After the announcements, they will run a video of a live performance at The Gathering in 2004 by The Masters Of Bluegrass: Bryn Bright, Sam Bush, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, Gordon Stone, and Tony Trischka.

The webcast begins at 8:00 p.m. (EDT) on the festival website.

The 2009 fest runs July 23-26 in Bridgeport, CT.

In an article entitled Peter Rowan saw bluegrass born, the writer drew attention to Rowan’s website, where the former Blue Grass Boy comments on the present state of the music.

“To play bluegrass right”, Rowan claims on his website, “you’ve got to learn it from someone like Bill Monroe, who has it in his genes. Bill’s a very strong leader. He wouldn’t stand for any messing with his music. After he goes, very few people will be able to do anything but a fast or slow tune. Bluegrass isn’t a dance style anymore. All the old steps are being forgotten. I liked it because it had blues and ballads, and when Bill Monroe played the mandolin, fire came out.”

The main part of the story reminds readers of Rowan’s chequered career in the music business. You can readthe full article online.

Both ladies have recently moved on to other pursuits and accordingly, Rowan & Rice have brought two new pickers onboard to fill the vacancies.

Joining the quartet on mandolin, and I presume fiddle, is Ricky Simpkins. Simpkins has played with Rice for many years in The Tony Rice Unit, and it seems natural that he would called on for this gig.

Multi-award winning bassist Mike Bub has been called in to hold down the low notes. Mike is well known throughout the bluegrass world for the years he spent in the Del McCoury Band. Bub is a busy man these days. He has been touring with Dale Ann Bradley, and keeping himself busy with other pursuits as well.

Yes, I am playing with the R&R Quartet and Dale Ann Bradley. So far there have been very few conflicts on dates. I am also doing a couple of music camps this year including the Transatlantic Blugrasss School in Wales, UK , Rockygrass Academy and the Augusta Heritage Workshop in Elkins, WVA. Oh yeah, I am also working with a fellow named Jimmy Stewart here in Nashville who years ago played dobro and fiddle with Doyle Lawson. He has been a utility player for Brooks and Dunn for about 12 years and will have a record out on Warner Brothers this year. Oh and one more….still working with songwriters Verlon Thompson and Shawn Camp. We have been doing the Station Inn for about the past year with Chris Henry and hope to get something on CD soon.

In addition to all his musical jobs, Bub is also busy being a dad to his three year old son, a job he relishes.

Riley is the joy of our life. He’s already aspiring to be a musician, pilot, race car driver, railroad engineer and lady killer.

Commenting on the quartets recent performance at the Birchmere, the Washington Post had this to say concerning the new band members.

The quartet’s lineup remains first-rate, with Simpkins and Bub providing smoothly integrated accompaniment and soulful vocal shadings.

I’m sure they’re correct. Bub and Simpkins are long time favorites of mine on their respective instruments. I’m looking forward to the chance to hear them in this context.

Rowan shows ideas designed to help an rhythm guitarist accompany a vocalist, while Rice describes more advanced concepts. Songs taught include You Were There For Me, Dustbowl Children, Let the Harvest Go to Seed, Angel Island, Come Back to Old Santa Fe and Panama Red. The DVD also features a performance of Rowan’s classic song, Midnight Moonlight.

It is scheduled for release on January 4. Find more details on the Homespun Video site.

This series presents the award-winning music of Sugar Hill’s Americana Masters. Researched and compiled from the artist’s body of work on Sugar Hill Records, these tracks were culled from radio chart toppers, fan mail, downloads, and songs and tunes that are recurrent favorites at live performances. The series is designed to provide longstanding fans with a collection of favourites. For new fans, this series offers concise entry into the artistic output of these seminal artists‚Äîwith liner notes that can help them to discover more and to delve more deeply into the artist’s catalogue.

Not surprisingly, the Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver collection features all Gospel material, 18 songs spread across the many years that the group has been associated with Sugar Hill Records. The opening track is He Put A Rainbow In The Clouds For Me from the eponymous first album released in 1979, followed by On The Sea Of Life from the classic Rock My Soul album. Other highlights include The Little Mountain Church House and Let Us Travel On. Both feature Lawson singing close harmony with the exceptional Russell Moore. Other great vocal partners appearing here include Lou Reid, Steve Gulley, Barry Abernathy, Jimmy Haley, Terry Baucom and Jamie Dailey.

The Lonesome River Band anthology comprises 16 songs, culled from just four albums, the tracks presented in chronological order. The first band here features founder and rhythm guitarist Tim Austin, Dan Tyminski (mandolin), Ronnie Bowman (bass) and Sammy Shelor (banjo). They are heard on four cuts including Old Country Town and Highway Paved With Pain. The second edition of this high-energy group is that comprising Kenny Smith (guitar), Don Rigsby (mandolin) and the aforementioned Ronnie Bowman and Sammy Shelor. Their contributions are taken from two albums, One Step Forward from 1996 and Finding The Way released in 1998. On the last four cuts Rickie Simpkins is included, playing fiddle. Overall there’s some great original material and a superb mix of excellent voices – trademark Lonesome River Band material.

As befits the eclectic character of the music for which Peter Rowan is known, the 15 songs on this first anthology from Rowan come from the various phases of his time on the Sugar Hill roster. There are three songs done in collaboration with the Nashville Bluegrass Band; starting with The High Lonesome Sound followed with Memories of You and Meadow Green. There are a couple with Jerry Douglas; Girl in the Blue Velvet Band and You Taught Me How to Lose. Then there’s the solo effort, Dust Bowl Children, and two career songs, Walls of Time and Hiroshima Mon Amour.

The best of the Sugar Hill years as far as the Nashville Bluegrass Band is concerned stretches from their first album on the label, The Boys Are Back In Town. The song of the same name is the second track of this 16 cut anthology. The set concludes with Rockin’ Chair Money from their 2004 CD release Twenty Year Blues. At the heart of the Nashville Bluegrass Band sound is Pat Enright’s complex voice, a beacon of the blues. His solo take here on Biggest Liars In Town is ripe with tension and pathos. Enright’s vocal collaborations with Alan O’Bryant are equally haunting as can be heard on Waitin’ For The Hard Times To Go. Other equally important participants are Stuart Duncan (fiddle and vocals), Roland White and Mike Compton (both playing mandolin) and Gene Libbea (bass and vocals) and Dennis Crouch (bass). The Nashville Bluegrass Band has taken their music to many parts of the world and won accolades for their work. This set from the twice voted IBMA ‘Entertainer of the Year’ band includes Grammy winning material. Recommendation enough?

The Sugar Hill web site is currently under reconstruction, and links to only two of the compilations mentioned above are showing up as of 9:00 am. on 7/10. I’m sure they will all appear shortly as site revisions are completed.

You can see full track lists for the Peter Rowan and Nashville Bluegrass Band CDs now at SugarHillRecords,com, but no audio samples. They will be available when these new releases show up on iTunes.

They are about to embark on a string of east coast dates together running from March 14-25, and will reunite for a performance at Merlefest in late April.

The new CD is entitled Quartet, and features Peter and Tony along with Bryn Davies on bass and Sharon Gilchrist on mandolin. This same lineup will be featured on the east coast swing.

Only five stops are planned on this tour so if you’re interested you’ll need to act now. Here are the tour dates.

• 12.13.06 Georgia Theatre in Athens, GA
• 12.14.06 Freebird Live in Jacksonville, FL
• 12.15.06 Pour House in Charleston, SC
• 12.16.06 Rafters in St. Simons Island, GA
• 12.17.06 Gottrocks in Greenville, SC

Here’s a press release with some great background info about both Keel and Rowan.

Connecting traditional songs of yesterday with their own original and inventive sounds of today, Larry Keel & Natural Bridge create astonishingly powerful acoustic music rich in heritage, heart and hot licks! With a style that evokes both atomic rock energy and dynamic tonal purity, Keel and his ensemble are intent upon taking their instruments and their voices to their fullest potential for emotion and amazement. While paying respect to the legacy left by the forefathers of bluegrass, Keel bridges the gap between traditional and contemporary American Mountain Music. Larry Keel & Natural Bridge includes flatpicking guitar master Larry Keel (guitar, vocals), Jenny Keel (bass fiddle, vocals), Jason Flournoy (banjo, vocals) and Mark Schimick (mandolin, vocals).

A major cult figure among progressive bluegrass aficionados, Peter Rowan is an icon figure among musicians and fans alike. His musical resume reads like the success story that so many acoustic musicians strive for. In the mid ‚Äò60s, Rowans professional musical career started on the acoustic runway as a member of Bill Monroe’s famous Blue Grass Boys. Bluegrass had always been a staple in Peter’s life, and now he was performing with the father of it. After a 4 year stint as Monroe’s guitar player and vocalist, he left to the Blue Grass Boys to team up with mandolin virtuoso David Grisman. Together they formed the eclectic, progressive-minded folk-rock band Earth Opera, who released two albums and often opened for the Doors. Later in the early ‚Äò70s, Grisman and Rowan teamed up with Vassar Clements and Jerry Garcia to form the bluegrass outfit, Old and In the Way. With several recordings released this band stands as one of the most popular bluegrass groups in history.

In 1974, Rowan, Grisman, Clarence White and Richard Greene formed Muleskinner. Considered yet another bluegrass all-star band, Muleskinner released one album. After the untimely death of Clarence White, Muleskinner disbanded. He then reunited the Rowan Brothers, who this time played together until the early ’80s. Meanwhile, Rowan also began playing rock and bluegrass with Mexican Airforce, which featured accordion player Flaco Jimenez. In the mid-’80s, he and Jiminez again reteamed to record Flaco Jiminez and Peter Rowan: Live Rockin’ Tex-Mex. He founded the Nashville-based Wild Stallions in 1983, and throughout the ’80s and ’90s continued to work with a variety of musicians and tour as a solo act. Today, Peter Rowan tours in several different outfits. One tour you may see his reggae / bluegrass inspired outfit, Crucial Reggae. On another tour, you may see a more traditional Peter Rowan and Tony Rice Quartet.

The material includes some familiar songs which Rowan has recorded previously, like Dust Bowl Children, Walls Of Time, Cold Rain And Snow and Midnight Moonlight, as well as songs by such unexpected writers as Townes Van Zandt and Patti Smith, and a cut of Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Side Of The Mountain.

Rice and Rowan are surely familiar to most fans of bluegrass and acoustic music, but their Quartet cohorts perhaps less so. Gilchrist has a long pedigree in the music, having performed as a teenager with Martie and Emily Erwin of Dixie Chicks fame, and more recently as a member of the acclaimed old time band, Uncle Earl.

Davies is a relative newcomer to bluegrass, discovering it while studying jazz at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She performed as a member of the Two High String Band before coming aboard as a member of The Tony Rice Unit and the Rice/Rowan collaboration.

The official Tony Rice web site indicates that Tony has described Quartet as “one of his favorite albums to date.” No faint praise, that.

Audio samples from all 11 tracks can be found on the Rounder web site.

January 23 is listed as the official release date for Quartet, and the group will be touring in support of the CD throughout 2007.

Highlights include five originals by Peter Rowan (”Dustbowl Children,” “Perfection,” “Let the Harvest Go to Seed,” “The Walls of Time,” and a stunning re-imagining of the Old and In the Way classic “Moonlight Midnight”), and a mix of bluegrass standards (”The Sunny Side of the Mountain”), reborn traditional material (”Shady Grove”), and poignant covers of Patti Smith (”Trespasses”) and Townes Van Zandt (”To Live Is to Fly”).

No further information or audio clips were available anywhere that I could find. As soon as we do know more we’ll update you.