Once again, The Grand Ole Opry has some bluegrass to offer in this weekend’s broadcasts.

Friday night’s Opry (6/13) will feature performances from Mountain Heart, The Whites and Bobby Osborne & Rocky Top X-Press while Saturday (6/14) night has 3 Fox Drive and the Carolina Chocolate Drops on tap.

Kim Fox of 3 Fox Drive tells us that they will also be performing Saturday evening at the Opry Plaza Party, a free event just outside the Opry House that starts at 5:30 p.m.

“We’re really looking forward to the weekend as we’re flying our dad in for Father’s Day. Crossing our fingers that the weather holds out!!”

The Friday Opry is broadcast from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. (EST) and the Saturday show runs from 7:30 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. Both shows are available over the air in the Nashville market on WSM AM 650, on XM channel 11 (XM Nashville), and simulcast worldwide via online streaming at wsmonline.com.

Josh Shilling, lead vocalist with Mountain Heart, sent along these photos of the band at the CMA Music Festival last week.

        

        

    

There will be some bluegrass offered during this week’s big CMA Music Festival and Fan Fair in Nashville.

Though the event officially begins on Thursday (6/5) and runs through Sunday (6/8), there is a kickoff concert tonight (6/4) at 10:00 p.m. hosted by Marty Stuart which will feature sets by The SteelDrivers and Old Crow Medicine Show.

On Thursday there will be a stage dedicated largely to bluegrass music. From 11:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. (local time) the Chevy Plaza stage will include performances by Sierra Hull, SteelDrivers, Dan Tyminski and Mountain Heart.

Jim Van Cleve, fiddle man with Mountain Heart, passed along a few of the public and media events where they will be involved this week.

“We are really excited, and feel very fortunate to be involved with something of this magnitude, especially on so many different levels. CMA Music Festival is a giant affair, and Mountain Heart is going to be a very visible presence there!

We’ll be performing on the Chevy Music Stage, set up just outside the Sommet Center on Broadway, on Thursday afternoon at 2:45. We’ll be doing lots of TV and radio interviews, including XM and several country radio stations. We’re also signing autographs in the GAC and Grand Ole Opry booths in the truTV Fan Fair Hall at the convention center. To start it all off on Wednesday, we’re going to be riding in the Chevy Kickoff Parade that travels right down Broadway. We’ve all been practicing our ‘Princess Waves,’ too, so we should be ready to roll. lol.

From Nashville, we’re heading to Enterprise, Alabama, for the first-ever BamaJam Music & Arts Festival on Saturday. The festival runs Thursday through Saturday and has a ridiculously great lineup of artists from country, bluegrass, acoustic and Americana. We’re talking about everyone from Ralph Stanley and Ricky Skaggs, to Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top and Hank Jr., to Trace Adkins, Little Big Town, Yonder Mountain String Band and Old Crow Medicine Show. It’s going to be a blast!”

Last week was a good’n for bluegrass and old time music on the CMT Pure 12-Pack Countdown video competition. Uncle Earl’s Steak O’ Lean was the #1 viewer-voted video, and Mountain Heart’s Road With No End was #2.

These two beat out Dolly Parton and Toby Keith for the top spots, so we know that it was bluegrass fans that put them in. They are both in the running again in this week’s voting, along with Rhonda Vincent’s I Gotta Start Somewhere, which debuts in the competition this week.

You can see all the videos on the Pure 12-Pack Countdown web site, where you can also cast a vote for your favorites. Voting ends on Wednesday night, with weekly winners announced on Friday evening during the Pure 12-Pack Countdown show on CMTP.

This weekend’s Grand Ole Opry broadcasts once again has something for bluegrass fans - both on radio and TV.

The Friday Opry (5/2) will include a show from Mountain Heart, in the 10:00-10:30 p.m. segment, and the guys will be back on Saturday evening as well.

Joining them on Saturday will be The SteelDrivers, who are stoked about their Opry night.

“The SteelDrivers are excited and especially looking forward to this Saturday night’s Grand Ole Orpy performance because it will be on the TV segment of the show. The televised portion of the Opry is on the GAC channel and airs from 7:00pm to 8:00pm. We are schedule to perform two songs starting around 8:45 (EDT). Needless to say, The SteelDrivers wish to thank the Opry for affording us this wonderful opportunity. Hope you can tune in.

After the Opry, we hit the Briley Parkway expressway and head to downtown Nashville to play our home away from home, the world famous Station Inn. Two sets of hard chargin’ bluegrass are on tap starting around 9:00pm.

One footnote, Richard Bailey, the SteelDriver’s banjo player, was recently married to Ms. Mandy Haynes on April 23rd. It was reported that instead of the traditional marriage vows, the couple just said, ‘If you can’t be good, be gone.’ Congratulations.”

After coming in 3rd place last week in the online voting, Mountain Heart’s video for Road That Never Ends is once again in the running for CMT Pure 12-Pack Countdown. The video is is for the title track of the band’s new CD, was produced by lead singer Josh Shilling - who also acts - and directed by Scott Hansen of Renown Studios.

Uncle Earl’s clever Streak O’ Lean video is also on this week’s ballot, and deserving of your vote as well.

The ballot for this week’s show closes tonight (4/30) at 9:00 p.m. (EDT), and the top 12 videos will be announced and aired on CMT Pure (CMTP) Friday evening at 9:00 p.m., with rebroadcasts over the weekend.
You can watch the Road That Never Ends video here on The Bluegrass Blog, or on the Countdown site.

HINT: The voting process allows you to select up to 12 videos from a list of 30 plus, so selecting only one of two from the list increases the chances of your favorites scoring high. Multiple votes are allowed if you are so inclined.

Mountain Heart came in #3 in the online fan voting in this week’s CMT Pure 12-Pack Countdown for their Road That Never Ends video.

That means that the video will be shown tonight (4/25) on television on CMTP, CMT’s new digital channel. The show airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. (EDT) with rebroadcasts on Saturday (4/26) at 2:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., and on Sunday (4/27) at 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

Additional show times later in the week can be found on CMT.com.

Congratulations, guys!

Several folks have written in to remind us that Mountain Heart’s video for Road That Never Ends is in the running this week on CMT Pure 12-Pack Countdown.

Voting ends tonight (4/23) at 9:00 p.m., so head on over to CMT.com and cast your ballot if you want to see the guys score high in the results - which will be announced on Friday.

I had the opportunity to watch part of the shooting of this video, and you can read a bit about that (and see a few photos) in my earlier post.

Uncle Earl’s Streak O’ Lean video is also up in this week’s competition.

You can watch the Mountain Heart video here on The Bluegrass Blog, or on the Countdown site.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our contest last week to see Tony Rice with Mountain Heart Heart in Bristol, TN on Saturday (4/12).

Our winners were:

• Joel Marley - Morganton, NC
• Jason Davis - Rose Hill, VA
• Tim Carter - Limestone, TN
• Paige Clifton - Lowgap, NC
• Don Burton - Kingsport, TN

We heard from several of the winners after the show, and they all agreed that it was a good’n. Tim wrote up a nice review of the show which was posted on The B (our reader-posted section of The Bluegrass Blog) and Paige sent along a number of photos she took during the concert - which also included surprise special guest, Barry Scott and Second Wind.

        

Don’t forget that noon on Friday (4/11 - EDT) is the deadline to enter the contest drawing for free tickets to see Mountain Heart and Tony Rice in Bristol, TN on Saturday.

Five winners will each receive 2 tickets to the show on April 12, a show poster signed by Tony and the guys, plus an opportunity to meet them all at the show.

Enter now to win!

Before entering the drawing we ask that you be registered and logged in here on The Bluegrass Blog. You may use the form below to login, or click the register link if you’ve never before done so.

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If you live within a comfortable drive of Bristol, TN, The Bluegrass Blog and The Paramount Center can offer you a chance to see Tony Rice and Mountain Heart in concert this Saturday.

Five winners will each receive 2 tickets to the show on April 12, a show poster signed by Tony and the guys, plus an opportunity to meet them all at the show.

The show begins on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and will start with a set from Mountain Heart. After a brief intermission, they will return to the stage with Tony in tow, and will perform a set with him of Rice material. Josh Shilling, Barry Abernathy and Clay Hess of Mountain Heart will supply the vocals.

Winners will be selected at random on Friday around noon (EDT) and they will be notified by email right away with information about how to pick up their tickets.

Enter now to win!

UPDATE (4/11/08 12:30 PM): The promotion has now ended. Thanks for participating. Winners will be announced shortly.

Starting Monday April 7, we will be running a number of promotional giveaways here on The Bluegrass Blog.

On Monday and Tuesday (4/7-8) any registered user of the site will be able to download a free track from the new Gibson Brothers CD, Iron & Diamonds. The free track will be in MP3 format, and a different track will be offered each day.

Also starting on Monday will be a contest to win tickets to see Mountain Heart performing with Tony Rice at The Paramount Arts Center in Bristol, TN on April 12. Tony will actually be sitting in with the band, and the performance will feature primarily Tony Rice material, with the songs sung by members of Mountain Heart.

5 winners will each receive 2 show tickets and a chance to meet Tony and the band at the show. Winners will be selected at random from all entries, and only registered users will be eligible to enter.

Registration here on The Bluegrass Blog is free and easy, and we don’t nag you with emails every week. Look for more details on both promotions on Monday morning.

Thanks to Ryan Baker at Sugar Hill and Jim Van Cleve with Mountain Heart for their help setting up these free offers for our readers.

Bluegrass power house band Mountain Heart recently filmed a music video for the title cut from their latest CD, Road That Never Ends - the live album.

This is the first music video production for Mountain Heart. The video was produced by lead singer Josh Shilling, and directed by Scott Hansen of Renown Studios.

Most of the video was actually filmed locally here in and around Roanoke, VA, including a the live show portions and bar scenes, which were filmed at the Grey Stone Tavern. John was able to attend the taping and commented on how professional the crew was, saying that it looked to be a top notch production. Read John’s post about the video shoot.

Other scenes were filmed at a location in the Virginia Beach area, and Josh really went all out trying to get the shot.

The most memorable part of filming the video for Road That Never Ends has got to be the bone-chilling scene we tried to capture in the rain. We needed a scene to accent the lyrics that portrayed a man begging forgiveness for all that he’d done wrong. It was midnight, around Christmas time, and the temperature had dropped to a painful 15 degrees. We setup lighting in a dark alley and piped a water hose to the scene from a nearby building. We spent twenty minutes filming me falling to my knees with freezing water being sprayed all over the scene from above. After the cameras, our clothes, and the concrete surrounding us began to freeze, we had to call it off. My skin was red and felt numb as we stripped our wet clothes off and huddled around a small space heater in a garage. I’m certain this was the closest you can get to hypothermia without being hospitalized. After we thawed out, reality set in that after all of our efforts, the awesome shot we were going for, simply didn’t exist. It’s something the world would’ve never known about, but hey, I guess it’s all for the love of music!

The video is now finished, and the band has agreed to let us debut it here on The Bluegrass Blog. After watching the video it seems apparent that John was correct in his assessment. The footage is great. The style is appropriate to the song. The lighting is dramatic and intense. The pull-focus shots are very well done and at times it appears as though every move was scripted. The editing is equally stellar, with impeccable shot choices and timing.

Nicely done guys! And a great song as well.

As promised, here are a few more photos from the recent Mountain Heart visit to Switzerland.

Jim Van Cleve passed along a note about the drink Jason Moore was holding in one of the earlier photos we posted.

“I wanted to let the readers know that it actually is a “Coca-Cola Light…that’s what a Diet Coke is called here.”

Mountain Heart is just finishing up a brief tour in Switzerland, and have sent along a few “What I did on my Alpine vacation” photos for all us to enjoy.

Jim VanCleve has promised us another photo essay before they head home this weekend.

          

          

I managed to slide over to the Mountain Heart video shoot last night in Salem, VA. The guys had already spent part of the day shooting footage at a number sites in the Roanoke area, and had assembled at the Greystone Tavern to shoot the “concert” portion of the music video.

The video is for the title track of their new live CD, Road That Never Ends, so they had to recreate a live setting for the sake of the video presentation.

Many of the folks who packed the club may not have known what to expect, but after watching the band “stage” a live performance of the song for the sixth or eighth time, they began to see how it was done. I suspect that it was an eye-opener for many of the Mountain Heart fans in attendance, who stuck it out over the course of a shoot that ran several hours.

As I understand it, the video involved some staged segments, featuring vocalist Josh Shilling in his acting debut, as well as the live performance bits. Other than that, I just know that there was a hot car and an attractive young woman involved.

Here are a few photos I took during the shoot. It will be fun to see if any of this is recognizable in the final product.

The upcoming Mountain Heart music video we mentioned earlier this month is being shot this next few days. The guys are making their way towards our home turf, and will shoot in and around Roanoke, VA betwen December 18-20. Shooting and editing will be done by Scott Hansen of Virginia Beach.

The video will be for the title track from their latest Rural Rhythm CD, Road That Never Ends, and will feature both live performance and offstage footage. The band is planning to shoot outdoors this evening, when the temperatures will be in the 20s! I hope they brought their long woollies.

On Wednesday evening (12/19), shooting will take place at Greystone Tavern in Salem, and any Mountain Heart fans and friends within a comfortable drive are invited to come out and be a part of the shoot. They plan to start by 6:30 p.m., and will play a set after they get the shooting finished.

They will have their newest member in tow for this trip, Aaron Ramsey, on mandolin taking Adam Steffey’s spot. Aaron had been a featured member of both The Linville Ridge Band and Damascus Road.

Mountain Heart fiddler Jim Van Cleve is glad to have Aaron climb on board the train.

“We had looked at holding formal tryouts when Adam told us he was leaving, but before we could, we had a last minute date come in where Adam couldn’t make it. He recommended that we get Aaron to fill in so we asked him to sub that night. Aaron knew all the songs, played them well and had a great stage presence. It wasn’t meant as a tryout, but I guess it ended up being one!

We all got together with him to rehearse last week, and he knew all our material - some of it better than we did - and we knew he was the guy. Aaron is young (21 years old), plays several instruments well and is a good singer. To me, he could be one of the next “big deals” in the mandolin world. I’m really fired up, and am excited to have someone in the band to challenge me musically in new ways.

All of us were sorry to see Adam leave, but we wish him all the luck in the world with his new endeavor. I’m grateful to him for seven years of great music. He is one of my musical heroes, who I’m proud to also call a friend.”

Mountain Heart is looking to take advantage of the early chart success that their latest CD, Road That Never Ends, has enjoyed with a music video for the title track. The new release appeared on the Billboard Bluegrass chart the first week it was out, and made it to the #1 spot recently on the Sirius Bluegrass Top 17.

Fiddler Jim Van Cleve tells us that they will start filming by mid-December, and are excited to be working with Harold Jarboe, who shot the music video for Randy Kohrs which has done so well recently on CMT’s Pure 12 Pack Countdown. I had no luck prying any details about the video’s concept or shoot location from Jim, so we’ll all have to wait and see what they pull out of the hat.

In other Mountain Heart news… Expect a major announcement in the near future as regards the soon to be vacant mandolin spot.

The winners of our recent Mountain Heart giveaway have all been contacted, and prizes are on the way.

Thanks to everyone who participated in that promotion - downloading the free track from the band’s newest CD, or entering the contest for free CDs and other Mountain Heart merch.

The winners were:

• Bob Poole - Appomattox, VA
• Eric L. Poole - Mechanicsburg, PA
• Neil Gilliland - Mt. Juliet, TN
• Cody Frost - Bernice, OK
• Michael Palis - Kansas City, MO
• Bud Bennett - Blacksburg, VA
• Rev. Judith Barnett - San Jose, CA 96124
• Tyler Thompson - Mountain City, TN
• Timothy Jones - Nolensville, TN

Jim Van Cleve from Mountain Heart also asked that we thank everyone for their support of their new CD, Road That Never Ends. It has spent the last few weeks on the Billboard Top Ten sales chart, and is at number 5 in this week’s chart.

Mountain Heart picked up an unusual last minute gig this past weekend that turned out to be something of a spooky good time for all concerned.

Jim VanCleve tells us that they were returning home from Ashland, KY late Friday night, anticipating a rare Saturday off at home, when they got a call from country star and successful author Naomi Judd’s management asking if the band was free the following night.

“It turns out that Naomi Judd is a big fan of Mountain Heart and wanted to see if we could come and play for a Halloween Costume Party she was having at her farm near Franklin, TN. We got back to town and ran down there to play, and it was absolutely a blast! It was the first party crowd we’ve ever had where everybody sat down in chairs to actually watch the show.

It was kind of funny. Here’s all these very influential people…in Halloween costumes sitting there and taking in a Mountain Heart show. Surreal might be the word.

We even took part in the large scale photo shoot after the “Best Costume Awards,” where they attempted to photograph roughly 60 people dressed up as airline pilots and vikings and vampires and hippies… and a bluegrass band.”

Jim said that unfortunately, Adam Steffey had plans for Saturday evening and wasn’t able to make the show, so Aaron Ramsey filled in on mandolin.

Don’t forget that we are still accepting entries to win a free, autographed copy of the new Mountain Heart CD, Road That Never Ends: the live album. Other Mountain Heart merchandise, such as t-shirts and ball caps, will also be given away.

If you downloaded the free audio track from this CD last week, you are already registered for the CD giveaway. Everyone else can simply visit this page to register.

Registration will remain open through Friday of this week (Nov 2, 2007). Six winners will be notified by email early next week.