The folks at McCoury Music have come up with an interesting special pre-release offer for their Moneyland CD, sure to appeal to the most extreme Del heads among us.

Due July 8, Moneyland is a concept project, using songs to make a statement about the state of rural America, which they see as in need of special attention. The CD was initially produced to be a campaign item for the now suspended presidential campaign of former NC Senator John Edwards, which will be released to the general public instead.

Most of the tracks are previously released recordings from Mac Wiseman, Merle Haggard, Patty Loveless, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Tim O’Brien, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. The Del McCoury Band is also featured on a number of newly recorded tracks, including a remake of The Beatles’ When I’m 64.

The cover is a play on the classic Grant Wood painting, American Gothic, but with a figure dressed in red, white and blue stealing away in the background with a bag of money.

McCoury Music has pressed 1,000 collectors edition CDs with a alternate cover featuring Del himself as the farmer being fleeced by the crooked politician. Each of these will be signed and numbered, with a portion of the proceeds going to an unspecified organization to aid the homeless.

To order the collectors CD – and hear audio samples from the album – visit McCoury Music online.

Music has long been a medium for the expression of social comment. This is certainly so in country music, if less so within bluegrass. Also, most of the genre’s progenitors and many from later generations have come from a rural environment and have first hand knowledge of the struggle to make a living from the land.

The forthcoming release, on June 24, of Moneyland, (MCM 0005), from McCoury Music adds much to the catalogue of songs that speak of economic depravity. The multi-artist collection offers a hard-hitting look at the economic hardships and perceived injustices experienced by both rural and urban working people and their families.

On a personal level, Del McCoury has direct experience of life in rural America – having been born in North Carolina and spending good part of his life in York County, Pennsylvania – so it will not come as any surprise that he should lend his name to this project and express his solidarity with those who are suffering in current economic circumstances.

Among the personnel heard on this 16-track collection are the Del McCoury Band, Mac Wiseman, Merle Haggard, Patty Loveless, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Tim O’Brien, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.

Some of the recordings were ‘bought in’ from previously available sources, others were done specifically for this set.

Book-ending Moneyland are a Franklin D Roosevelt Fireside chat, parts 1 and 2, and in the one instance a 1931 recording of Breadline Blues 1932 [from Bernard 'Slim' Smith] and at the end Breadline Blues 2008, a contemporary arrangement of the 1932 song with additional verses.

Moneyland is an unashamedly political message to the powers that be. I’ll not be surprised if it prompts debate; it may help to inform opinions, just like a book or other piece of literature.

The McCoury Music web site has personal messages about the project from Del McCoury, Stan Strickland of McCoury Music, and CD producers Strickland, Ronnie McCoury, and Rob McCoury. Del expresses the project’s goal explicitly in one of these messages:

“I’m in a position where I can make good choices. And aside from just doing what I do musically, I can help others do the same themselves, and get a message out that people need to hear and think about – and, especially in an election year, take action on. This isn’t about party politics, it’s about doing what’s best for our country and everyone in it, not just a lucky few.”

[Editor's note] If you are curious which end of the political spectrum this project occupies, our friend Craig Havighurst makes it plain at String Theory Media:

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if Moneyland is on Obama’s iPod by this summer’s Democratic convention.”

Audio samples from several tracks can be heard online. File under Americana.

As we ponder the results of the 2008 Grammies – and breathe a sigh of relief that Cherryholmes didn’t have to worry about being photographed with Amy Winehouse – there are yet a few more stories that bear mentioning.

On Saturday, February 9, Earl Scruggs was the recipient of a 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award at a separate Grammy ceremony in Los Angeles. Here is how he was described…

Earl Scruggs revolutionized and popularized the banjo and developed what is now known worldwide as the “Scruggs Style Picking.” His style of picking is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. For more than 20 years, Scruggs performed with vocalist and guitarist Lester Flatt forming the most famous band in bluegrass history. But Scruggs parted with Flatt and in 1969 formed Earl Scruggs Revue with his three sons. In 2003, Scruggs received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in that same year he and Flatt were ranked No. 24 on “CMT’s 40 Greatest Men of Country Music.”

Using The Grammies as the hook, The Daily News in Newburyport, MA ran a feature over the weekend on Rounder Records. The piece by correspondent Jessica Benson looks at the humble beginnings of the company which is now among the more successful independent music labels in the United States.

“We were simply people who were music fans,” said Leighton Levy, who was an undergrad at Clark University in Worcester at the time. “There’s really no way we could have anticipated how the company was going to grow.”

It started in 1970, when Irwin was hitchhiking home to Cambridge after enjoying a fiddler’s convention down south. He was picked up by a guy who, with no formal training, had started his own record company.

Read the full article, which traces Rounder from their start to the present, online.

And one more comment regarding Merle Haggard having been refused consideration in the Best Bluegrass Album category in the Grammy voting…

This year’s winner, Jim Lauderdale, like Haggard is a country artist who made a decision to release a bluegrass project in 2007, both of which included the word “bluegrass” in its title.

This is not in any way to suggest that Jim’s award is undeserved. Bluegrass Diaries was produced and recorded by Randy Kohrs – a noted bluegrass artist, writer and producer – and aggressively promoted to bluegrass radio and media. Jim was also an active participant in last year’s IBMA convention in Nashville, and was personally involved in asking the bluegrass world to embrace his latest effort.

In the end, bluegrass purists may find fault with either Lauderdale or Haggard being considered for such an award – and we have heard from them – but does it seem odd that one is fair game while the other was labeled as “country?” My own guess is that the decision was based more on Merle Haggard’s long association as a country artist than on the actual recording itself.

We ran the story in November ‘07 when the nominating committee for the Grammy Awards determined that the latest Merle Haggard CD, The Bluegrass Sessions, was despite its title, not eligible for consideration in their Best Bluegrass Album category. By their reckoning, it was insufficiently bluegrass and was therefore ineligible.

According to a story in today’s edition of Nashville’s Tennessean, The Hag is still smarting over the decision. Never one to keep it close to the vest, he shared his thoughts with The Tennessean’s Peter Cooper.

“We intended this to be accepted by people who like bluegrass music, and I want to know how I missed that,” said Haggard, 70, whose album was judged by a screening committee ‚Äî made up of anonymous industry professionals ‚Äî as not containing at least 75 percent bluegrass material. “We went to No. 1 on the Billboard bluegrass chart, everybody that plays on it has bluegrass history, and we used bluegrass instruments.”

“It’s be neat if somebody came forth, stepped up and said, ‘I oppose this and this is the reason why. That seems like the decent thing to do. I want to know how I missed it, in someone’s opinion.”

The Grammy Awards will be presented on Sunday (2/10) in Los Angeles, CA.

Read the full piece on The Tennessean site.