both Keel and Rowan.

Connecting traditional songs of yesterday with their own original and inventive sounds of today, Larry Keel & Natural Bridge create astonishingly powerful acoustic music rich in heritage, heart and hot licks! With a style that evokes both atomic rock energy and dynamic tonal purity, Keel and his ensemble are intent upon taking their instruments and their voices to their fullest potential for emotion and amazement. While paying respect to the legacy left by the forefathers of bluegrass, Keel bridges the gap between traditional and contemporary American Mountain Music. Larry Keel & Natural Bridge includes flatpicking guitar master Larry Keel (guitar, vocals), Jenny Keel (bass fiddle, vocals), Jason Flournoy (banjo, vocals) and Mark Schimick (mandolin, vocals).

A major cult figure among progressive bluegrass aficionados, Peter Rowan is an icon figure among musicians and fans alike. His musical resume reads like the success story that so many acoustic musicians strive for. In the mid ‚Äò60s, Rowans professional musical career started on the acoustic runway as a member of Bill Monroe’s famous Blue Grass Boys. Bluegrass had always been a staple in Peter’s life, and now he was performing with the father of it. After a 4 year stint as Monroe’s guitar player and vocalist, he left to the Blue Grass Boys to team up with mandolin virtuoso David Grisman. Together they formed the eclectic, progressive-minded folk-rock band Earth Opera, who released two albums and often opened for the Doors. Later in the early ‚Äò70s, Grisman and Rowan teamed up with Vassar Clements and Jerry Garcia to form the bluegrass outfit, Old and In the Way. With several recordings released this band stands as one of the most popular bluegrass groups in history.

In 1974, Rowan, Grisman, Clarence White and Richard Greene formed Muleskinner. Considered yet another bluegrass all-star band, Muleskinner released one album. After the untimely death of Clarence White, Muleskinner disbanded. He then reunited the Rowan Brothers, who this time played together until the early ’80s. Meanwhile, Rowan also began playing rock and bluegrass with Mexican Airforce, which featured accordion player Flaco Jimenez. In the mid-’80s, he and Jiminez again reteamed to record Flaco Jiminez and Peter Rowan: Live Rockin’ Tex-Mex. He founded the Nashville-based Wild Stallions in 1983, and throughout the ’80s and ’90s continued to work with a variety of musicians and tour as a solo act. Today, Peter Rowan tours in several different outfits. One tour you may see his reggae / bluegrass inspired outfit, Crucial Reggae. On another tour, you may see a more traditional Peter Rowan and Tony Rice Quartet.

The band is comprised of pickers who have or do play in other bands, and have gotten together just for this tour during the holiday season. Andy Thorn, formerly with Larry Keel & Natural Bridge, will be playing banjo. Travis Book of the Infamous Stringdusters will be holding down the low end on bass. John Frazier of Hit and Run Bluegrass will be playing mandolin. And Jon Stickley of The Biscuit Burners will be playing guitar.

Thorn, Book and Stickley have played together previously in the Rockygrass winning band Broke Mountain (has nothing to do with any movie) so they have quite a bit of experience playing together and this will kind of be a reunion for them in a sense.

A number of dates have already been booked and can be viewed at either Andy Thorn’s Myspace or Travis Book’s Myspace pages.

A title has not yet been announced but Larry says an early spring release is planned.

Keel Brothers Volume 2 is the second duet recording flatpicking guitar master Larry Keel has made his brother Gary. This is a brother duet album that at times just features the two brothers and their guitars. They are joined on this disc by their wives, who both play bass on various tracks. Larry’s wife, Jenny, also contributes harmony vocals on several songs. The CD is comprised largely of traditional fiddle tunes as well as old folk and bluegrass songs. Possibly my favorite track on the disc is the cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad Don Quixote.

Audio samples in the Real Player format are available here.

I can also tell you that we have the majority of the tracks cut for an upcoming band CD from Larry and his bluegrass band, Natural Bridge. This will be the sophmore release from this band and should be out in the spring of 2007.

Audio samples can be found on Charles’ CDBaby page, which also includes a prominent endorsement from Tim O’Brien.

“Charles Humphrey showcases some fine new bluegrass songs on his new CD ‘Song From The Road.’ ‘Take My Cup And Fill It Up’ is a catchy drinkin’ song, while ‘Roll’n On’ could have been a hit for Jimmy Martin. You can almost hear hearts breaking in the duet, ‘I Can’t Remember When I Stopped Loving You.’ Sing these songs yourself, or go hear them…”

Charles has posted some photos from the CD release party on his site.

The CD can be ordered from Charles’ official web site, from CDBaby, and surely at any of the Steep Canyon Rangers’ live shows.

With Natural Bridge, Larry incorporated his unique, growly vocal delivery with his equally distinctive guitar style, inside the standard bluegrass ensemble. Their material has been a mix of traditional music with his own compositions, and their tour stops tend to be centered around venues and festivals that support more progressive acoustic music. Folks here in southwestern VA, though, recall Larry as a long-time Galax veteran, who learned and refined his craft in the same muddy fields as have many of the leading lights in mainstream bluegrass music today.

When we learned that original Natural Bridge banjo picker Andy Thorn would be leaving the group this summer, we wondered whether Larry would continue touring with a bluegrass group, or perhaps take his music in a new direction. The answer arrived this past week, when it was announced that Jason Flournoy, late of the popular jamgrass band Shanti Groove, will start up with Natural Bridge the second weekend in September when they play The Pour House in Charleston, SC.

Alt-acoustic and jamgrass fans may associate Jason with CO, since that was Shanti Groove’s home base, but he is a native of the southeastern US, learning to play banjo in western NC. It was here that he first met current Natural Bridge mandolinist Mark Schimick, with whom he shared the stage in a band known as Sassagrass before spending time with the Dixie Slam Mob prior to joining up with the Shantis.

In addition to Larry on guitar, Jason on banjo and Mark on mandolin, Natural Bridge includes Jenny Keel on bass.

From its inception, Apple has insisted that it wanted to broaden rather than restrict iTunes’ offerings, and initially reached out to smaller labels. Contrary to what many believe, however, Apple does not host the audio files themselves, and smaller labels often were unprepared for the technical aspects of converting files for digital distribution and making them available for iTunes on an appropriate server for download. The larger bluegrass labels (like Rounder, Sugar Hill and Rebel) now have much of their catalog on iTunes, with new projects generally released simultaneously on audio CD and iTunes. Rebel has even begun to make out-of-print titles available for iTunes-only release, a trend we hope will become more widespread.

A number of companies have arisen to assist small labels (and artists) get their music into the digital distribution realm, and iTunes is seeing more and more projects that are independently produced show up in their catalog. CD Baby has been very effective in getting independent projects into iTunes, and a number of wholesale distributors are also getting into this business. Copper Creek Records has indicated that their catalog will soon be available for digital download, and are being assisted in this effort by their primary distributor, Select-O-Hits.

Two artists we found recently on iTunes are friends of The Bluegrass Blog whose music should appeal to our readers.

Larry Keel has been a prominent fixture on the alternative acoustic scene for some time, though his more recent efforts have been a bit more mainstream bluegrass. His current band, Natural Bridge, has a grassy edge, and one of Larry’s Tunes, Mountain Song, was featured on the previous release from The Del McCoury Band. He now has three projects available to sample or purchase for download from iTunes.

If you have iTunes installed, you can find his solo project, Journey, the debut CD with his new band, Larry Keel & Natural Bridge, and a duet project with his brother Gary, The Keel Brothers Vol. 1.

Also up on iTunes are two CDs from Acoustic Endeavors, both their debut release, Coming Of Age… again, and the current On A Farm. Both CDs are made up of all-original material, and feature one of this blog’s authors on banjo.

These are projects that were wholly artist-produced, or by artist-owned independent labels, showing that this sort of release can make its way into such a dominant venue if the artists are diligent and persistent.

Vassar Clements tribute podcast

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