Rebel Records has recently announced news of the forthcoming release on March 25 of a various Artists collection entitled Best Loved Bluegrass: 20 All-Time Favorites (REB-8004).

The 20 song anthology embraces some of the classic songs in bluegrass music from some of the great acts in the business (track listing below).

So many of the songs here are inextricably linked with the Rebel catalogue; Bringing Mary Home, Fox On The Run and Atlanta Is Burning being three notable examples. These are signature songs as is Love Of The Mountains. There are the tour de force pieces like Rice’s Nine Pound Hammer and JD Crowe’s Train 45 also.

Most of the material is direct from the Rebel vaults, whereas some came to them indirectly, such as - and I speculate here - the Lilly Brothers track, which was originally recorded for Event Records in 1956 or 1957 and later appeared on a County LP. It was subsequently reissued on a Rebel CD (1688). Others in this category are Little Rosewood Casket - Don Reno & Red Smiley (from a Wango LP), Footprints In The Snow - Mac Wiseman (Vetco material, perhaps), Poor Ellen Smith - Ted Lundy & the Southern Mountain Boys (County), Pig In A Pen - Stanley Brothers (Wango) and Lonesome Road Blues - Larry Richardson & Happy Smith (County).

There’s lots of fine traditional material here, which is typical of this series, and which, apparently, has been doing very well for Rebel. Judging by the titles and the artists listed, the potential for this set to match its predecessors is great.

For those who have a long-time interest in bluegrass music the songs and the respective bands speak for themselves; for newcomers this album is a good place to start investigating the Rebel catalogue.

Thanks must be made to Gary Reid for sharing his thoughts on some aspects of this collection.

Complete track list… (more…)

Mac Wiseman did his last show at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville last night. The show was billed with John Prine as the headliner, but Mac performed as well. Judging from the picture of the two artists together, Prine is cognizant of Mac’s importance as a music figure.

Our friend Scott Rouse was on hand for the show and sent us a couple photos taken backstage afterwards.

Mac has contributed so much to this music over the years. He truly is a bluegrass great!

We just got a note from Gary Williams, who hosts the Old Dominion Jamboree on WLEE in Richmond, VA and is one of the founders of VaBluegrass.com Gary is asking everyone to get on board and send a card to one of bluegrass music’s true legends this Christmas season.

Mac Wiseman, at the age of 82, has announced he is retiring from touring. The Old Dominion Jamboree and VaBluegrass.com is asking everyone to show Mac how much we love him and his 63 year contribution to Bluegrass and Country Music by sending him a Christmas card to:

Mr. Mac Wiseman
P.O. Box 17208
Nashville, TN 37217

Of the first generation of Bluegrass musicians, Mac has written, sung and produced music for 63 years. He was vice-president of DOT Records and a founder of the Country Music Association and the first secretary. He gave Lester and Earl a break just when they were ready to call it quits. Let’s all show we appreciate him by taking a few minutes and 41 cents to send him a card.

Have a Merry Christmas by brightening someone else’s!

Sounds like an admirable idea to me. I’ll certainly be doing so.

We posted in late March about a CD from John Prine and Mac Wiseman, Standard Songs for Average People. It was released last week (4/24) on Prine’s Oh Boy Records, and there is an excerpt on YouTube of an interview with John and Mac from the Cowboy Jack Clement radio show on Sirius.

A review of the Prine/Wiseman CD appeared in the April 26 edition of the Nashville Scene, written by Michael McCall.

“On their new album of duets, Standard Songs for Average People, these two veterans don’t harmonize as much as bring out the other’s distinctive vocal strengths. They’re more apt to trade lines than join together, but they sound delighted either way. This isn’t a duo set up as a star-power venture, nor is it meant as an artistic exercise to stretch their talents. It simply sounds like two well-traveled guys—Prine is 60, Wiseman, 81—sharing a love of old songs and feeling inspired by each other’s company.”

Read the full review at NashvilleScene.com.

You can hear audio samples from Standard Songs for Average People in the iTunes Music Store.

John Prine and Mac Wiseman have teamed up for a set of great country music classics on a new CD from Oh Boy Records. Standard Songs For Average People was officially released on Saturday (3/24), and features the two legends (from different genres) sharing songs that the chose together when the project was initially being discussed.

The idea for the duets project was presented to Prine by Nashville producer Jack Clement, which led to an invitation for Mac to join him for a meeting and song swap session. They each then produced a list of songs they might want to record, with no stipulations as to peiod or style, and when they compared lists and saw that they had both suggested several of the same songs, they knew the project was a go.

Included are classics like Saginaw Michigan, Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine, as well as more obscure songs to which one or the other was particularly drawn. Mac wanted to feature Where The Blue of the Night, a Bing Crosby number which he had loved as a child. They also chose Blue Eyed Elaine, an Ernest Tubb track from the 1940s that never made it to the charts.

Our friend Craig Havighurst, who publishes the blog String Theory Media, shared some information and thoughts about Standard Songs For Average People in a press release for Oh Boy Records.

“The singers recorded the tracks facing each other across a dining room table set up in a basement studio near Nashville’s atmospheric and semi-renovated Neuhoff meat packing plant. Co-producer and engineer David Ferguson (Johnny Cash) assembled an extraordinary group of sidemen, including guitarists Pat McLaughlin and Jamie Hartford, drummer Kenny Malone, bassist Dave Jacques and pedal steel legend Lloyd Green.

It’s no stretch to call the final product a masterpiece. Standard songs, yes, but extraordinary choices and performances. Average people these aren’t, but the title carries the message that music like this, timeless and gentle and humane, is not for music snobs or insiders. It’s not only for the old or the young or for a demographic or psychographic. It is, across generation and persuasion, for all of us.”

I found a complete track listing at Amazon.com, but no audio samples. You can order the CD from either Amazon or Oh Boy Records.

This post is a contribution from Richard Thompson, a semi-regular contributor here at The Bluegrass Blog. He is also a longstanding contributor to British Bluegrass News, a quarterly print publication where he also briefly served as editor.

The February edition of the widely read British publication Country Music People (CMP) magazine features Jim Lauderdale on the front cover.

Lauderdale, whose new album, Bluegrass, was released last September on the Yep Roc label, discussed his song writing and recording career with Janet Apsley as they got together on what was described as a drizzly, dank November evening in Essex. He says he would do anything for bluegrass and speaks of his occasional song writing collaborations with Ralph Stanley. The article covers a complete five pages.

The second and concluding part of an interview with living legend Mac Wiseman, conducted by Nashville-based reporter Walt Trott, is also included. Titled Mac Wiseman: Music and Memories, the article resumes Wiseman’s story in the Spring of 1947, following his departure from Molly O’Day’s band. This later period in his musical life covers the bluegrass era - with Bill Monroe, and Flatt and Scruggs, among others - the Dot Record period and the years thereafter. The comprehensive article, covering ten pages, includes a photograph of the first twin fiddlers in bluegrass; Tommy Jackson and Dale Potter.

Among the CDs reviewed in the magazine are the J D Crowe & The New South Lefty’s Old Guitar (3 out of 5 stars), David Davis And The Warrior River Boys’ Troubled Times (3 stars) and Vernon Oxford Sings Gospel, Country & Bluegrass (3 stars).

Country Music People is available at all good British news vendors and by subscription. Their web site gives readers an idea of its usual content, though the site features an older edition of CMP.

The new (Jan/Feb ‘07) issue of Bluegrass Music Profiles is out, featuring a cover story on J.D. Crowe & The New South. Each member of the band is interviewed, and J.D. shares his thoughts about their latest release, Lefty’s Old Guitar.

A sample from the New South article can be read on the BMP web site.

This issue also has Chris Thile talking about his current stage vehicle, How To Grow A Band, and their 2007 transition into The Tensions Mountain Boys. Bryan Sutton takes the Shop Talk section to discuss his guitar collection, and Mac Wiseman shares his bluegrass favorites - including which of his songs is his all time favorite.

You’ll also find BMP’s 2007 Annual Festival Guide, with details on hundreds of bluegrass events throughout the US.

Single issue and annual subscription info can be found on the Bluegrass Music Profiles site.

This post is a contribution from Richard Thompson, a founding member of the British Bluegrass Music Association, and a semi-regular correspondent and contributor for The Bluegrass Blog. He is also a longstanding contributor to British Bluegrass News, a quarterly print publication where he also briefly served as editor.

Prompted by an article in the January 2007 edition of Country Music People that Nashville journalist Walter Trott wrote about Mac Wiseman, I followed up a mention of the new 4 CD Bear Family Records boxed set release of On Susan’s Floor (Bear Family BCD 16736 DK).

In keeping with the label’s well deserved reputation for making available older recordings from a variety of catalogues, this set includes some rare material from Mac Wiseman’s recording career between the years 1965 to 1979, including that from his own Wise label, the Rural Rhythm, MGM, Dot, RCA and Churchill archives, comprising 114 songs in all.

Among the songs featured are such notable titles as Bringing Mary Home, Ring Them Golden Bells, I Saw Your Face In The Moon, Bringing In The Georgia Mail, Letter Edged In Black, White Silver Sands, Ballad Of A Teenage Queen and the hit single My Blue Heaven, recorded with Woody Herman’s band.

As usual the boxed set includes a hard-backed book; this one has an essay by Colin Escott, a discography and many previously unpublished photographs.

The collection is available directly from Bear Family, and is listed in the catalogue of many online resellers where bluegrass music is sold.

Each year during the annual IBMA World Of Bluegrass Business Conference, a variety of educational seminars are offered for the benefit of the professional membership. Topics are varied, and are geared towards the needs and interests of artists, event producers, bluegrass associations and songwriters.

Topics this year included getting radio airplay for your CD (led by several prominent bluegrass broadcasters), health insurance issues for performers, and a business mentoring session with Mac Wiseman.

The seminars are also recorded for wider distribution, and this year’s are available now through IBMA. They are available on either CD or cassette, and are offered for $15 each, with discounts in quantity.

Though attendance at the seminars was restricted to the IBMA membership, the audio recordings are available to members and non-members alike.

You can find the ordering details, and a list of the seminars which are available, on the IBMA web site.

It’s a fair bet that many of our US readers were, at one point in their life, readers of the popular children’s books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. If not, odds are that they watched episodes of the equally popular television series based on the books, Little House On The Prairie.

Dale Cockrell, a professor of Musicology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, has founded a company to make the many traditional American songs and tunes mentioned in the Little House books available as sound recordings for modern readers. He is assisted in this work by Nashville mandolinist, producer and Sound Art Recordings president, Butch Baldassari. The company is called Pa’s Fiddle, and the second of ten audio CDs with this theme is due for release on November 14.

This new project is entitled, Arkansas Traveler: Music from Little House on the Prairie, and it includes 18 songs and tunes mentioned in the Wilder books. Credited performers include Mac Wiseman, Riders In The Sky, John Cowan, Bob Carlin, Butch Baldassari, Alison Brown and many others.

Arkansas Traveler will not ship to stores until next month, but it can be ordered online now from Pa’s Fiddle, where audio samples can also be heard online.

The first release in this Ingalls series, Happy Land, has been added to the We The People Bookshelf by the National Endowment For The Humanities. This program delivers a set of age-appropriate classic books to several thousand libraries around the US to foster the reading of great children’s literature. Happy Land was added as a bonus to their fourth NEH Bookshelf program, a collection of literature with The Pursuit Of Happiness as its theme.

Legendary bluegrass pioneer Mac Wiseman spent two hours on the air earlier this week on XM’s Bluegrass Junction with host Kyle Cantrell. Their chat was carried live on XM, and served as a kick off for a planned series of live shows to be carried by the satellite radio provider.

Mac talked about some of the memorable moments in his 63 year career in music, including stories about Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Woody Herman and Bill Monroe.

XM will re-broadcast the Wiseman interview this coming Sunday (8/6) at 10:00 a.m. (EDT).

Bluegrass Junction host Cantrell now features live shows from the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 3:00-6:00 p.m. (Eastern). The 24/7 bluegrass feed can be found on XM Channel 14, DirectTV channel 812, and also on AOL Radio.

The February edition of Bluegrass Unlimited contains an article that might be of interest about Mac Wiseman. Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite.

In the last year or two, as he’s rounded the curve of 80, he’s recorded as a guest with the likes of Johnny Cash and Charlie Daniels. And he maintains a steady, though limited, touring schedule. Perhaps most notably, Wiseman recently recorded three CDs worth of the great old songs he loves to sing.