When I saw Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder perform in 2005, they dedicated a portion of their show to reminding the audience that the following year (2006) would mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of bluegrass music.

It is widely held that bluegrass was born when Bill Monroe performed with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs at The Grand Ole Opry in 1946, along with Chubby Wise and Howard Watts. Though Monroe had named his group The Bluegrass Boys before these men joined the band, it was this combination of musicians who gave the music we now know so well its defining parameters.

Skaggs made a point of referring to this event, and the music that these pioneers made, before the band played a number of songs from that era, in a style remarkably faithful to the original recordings. I’m not sure if this is still a staple of his live show, but I’m sure it will be next year when his next CD hits.

Honoring the Fathers of Bluegrass: Tribute to 1946 and ‘47’ is scheduled for release on March 25, 2008. The 12 tracks are envisioned as a tribute to the Original Bluegrass Band, comprised of songs they recorded over that seminal two year stretch. The list is one sure to stir the passions of any die-hard traditionalist.

Ricky said that the idea for this CD came to him when he came across some live recordings of Monroe’s band in ‘46 and ‘47, and he felt that he had a chance to both honor the men who brought this music to life, and also tell their stories in the music.

“We wanted to tell their stories through music, honoring their arrangements and their tempos, bringing 1946 to the present for the next generation of listeners. Every generation needs to be educated. If you don’t tell the stories of the fathers (of the music), the next generation will forget. That’s what this record is about.”

Yep… 2008 is shaping up to be a fine year for recorded bluegrass music.

Our industrious British correspondent, Richard F. Thompson, is back with an expanded overview of a story Brance posted last month.

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs will be among this year’s five new inductees into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. announced on Monday. Flatt and Scruggs first met as part of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1945. During his time with Monroe, Lester Flatt assisted with the growth of his leader’s song writing and is credited as co-writing Will You Be Loving Another Man and When You Are Lonely. Flatt sang lead on and thus helped to popularize many of the songs that they did. Of course, Scruggs’s banjo playing at this time was wholly ear-catching and new to the vast majority of those who saw and heard the innovative Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.

In 1948 they left Monroe and started their own act, forming the Foggy Mountain Boys and the duo, recognizing that original material would help to create an individual identity and repertoire, began to write their own songs. Their catalogue is vast and a partial list alone features many songs readily recognizable as ’standards’ ….. God Loves His Children, I’m Going To Make Heaven My Home, We’ll Meet Again Sweetheart, My Cabin In Caroline, Down The Road, So Happy I’ll Be, Don’t Get Above Your Raising, Your Life Is Like A Flower [with assistance from Bea Lilly] and Blue Ridge Cabin Home, [credited to Louise Certain (Scruggs) and Gladys Stacey (Flatt)].

Additionally, Lester Flatt penned many that are credited in his name - or his wife’s name, Gladys Stacey (Flatt) - alone. These include Why Don’t You Tell Me So, I’ll Never Shed Another Tear, Is It Too Late Now?, My Little Girl In Tennessee, I’ll Never Love Another, I’m Head Over Heals In Love, The Old Home Town, I’ll Stay Around, Get In Line Brothers, Brother, I’m Getting Ready To Go, Be Ready For Tomorrow May Never Come and You Can Feel It In Your Soul.

Earl Scruggs wrote and arranged a considerable number of instrumental pieces, including Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Earl’s Breakdown, Flint Hill Special, Dear Old Dixie, Foggy Mountain Chimes and Randy Lynn Rag, along with Shucking The Corn and all the traditional tunes that are featured on one of the band’s most successful albums, the all-instrumental Foggy Mountain Banjo. (more…)

The pair of Flatt & Scruggs DVDs we posted about in January are officially out this week, and the first reviews are coming in.

Both The Raleigh News & Observer and Americana Roots have weighed in on the value of these two DVDs of previously unreleased footage, taken from Flatt & Scruggs television appearances in 1961 and 1962.

Each DVD includes better than two dozen songs, with much of the classic Flatt & Scruggs repertoire represented. Jimmie Brown The Newsboy, Before I Met You, Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down, Earl’s Breakdown, Polka On A Banjo, Down The Road and many more are here, along with several live Martha White commercials and the comedy stylings of Jake Tullock and Josh Graves.

Hylo Brown appears as a guest on Vol. 1, Maybelle Carter on Vol. 2, and the Foggy Mountain Boys also include Curly Seckler and Paul Warren.

Full track listings can be found from either Janet Davis Music, County Sales or The Music Shed - all of whom also have the DVDs available for immediate shipping.

For most current fans and students of bluegrass music who never had a chance to see this group perform live in person, these DVDs - and others said to be set for release later this year - offer a glimpse of Flatt & Scruggs at the peak of their popularity, and to may historians of the genre, the high point of their artistic endeavors.

Here’s a fun site with images of vintage music show posters. It’s run by Mitch Diamond, who calls himself The Kardboard Kid.

Mitch has been collecting these posters and hand bills since 1970, and has amassed a substantial number of these classics of advertising art. He is also something of a celebrity in the world of poster collectors, having established the record for the highest price ever paid for a show poster when he purchased an original 1966 Beatles Shea Stadium poster, now on display at The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.

In addition to an assortment of rock and roll, blues and jazz posters, Mitch also has a good many early country and bluegrass posters displayed on his site. I found original posters of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Reno and Smiley, The Osborne Brothers and The Stanley Brothers.

Mitch buys and sells in addition to collecting, and invites people with an interest in his collection - or who may have articles to sell - to contact him by email.

See all the posters at The Kardboard Kid site.

Yesterday I posted about about the controversy that Steve Jobs stirred up with his open letter to the music industry concerning digital downloads and DRM. Today two things caught my attention while doing some reading online.

The first is a rumor that EMI is considering licensing it’s entire catalog to online retailers as unrestricted mp3s. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required to read full story) recently reported on this rumor.

In a move that could signal a shift in the music industry’s antipiracy strategy, EMI Group PLC has been holding talks with several online retailers about the possibility of selling its entire digital music catalog in the unprotected MP3 format, which can be freely copied and played on virtually any device…

My understanding is that EMI at first sought upfront cash payments from the retailers in an effort to insure against what the label deemed “potential losses.” The retailers didn’t entirely like the idea and are now offering counter-proposals as negotiations continue. My take on this is that EMI still thinks that selling their music online, unprotected by DRM, will result in piracy and a loss of sales. If Steve Jobs is right and EMI is wrong, this could provide an opportunity for online retailers who have the available capitol to take advantage of the labels fear by negotiating an initial payment followed by lower per track payments on the backend. I don’t know the details of the offered deal though, and it seems likely that EMI is trying to position itself to gain from either scenario.

Other major labels are taking the defensive against Jobs’ challenge. It should be interesting to watch where this goes in the next year or so.

The second matter is only slightly releated, but an article on the CMT.com website is drawing parallels between Jobs’ attitude toward the industry and that of the early Flatt & Scruggs. The author of the piece traces the condition of the industry in relation to anemic sales of country music CDs and talks about Jobs’ idea of selling unprotected mp3s. He then goes on to talk about the soon to be released Flatt & Scruggs DVDs and the band’s attitude toward being on TV. At the end of the article he compares their attitude to that of Jobs.

Flatt & Scruggs never met Steve Jobs, obviously. But if they had met, they would have recognized themselves as brothers-in-arms. For they had a common goal: to dominate their market and leave a mark. And they both did so.

One of the hottest underground collector’s item for serious fans of the early days of bluegrass music have been the various audio tapes, CDs, videos and DVDs of live Flatt & Scruggs performances from the 1950s and 60s. Folks who remember those days recall that Lester and Earl seemed to be everywhere back then, and these bootleg copies of their many television appearances have become cherished keepsakes for fans, and students of the banjo in particular.

While furtively trading copies of these TV appearances, a common topic of discussion would be why these classic performances were never released commercially. Surely there was an interest in such a venture, both among fans and financially, so the refrain would go.

At long last, it appears that a set of Flatt & Scruggs TV shows is to be released on DVD, with two volumes expected in March from Shanachie. There are no details yet shown on the Shanachie site, but we did find pre-release ordering available from Amazon.com.

Both volumes are tittled Best of Flatt & Scruggs TV Show - Classic Bluegrass from 1956 to 1962. Amazon.com has no details about songs, but orders are being accepted there now for both Volume 1 and Volume 2.

These DVDs will surely be widely available from bluegrass-oriented resellers once they have been released (3/13/07). It appears that distribution will be handled by Koch, should any retailers want to contact them about carrying it.

Yesterday while searching around the web for all things blugrass, I came across this little piece of video that I thought our readers might find interesting. It’s a 60 second Martha White ad that is being projected on the big screen at the Opry prior to each show. The video is narrated by the voice of bluegrass, Eddie Stubbs, and features footage of Rhonda Vincent & The Rage.

The link takes you to the website for Web Webster, the producer who put the thing together.

Video - Martha White at The Grand Ole Opry

That same producer has also produced an audio track that plays at the Martha White Kiosk at the Opry. Once again it’s voiced by Eddie Stubbs.

Audio - Martha White Kiosk at The Grand Ole Opry

While we were IBMA last week, Brance and I focused our attention on the activities at the Nashville Convention Center. Of course, many things ocurred elsewhere - in Nashville and beyond - and we’ll catch up on them over the next few days as we recover from our week at IBMA.

One terrific bit of news came last Tuesday (9/26) when The Academy of Country Music honored Bill Monroe with a posthumous Pioneer Award. It was bestowed during the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Celebration, held at The Grand Ole Opry House during IBMA week in Nashville. James Monroe accepted the award on his father’s behalf.

Rod Essig, ACM President, shared these words in the ceremony.

“It is my honor to present this award to Bill Monroe on behalf of the Academy of Country Music. I find it fitting that we are here at the Opry, where a 28 year old Monroe was introduced by Opry founder, George D. Hay, and received not one, not two but three encores when he took the stage that evening. His pioneering sound has become legendary, and his contribution to bluegrass remains immeasurable. It is my pleasure to present Bill Monroe the Academy of Country Music’s Pioneer Award for his outstanding contribution to bluegrass.”

Opry VP and General manager Pete Fisher added:

“We are pleased to join the Academy of Country Music in honoring the pioneering work of Bill Monroe by hosting this presentation of the Pioneer Award on the Opry stage as part of our annual Bill Monroe Bluegrass Celebration. Although he left us just over 10 years ago, his name and his music can be heard almost every weekend at the Opry.”

In a related bit of news, an historical marker was unveiled at The Ryman Auditorium on Friday (9/29), designating it as the birthplace of bluegrass music. The text of the marker reads:

In December 1945, Grand Ole Opry star Bill Monroe and his mandolin brought to the Ryman Auditorium stage a band that created a new American musical form. With the banjo style of Earl Scruggs and the guitar of Lester Flatt, the new musical genre became known as “Bluegrass.” Augmented by the fiddle of Chubby Wise and the bass of Howard Watts (also known as Cedric Rainwater), this ensemble became known as “The Original Bluegrass Band,” which became the prototype for groups that followed.

There is a more detailed story that ran in The Tennessean over the weekend.