Patuxent Music has two new releases to announce this month, both of them challenging my perception of the label.

Over the past few months, their new projects had featured some of the most promising young bluegrass and old time artists in the eastern US, much of it in the progressive vein. We were especially impressed by recordings from Jordan Tice, Nate Leath and Patrick McAvinue, and Patuxent has since released new music from Angelica Grim and The Doerfels, young performers all.

For the Spring of ‘09, they have new albums from pioneers and trendsetters who have been leaving a mark on our music for more years than the aforementioned youngsters have been alive.

Ownself Blues has mandolin master Frank Wakefield showing why he has been long considered one of the finest interpreters of the Monroe style since Big Mon himself. There is much of the Father in Frank’s playing here, as well as in the songs he has composed, which make up the majority of the 13 tracks.

The backing band is superb. Michael Cleveland is on fiddle, the sadly unheralded Mike Munford is on banjo, with Audie Blaylock and Jordan Tice on guitar and Darrell Muller on bass. Taylor Baker adds a second mandolin on 5 cuts, and Jessie Baker gets a guest banjo solo on one.

Frank also includes 3 pieces of classical music, which intersect interestingly with his unique, hard-edged style. He has arranged Beethoven’s Theme and Variations in D and Bach’s Bour?©e, and written one of his own, Mandolin Solo #2.

Audio samples are available in iTunes.

Among the family names held in high esteem in bluegrass circles, not many rank higher than Stoneman. Throughout the late 1950s and the ’60s, their regular television and radio appearances brought traditional country and bluegrass music to listeners all over the United States.

Ernest “Pop” Stoneman fronted the group, along with his wife Hattie and many of their children. Each was talented in their own right, but fiddler Scott Stoneman especially caught the attention of serious students of the emerging bluegrass style. His sister Roni became familiar to a wide audience from her many years on the Hee Haw television show.

Of the 23 Stoneman siblings, only three remain, and they have made a new recording named for the surviving sisters. Patsy, Donna & Roni reunites one of many offshoots of the Stoneman franchise who performed together in the 1960s for a set of family favorites and new original compositions.

Patsy plays autoharp, Donna mandolin and Roni banjo, with all three contributing vocals. Nate Grower is on fiddle, Jeremy Stephens is on guitar and Stu Geisbert bass.

Michael Roux, publicist at the University Of Illinois Press, recently shared some exciting information about the forthcoming book about Hazel Dickens that is due to be published in June.Working Girl Blues: The Life And Music Of Hazel Dickens is a new volume in the University Of Illinois Press Music in American Life series.

The book is co-written by singer-songwriter Hazel Dickens and country music historian Bill C Malone, a professor emeritus of history at Tulane University and author of Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’: Country Music And The Southern Working Class, Southern Music/American Music and Country Music USA, as well as the writer of the biography and detailed notes for The Blue Sky Boys: The Sunny Side Of Life, the Bear Family Records 5-CD box-set.

Malone discusses briefly Hazel’s life, her musical career, and her development as a songwriter in the first written biographical study of the West Virginia native.

The core part of the 120 page book comprises a section, entitled Songs And Memories, in which Hazel Dickens comments about 40 of her original songs, explains how she came to write them and tells what they meant and continue to mean to her.

The songs in question are…

Finally, there is a detailed discography of Ms. Dicken’s commercial recordings and some forty-one pictures. (more…)

The November/December issue of Bluegrass Music Profiles is out, and is their second annual Women In Bluegrass edition.

The cover story is on Roni Stoneman and includes discussion of her new book, Pressing On – The Roni Stoneman Story. The article also covers her many years as a cast member on Hee Haw, and what she has been doing of late.

Publisher Kevin Kerfoot describes this issue as chock full of bluegrass ladies.

“Other women featured include Rhonda Vincent, Donna Hughes, Amanda Smith, Laurie Lewis, Uncle Earl’s Rayna Gellert and Abigail Washburn, Ola Belle Reed, and MasterShield Records’ Verna Rodes. Other features include Shop Talk with Cia Cherryholmes, Carrie Hassler’s Bluegrass Favorites, a DJ Profile with Gracie Muldoon, a Promoter Profile with Shorty Jobe, and a Songwriter Profile with Louisa Branscomb.”

Kerfoot says that they intend to highlight Women In Bluegrass with their final issue each year.

This post is a contribution from Richard Thompson, a semi-regular contributor here at The Bluegrass Blog. He is also a longstanding contributor to British Bluegrass News, a quarterly print publication where he also briefly served as editor.

The University Of Illinois Press has announced the forthcoming publication of Pressing On, The Roni Stoneman Story as told to Ellen Wright.

The book, scheduled for publication in May, recounts the fascinating life of Roni Stoneman, the youngest daughter of the pioneering country music family, and a girl who, in spite of poverty and abusive husbands, eventually became “The First Lady of Banjo,” a fixture on the Nashville scene, and, as Hee Haw’s Ironing Board Lady, a comedienne beloved by millions of Americans nationwide.

Ellen Wright shares a few comments about the work involved in writing the book and tells of some of the fun moments that took place in the process.

“As co-author of Pressing On, I was very lucky in that Roni has led a fascinating life, has terrific recall of wonderful details, and is a gifted and very very funny storyteller. We taped more than 75 hours of recollections, which I then formed into a narrative. The book is told in Roni’s voice, in Roni’s words. There are chapters describing her family’s early musical history, how Scott learned the fiddle (’Just listen to that mockingbird,’ said his grandfather at one point), how Scott taught Roni and Donna their instruments (’Don’t play like a girl!’), and their first experience at the Grand Ole Opry (they were told not to play ‘too good, just play normal,’ advice to which Scott had a predictably violent reaction). There are also chapters describing Roni’s stint on Hee Haw (how she got the job is a particularly moving story), Roni’s adventures with famous country music stars (shopping with Loretta Lynn, traveling with Faron Young), and Roni’s personal life, her five very different husbands and her numerous dating experiences. The stories connected with the men in Roni’s life were to me as interesting as the stories connected with the music. The marriages were both sociologically and psychologically extremely revealing. (more…)