One of the things that IBMA promotes heavily is education—the music, and about the music business. To that end they have a wide variety of seminars throughout the week on topics ranging from the technical side of the music (”New Developments in Live Sound Technology”), to personal well-being (”Weight Management and Diabetes Prevention on the Bluegrass Road”); from internet marketing and social networking to how to negotiate a contract. This year they have the largest variety of truly useful topics that they’ve had yet. I’ve been to several and each has been wonderfully informative.

For Monday’s “Teaching Bluegrass: An Alternative Revenue Stream” moderators Ned Luberecki and Megan Lynch were joined by panelists Terry Baucom, Stephen Mougin, and myself. Many players rely on teaching to get them through the slim winter months when the gigs are few and far between. We covered many different avenues of instruction including private lessons, group lessons, workshops, camps, DVDs and books, and internet lessons. The last is a recent development and not many people are offering this option yet. Strangely (to us anyway) Mike Compton has been on the leading edge of this technology and has been doing internet lessons for quite a while. Anyone interested in pursuing that avenue, either as a teacher or as a student, should consult his FAQ page.

Tuesday’s “Writing for the Internet: Blogging and Building an Audience” was hosted by our own John Lawless. Panelists included Ashby Frank, sometime contributor to this publication who blogs on his own website; Ted Lehmann of Ted Lehmann’s Bluegrass, Books and Brainstorms blog, and Craig Shelburne who contributes to and edits the blog over at CMT.com. Despite what it looks like in the picture, the discussion was lively and extended. The crux of the discussion was that blogging should be entertaining to the audience, who you hope will come back to your site on a regular basis. Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites are good tools to use to drive people to your site where, hopefully, they’ll buy your CD, or look at your schedule and come out to a show. It’s all about staying connected to people and letting them get to know you through your writing.

They talked a little bit about the technical side of blogging—using programs  such as WordPress, or Blogger—but mostly about the power of changing content to get people to visit your site every day or every week. The Bluegrass Blog is the best at this. I don’t know about you but even when I’m not writing for the Blog I read it every day and it is my main source of bluegrass news.

I had a nice chat last night with Cindy Baucom, who along with Chris Stuart, is producing Thursday’s International Bluegrass Music Awards show at The Ryman Auditorium. From her description – and level of enthusiasm – it sounds like it will be a good’n.

Cindy was especially complimentary of Steve Martin, who will be lending his considerable star power to the event. She said that he has been very generous with his time, and while he offered to do anything in the show that she thought would be helpful, he had made a particular point of ensuring that he would not be getting stage time that should be going to “someone more deserving,” as he put it more than once.

One change this year is that our good buddy Ned Luberecki will be serving as backstage announcer, a job that Eddie Stubbs has handled for many a year. Eddie was unable to slip away from his WSM Thursday night duties this year, and Ned jumped at the chance to fill in.

Cindy also mentioned how proud she was to get some of the acts that haven’t performed on the show in some time back for 2009. Both Lonesome River Band and IIIrd Tyme Out return this year.

The show will open with a performance from Dale Ann Bradley, and will also include songs from Sierra Hull & Highway 111 and a very special “band duet” appearance from Junior Sisk & Rambler’s Choice and Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass.

The show begins at 7:30 p.m. on October 1. Sirius-XM subscribers can listen to the show live on Bluegrass Junction, and of course, The Bluegrass Blog will offer live blog coverage here in real time.

Starting tomorrow (7/16), Bluegrass Junction goes European. Sirius-XM hosts Chris Jones and Ned Luberecki will be spending the next few days broadcasting from Norway.

Both are at the Ris??r Bluegrass Workshop and Festival in Ris??r, Norway, performing at the fest and teaching vocals, guitar and banjo at the workshop. Chris tells us that this weekend’s broadcast is the second of three European tours planned for this summer that will give Bluegrass Junction a distinctly international flavor – “stressing the ‘I’ in IBMA,” as he put it.

Dagfinn Pederson, who will be interviewed on Thursday’s show, started the Ris??r Bluegrass Festival in 2002, which he says follows in the tradition of the first bluegrass festival in Fincastle, VA, in that it takes place on a horse farm.

Catch the shows on Thursday and Friday (7/16-17) from 3:00-9:00 p.m. (EDT) during Chris’ regular show slot, and over the weekend in both Chris and Ned’s scheduled show times. Chris will also broadcast from Norway during his Monday afternoon/evening show.

Bluegrass Junction can be found at XM-14 and Sirius 65.

If you do Facebook, you can see a load of photos of Ned and Chris in Norway on Ned’s page.

Chris Jones and his band The Night Drivers have been in the Rec Room studio in Nashville (Ben Surratt engineering) wrapping up their first band project in 8 years. It will be the first full bluegrass studio release since Ned Luberecki (banjo) and Jon Weisberger (bass) joined the band over 6 years ago.

Rounding out the band are Mark Stoffel, mandolin and vocals, and Aaron Till, fiddle and vocals. Though the emphasis is on the band, there will be guest appearances by Darrin Vincent, Jamie Daley, Sally Jones, Jeremy Garrett, Mike Witcher and Megan Lynch.

The material will be mostly originals by Chris and/or Jon and Ned.  It will be the second CD for Chris’ own GSM records, with a projected release date in late July or early August. A downloadable single release is planned in early July.

In addition to winning IBMA Song of the Year in 2007 for Fork In The Road, Chris was also named the ‘07 IBMA Broadcaster of the Year for his work on Sirius-XM. Since The Night Drivers now contain a second Sirius-XM host (Ned Luberecki) and a bluegrass radio producer (Jon Weisberger), they decided to write and record a song for the new CD specifically for bluegrass jocks everywhere, entitled Bluegrass DJs 1:34.

They can say no more at this time.