His songs have been cut by Skaggs, Montgomery Gentry and Sonya Isaacs, and Love Is A Journey, his debut solo project, was released on Skaggs Family Records in 2005.

He is also a gifted songwriter, an impressive multi-instrumentalist and a persuasive vocalist, yet large-scale success in the business has so far eluded his grasp.

Keith’s latest CD, The Way Of A Wanderer, is just out and if there is any justice in the music world (I know…), 2010 should be a breakout year for Sewell. It’s a fabulous project that showcases his varied abilities, tied together thematically, and recorded/mixed to take full advantage of the blended bluegrass and progressive country genres where he has plied his trade.

The new album includes 11 new songs, all written by Sewell, 4 as co-writes with Niall Toner. Keith produced, provided the vocals and played the bulk of the instruments (guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, bass and minimalist keyboards). Rob Ickes guests on resonator guitar and Luke Bulla provides fiddle on 2 tracks.

Sewell grew up in a Texas bluegrass family, and learned to play as a boy, trailing his grandfather Kenny Sewell to festivals all over the US where he performed with The Shady Grove Ramblers. Young Keith showed an interest in all of the bluegrass instruments, becoming proficient on banjo, madnolin, fiddle and guitar while still in school. At age 19, he went to work for Ricky Skaggs in his country band, which brought him to the attention of the Nashville acoustic scene as well.

The Way Of A Wanderer struck me as being more relaxed and coherent than his first CD, an observation that caught Keith off guard.

“I haven’t really thought about this record as having a bit more relaxed feel but that’s an interesting observation. I do think the songs are more personal and retrospective this time. I will say that I rarely set out to write a song with a title or a ‘hook’ in mind. For me, It’s always a riff or a melody that sets the mood for what I wanna say. ( Then I have to figure out what I wanna say- a chore sometimes).

I also didn’t intend to play most of the instruments starting out. I was really laying things down in a ‘pre-production’ mindset, but the further I got into the project, I couldn’t hear the parts being replaced. I think I understood the songs and where they where going, so the parts I played really became signatures to the outcome.  My wife was encouraging me also. She was like, ‘why wouldn’t you just play the instruments that you can play?

I feel like my Grandfather would have wanted me to play fiddle on a few tunes anyway.”

Perhaps most notable about this album is how Sewell uses the familiar, acoustic bluegrass instruments the way a pop or modern country producer might employ electric guitars and keyboards to provide a bed for the songs. You hear the guitar, mandolin, fiddle and banjo in the mix, but they aren’t always in their traditional roles in the rhythm section. The songs are all catchy, and this sonic approach gives the whole record a fresh sound.

Though I found every song delightful, a number of the tracks really jumped out at me. Imogene, especially, grabbed my ear – it is becoming my new favorite song. It’s a kicky, driving grasser, and when Keith told me he had written it about his grandmother, I had to have a more detailed explanation.

Listen to the sample before reading his comments…

Imogene – Listen Now    

“I realize that some things aren’t meant to be taken literally in songwriting, and sometimes it’s like uncovering a treasure when you do discover what a writer was really trying to say, but that song is pretty much coming right out of my mouth verbatim!

To be more specific, my grandmother Imogene and I were very close. She was a very strong Christian lady. Unlike my other grandparents who died very slowly in nursing situations, Imogene died suddenly when I was 13 and it was very shocking and difficult. I know this might sound ‘out there’ but I always felt like, and still feel like she is very near.  Almost like a Guardian Angel of sorts.

The song was born out of those times in my life where I wasn’t necessarily making her proud.’  ‘You know better than that son,’ she might say!

My adolescence wasn’t anything abnormal but I thought it was a good premise from which to write how I felt about her. It took a while before I could sing that without choking up, not very common for an uptempo bluegrass song!”

Another track that grabbed my attention was Abigail, a quirky number that demonstrates how much some of his previous employers’ music has rubbed off on him.

Abigail – Listen Now    

“I had been foolin’ around with this 5/4 melody for a while. I will say that the time I spent touring in Jerry Douglas’ band and certainly Sam Bush’s band surely has inspired me to be a little LESS Orthodox in my writing.”

Josie’s Reel is a tribute to Keith’s other grandmother, which combines old time and bluegrass inluences in a very appealing way.

Josie’s Reel – Listen Now    

“Niall Toner and I wrote this tune in 04′ and my friends Special Consensus cut it on their Trail Of Aching Hearts record. I’ve always loved this tune, imagining what it must have been like to see my grandmother Josie in her teens. I wrote the reel first and then the lyrics came.”

Lastly, Muscadine Wine is a song that I thought must surely be autobiographical, but Keith said “no.”

Muscadine Wine – Listen Now    

“This one is not really a true story – just an example of how a riff can materialize into a tune. I love Doc Watson and George Shuffler’s crosspicking style, and I suppose of was thinking of them when I came up with teh opening signature lick.”

Do yourself a favor and check out Keith Sewell and The Way Of A Wanderer. It’s great music.

I’m a fan.

Whereas prior releases have featured the Irish singer/songwriter in a bluegrass band setting, this new project is closer to an old time or traditional country sound. Toner is on guitar more than his customary mandolin, with band mates Clem O’Brien on guitar and Dick Gladney on bass. You’ll hear Niall on banjo on one track, Sleeping Beauty, played in his own hybrid pre-bluegrass picking style.

NTB3 will have tremendous appeal to fans of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. There is even a track, Jimmy Rodger’s Dream [sic], co-written with Peter Rowan, that was explicitly intended as an “in-the-style-of” tribute to The Singing Brakeman.

All the songs are presented in a stark, unpretentious style, again in a nod to the earlier sounds that formed the basis of what we now know as country music.

You can hear audio samples in iTunes, or at Amazon.com.

Niall tells us that he is headed to the US next week for the Americana Music Festival and Conference, where he will be conducting interviews for his radio show, Roots Freeway, aired on RTE Radio in Ireland. He also shared that he has four co-writes on Keith Sewell’s new CD, The Way Of A Wanderer, due for a September 15 release on Rubber Dog Records.

Long Story Short is the seventh record from Barry & Holly Tashian, singers, songwriters and husband-and-wife. They have written and performed together since 1972, working the folk scene and penning songs for artists as varied as Kenny Rogers, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Jody Stecher and Roland White.

Barry even had a brush with fame during the days of Beatlemania as a member of The Remains, a pop/rock group that was hot in New England in the mid 1960s. They appeared several times on US television and even opened once for the Fab Four.

But that was long ago, and now Barry’s music is far more sedate. The new CD retains the duo’s simple acoustic sound, with a bluegrass edge provided by Mike Compton on mandolin, Matt Combs on fiddle, Mike Henderson on resonator guitar, Ross Sermons on bass and Kenny Malone on percussion.

Holly shared a few words about the songs they chose for this CD, and agreed to allow us to present a few audio samples for readers of The Bluegrass Blog.

“Long Story Short was written with Niall Toner, an Irish bluegrasser who often comes to the US to write with others. He’s is so funny that we spend most of our ‘writing’ time laughing and telling stories. On one occasion he told us that a friend of his recently said to him, referring to his wife: ‘I won’t bore you with all the details, but to make a long story short, she’s gone.’

We thought, now there’s a good idea for a song and started to write it, but with all the joke telling, we didn’t get very far. So Barry and I worked on the song for a few months and sent various versions of it to Niall back in Ireland. We finally finished it and his band recorded it on their new album. It wasn’t until we recorded it that we realized that the tag line should be ‘to make a short story long, she’s gone,’ so our version of the song is a little different.

Long Story Short – Listen now:

We also wrote The Promise with Niall. He gave us the melody and asked if we could write the lyrics and make it sound like an old Carter Family song, since he wanted to enter it in a song contest for Carter Family sounding songs.

So we wrote the lyrics, he entered it in the contest, and it didn’t win…but again he recorded it with his Irish bluegrass band first, then we put it on this album.

We wrote two songs with Lisa Aschmann, who is a prolific writer, and such a pleasure to work with. I wanted to write about my experience enjoying hot tea, and soon we had Worry Doesn’t Worry Me which fits me to a “T” (pardon the pun).

The other song we wrote with Lisa, We Don’t Give Up On Love, was originally a slow ballad, and she wrote the bridge for us.  When it came time for recording, I suggested we speed up the song and make it a ‘groove’ number. Once we added Mike Henderson’s slide guitar, we were really excited about the song.

I played the rough mix for Lisa in the car, and she was very happy with the new version of the song.

We Don’t Give Up On Love – Listen now:

When we realized we had a very eclectic album on our hands, we decided to include a gospel song we’d written called Sail Away.

It was originally title Stow Away to Heaven about how Barry’s grand uncle came to America on a ship as a stowaway, and he considered America to be ‘heaven.’ We wanted to make the song a gospel number, but the idea of stowing away to heaven just didn’t hold water; no one has to stow away to heaven! Thus we changed it to Sail Away.

Sail Away – Listen now:

Honey, Where’s the Money Gone was written by Barry and Paul Kennerley (Emmylou’s former husband and hit songwriter). It’s a timely song right now, and quite humorous. Kenny Roger’s recorded it and so did Solomon Burke.

But as we like to say, we heard it first.

The two songs that we wrote with our friend Pamela Brown Hayes were primarily written for an Irish country singer we know who asked us to write some good dance tempo songs for his new album. We thought these would be good, but alas, he ended up recording Two Ways to Fall (song we wrote with Mark D Sanders) and Party Doll a Buddy Knox song we recorded in 1988.

Oh well, we love how Rockin’ Little Country Girl and Rock it Like it’s Saturday Night came out. They ROCK!

More audio samples from Long Story Short can be found on CD Baby, in YouTube and on Holly and Barry’s MySpace page.

His tune, Nuns Island Reel, is included in the audio track for the new edition of the Grand Theft Auto franchise (Grand Theft Auto IV), which has been setting sales records since its release in April.

Niall gives us the run down on how this came to be…

“I composed the tune in the normal course of my song-writing and tune-composing, and it was recorded in a demo session at Paul Ashe-Browne’s studio in Dublin’s Canal Street in the mid 90s. On that day we recorded four tunes, The Belles Of Aer Rianta, Dodder Valley Waltz, Elancyl’s Hornpipe and Nuns Island Reel. [So-called because my Dad was born and raised on Nuns Island in Galway City]

These tunes are all part of my Publishing deal with Bardis Music in Dublin, and my Publisher, Peter Bardon, would have been ‘pitching’ this material, and my other country and bluegrass songs, to producers, artists and other publishing houses around the world. Several of my songs have been recorded in the past 15 years or so, most notably, from a bluegrass perspective, There’s A Better Way by the Nashville Bluegrass Band, and Josie’s Reel by Special Consensus – plus Mood Swing by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, and Working On Love by Albert Lee.

In early 2000, Peter did a sub-publishing deal for about 40 of my compositions with Crucial Music in Los Angeles, a Company run by Tanvi Patel. Tanvi works with Movie makers and a whole variety of music-using Industries in Silicon Valley. In 2005, Tanvi made a pitch to Rockstar, who were beginning to work on GTA4, and they choose Nuns Island Reel for a scene in an Irish Pub in the game. My piece was re-named A Real Real, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Niall tells us that he has not yet played the game, though he has seen a brief extract of the scene that features his tune.

A Real Real will be included as a bonus track on NTB3, the third all-original CD release from The Niall Toner Band. It is a live version recorded on Niall’s My Roots Freeway Radio show.

The new CD is due for a May 25 release, and will be available on that date in iTunes.

He also invites everyone to visit the Niall Toner Band MySpace page, where you can view a documentary film about the band.

The documentary was filmed at the 2007 Athy Bluegrass Festival by a local young lady called Kate Bradbury. She is a specialist in Marine Biology, and this was her first venture with a band. I had sent her a couple of our CDs, and she loved the music, and offered to come to the festival and do some shooting. The Carlton Hotel in Athy, where all the gigs for the Festival were staged, were also very accommodating, and they allowed us to use their Library room. Kate also filmed a short part of our live set in the Hotel Bar. Kate did the editing herself, and we were so pleased with the results, we decided to put the two pieces up on our MySpace page.

Toner is a longtime singer and songwriter in Ireland who Hawkins describes as the godfather of Irish bluegrass.

Hansard and fellow songwriter and Marketa Irglova won for the song Falling Slowly from the movie, Once. You can see a live performance video of the song on the Fox Searchlight web site.

These shows will air at 1:00 p.m. (EST – 6:00 p.m. local UK time) on December 27 and 28 and feature interviews with several performers, songwriters and instrument builders Niall caught up with in Nashville. Guests include Greg Cahill, Pete Wernick, Barry and Holly Tashian, Steve Huber, Goldheart, Broken Wire, Steve Kaufmann, Keith Sewell and a number of others.

Additional shows to be broadcast in 2008 will be announced shortly after the new year.

RT?â Radio 1 broadcasts over the air at 88-89 FM, and listeners worldwide can tune in online via live audio streaming.

Niall is also hard at work finishing up his latest CD, We Believe In Clean Endings. He says it will feature 13 of his new songs, and a release date for next year should be announced by February.

Season’s Greetings, and good wishes from Ireland.

A Christmas memory for the blog: Odd as it might seem, three or four of the most influential recordings in our house when we were youngsters, arrived around Christmas time on different years. Stranger still is the fact that after a half-Century, every Christmas day, these are the same records we still listen to!

They include LPs [you remember them!/vinyl] from the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Bill Monroe!

Even today, when young enthusiasts ask me for advice on getting to know the music, I can still recommend these four …….

The show containing this interview will be broadcast on May 3rd at 9 PM. I’m assuming that is local time in Ireland which is five hours ahead of EST in the US so that would place the show time at 4PM EST. I’m told the show will be available for online listening.

What did Niall and Bela talk about in the interview?

all aspects of the 5-string banjo, including his ventures into jazz, blues, and classical music, as well as his ongoing contribution to bluegrass.

This particular program is not part of Naill’s normal weekly show, but instead is a special. The first of many he hopes to broadcast.

Hat Tip: The Bluegrass Ireland Blog

Niall wanted to let any artists or independent labels know that he is eager to receive promo copies of your new releases for airplay on Radio One. They can be sent to the station address:

Niall also performs with his own group, the Niall Toner Band. They have two CDs of original music, with songs having been cut by Nashville Bluegrass Band, Special Consensus and Albert Lee.

UPDATE 2/19/07: The Bluegrass Ireland Blog is reporting that Niall is at work on his third CD with The Niall Toner Band, again featuring all original material. It is expected to be released in the summer of ‘07.