Pinecastle Records has put together a DVD compilation from their many hours of live video footage, which they have released as Bluegrass Jamboree.

The 60 minute DVD contains live performances from some of the top names on the label, including The Osborne Brothers, Reno & Smiley, Jim & Jesse, Larry Stephenson, Chubby Wise, Special Consensus and Dale Ann Bradley.

18 songs are presented, among them some of the biggest hits in the history of bluegrass music.

• How Many Biscuits Can You Eat – Coon Creek Girls
• How Many Biscuits Can You Eat – New Coon Creek Girls
• Using My Bible For A Road Map – Don Reno And Red Smiley
• Kentucky Gold – The Reno Brothers
• Lee Highway Blues – Chubby Wise
• Orange Blossom Special – Chubby Wise
• Freight Train – Jim And Jesse McReynolds
• Dixie In The Dawn – Larry Stephenson
• Rain Please Go Away – Larry Stephenson
• You Were Born To Sing – Larry Stephenson
• Country In My Genes – New Coon Creek Girls
• Silver Dew On The Bluegrass Tonight – Special Consensus
• Listening To The Rain – Special Consensus
• Irish Medley – Special Consensus
• Foggy Mountain Rock – Gene Wooten
• One Tear – Terry Eldredge
• Fastest Grass Alive – The Osborne Brothers
• Rocky Top – The Osborne Brothers

The DVD is available for $17.99 from Music Shed, and wherever bluegrass performance DVDs are sold.

Here’s a fun site with images of vintage music show posters. It’s run by Mitch Diamond, who calls himself The Kardboard Kid.

Mitch has been collecting these posters and hand bills since 1970, and has amassed a substantial number of these classics of advertising art. He is also something of a celebrity in the world of poster collectors, having established the record for the highest price ever paid for a show poster when he purchased an original 1966 Beatles Shea Stadium poster, now on display at The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.

In addition to an assortment of rock and roll, blues and jazz posters, Mitch also has a good many early country and bluegrass posters displayed on his site. I found original posters of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Reno and Smiley, The Osborne Brothers and The Stanley Brothers.

Mitch buys and sells in addition to collecting, and invites people with an interest in his collection – or who may have articles to sell – to contact him by email.

See all the posters at The Kardboard Kid site.

Our friends at WorldwideBluegrass.com are promoting a pair of petition drives to get two of bluegrass music’s pioneers into the Country Music Hall Of Fame. Both Flatt & Scruggs and Bill Monroe have been inducted, but WWB is hoping to see The Stanley Brothers and The Osborne Brothers inducted as well.

You can add your name and address online, and the folks at WWB will send the petitions on to the Hall Of Fame once they receive 10,000 signatures on each.

The Osborne Brothers petition can be found here, and The Stanley Brothers here.

Pinecastle has wonderful news for fans of The Osborne Brothers. They are set to release a 3 disk set recorded on July 30, 1989 in Streekermoor, Germany entitled, appropriately enough, The Osborne Brothers: Live In Germany. Tom Riggs at Pinecastle says that this is just the first of several unreleased Osborne Brothers recordings which they will put out over the next few years.

This concert was part of a European tour with Bill Monroe, and the accompanying liner notes from Sonny and Bobby describe bus travel with the Father of Bluegrass.

“While traveling, everyone wore just plain old riding clothes and such, but not Mr. Monroe. His traveling uniform was a suit and tie, along with his hat, which I thought was strange, but that was Monroe. Our only transportation was two small and I mean small, vans in which to carry two complete bands.”

The Osborne’s band at the time included Terry Eldridge on guitar/vocals and Terry Smith on bass – both currently members of The Grascals – and Steve Thomas on fiddle, along with Bobby and Sonny Osborne.

This live set includes two audio CDs, and a DVD video of the show. The audio has been painstakingly remastered, produced and overseen by Sonny Osborne with John Eberle of Americana Mastering. The DVD is included, despite the fact that it was not professionally recorded, because it is one of the few video recordings on the band from that era.

Many Osborne Brothers favorites are on tap: Kentucky, Listening To The Rain, Georgia Mules and Country Boys, Midnight Flyer, Tennessee Hound Dog and – of course – Rocky Top.

Pinecastle has The Osborne Brothers: Live In Germany scheduled for release on April 3, 2007.