Mandolin legend Herschel Sizemore may be retired from active touring, but he hasn’t stopped writing and the recording the sort of clever instrumentals that have so endeared him to the mandolin world.

His latest CD, B-Natural, has just been released. It’s a self-produced project with 12 new Sizemore compositions with Terry Baucom on banjo, Jimmy Haley on guitar, Ron Stewart on fiddle and Mike Bub on bass. Alan Bibey also adds some lead guitar and harmony mandolin parts.

The CD title comes from the lead track, a sly reference to the stylistic innovations that Herschel introduced to bluegrass mandolin some years ago. The mandolin style that Bill Monroe developed quite commonly involved playing in the key of B, but Monroe’s playing was position-based and often relied on stock licks and phrases. Sizemore found a way to play complex melodies in B, an unforgiving place for uncapoed stringed instruments, and it won has him quite a stable of admirers among his peers.

What Herschel introduced is now standard fare in the bluegrass mandolin repertoire, and it’s a sad fact that many young 8-stringers have little awareness of the straight line that runs from Herschel Sizemore through Sam Bush, Alan Bibey and Adam Steffey.

Of course, he plays comfortable in most any standard bluegrass key, and his new tunes demonstrate a variety of the breakdowns, reels and waltzes for which he is known. The sound here will be quite familiar to long-time Sizemore fans, with straightforward, no frills arrangements and crisp, clean playing all around. Here are a few audio samples:

Monroe’s Dream is one Herschel wrote a few years ago, reflecting on his old friend Bill Monroe. Big Mon was always a supporter of what Herschel was doing with teh mandolin, and Herschel has always believed it was because he wasn’t copying Monroe’s music, but making his own statement with teh instrument.

Derrington Express is dedicated to another dear friend, Charlie Derrington, formerly with Gibson in Nashville. Charlie was killed by a drunk driver almost exactly 3 years ago (8/1/06) while he was riding his motorcycle near his home.

B-Natural was produced with support from The Virginia Foundation For The Humanities. Ordering in enabled from Herschel’s web site.

The next recording project by Kenny & Amanda Smith, Live And Learn, is due from Rebel Records on September 9. This will be their fourth CD with Rebel, the fifth since Kenny left Lonesome River Band in 2001 to launch this new venture with his wife, Amanda.

Students and fans of flatpicking guitar have followed Kenny from the time he first placed in the National Guitar Flat Pick Championship at Winfield in 1992, and followed him through stints with Claire Lynch and his two Guitar Player of the Year Awards from IBMA while working with LRB.

For most bluegrass fans, their first taste of Amanda’s singing was a single track she sang on Kenny’s Studebaker CD, released in 1997, or her debut release with Kenny, Slowly But Surely.

I had a chance to sit down with both of them recently to listen through the entire CD, after which they answered a few questions about the music and the songs included on Live And Learn, which also features regular band members Zach McLamb on bass and Aaron Williams on mandolin.

Kenny was especially enthusiastic about this project…

“I couldn’t ask for a better CD. This one just captured the sound we were after, and I’m delighted with the result.

At the beginning of this project, we had still not hired a full time banjo player. This had gone on for a year with different players filling in. Terry Baucom and Ron Stewart had filled in with us during the summer, and we just didn’t get in a hurry finding someone with these guys filling in. Plus, we were having a blast with them picking with us.

We were going to cut the project regardless and leave the banjo spot open and deal with it later when we called Ron about overdubbing fiddle later on. He told us he was available the week were laying down the rhythm tracks. So Ron showed up with banjo and fiddle in hand and we cut some of the best music the band has recorded to date.”

The first single from the album, Randall Collins, has been released to radio and is starting to get airplay. It’s a re-cut of a great Norman Blake song from the 1970s, one of Kenny’s favorite guitarists while he was learning to play.

“When I was growing up in Nine Mile, Indiana I used to mow yards in the summer for $3.50 a yard. I did that all summer and it was my first real job. It was enough to keep gas in my minibike and buy records. (more…)

Earlier in the month we told you about the Dan Tyminski video for the title track from his album Wheels, released June 17 on Rounder Records.

Rounder has revealed a little about the making of the video and the picturesque setting that all but steals the show.

Directed by Rocky Schenck and produced by Rocky Schenck and Brad Paul, the video, was shot on the unique Sierra Hotel train car on June 10 -11 in California.

The Sierra Hotel car was part of the California Zephyr line that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles from 1948 to 1983. The car was then purchased privately and completely restored and customized. The producers of the video chartered the car and had it attached to the Amtrak Coast Starlight train (which runs from Seattle to Los Angeles) in Oakland and shot the video during the journey south to Los Angeles and back to Oakland the next day. Wheels features grand iconic scenery, informal performances and humorous vignettes about the band finding ways to stay entertained while on the road.

The video is being added on GAC on Tuesday, July 22 and is currently in heavy rotation on CMT Pure. It can also be viewed online.

Banjo builder Warren Yates has created a video that takes you into his shop for a bird’s eye view of the skills and techniques he employs in creating a Yates Banjo – with a tantalizing peek at the much-heralded secret process that Ron Stewart discussed in his recent interview with us about these banjos.