Rural Rhythm Records has been releasing some really good bluegrass in the last few years. They’ve also been working hard to make sure we all get to hear this great music. One of their efforts in that regard has been the creation of Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks, a radio sampler featuring singles from current and upcoming releases.

The second edition of this radio release was sent to Bluegrass Radio at the end of last week, so you DJs should be receiving it sometime soon. Rural Rhythm was kind enough to give us a sneak peek of the new tracks on the disc.

The disc contains five tracks, three of which are new tracks from upcoming releases.

Them Blues is the first single to be released from the new Lonesome River Band CD, No Turning Back. The CD is scheduled for release early next month. Fans of the LRB signature sound will certainly enjoy this new cut. I’ve embedded a YouTube video of them performing the track live on stage, at the end of this post. The audio doesn’t compare with the studio cut, but you’ll get the idea. Be listening for this one on your favorite bluegrass radio station later this week!

I Call It Gone is from the upcoming second album from Melonie Cannon, And The Wheels Turn. The album was co-produced by Ronnie Bowman and Buddy Cannon and features a very impressive line up of musicians. The CD is scheduled for release in early October.

Cindy Mae is an uptempo bluegrass number in the tradition of brother duets such as the Stanley Brothers. The Crowe Brothers (Josh and Wayne) deliver on this one. This track is from a newly recorded CD, Brothers-N-Harmony, scheduled for release in late September of 2008. The song was written by Cody Shuler of Pine Mountain Railroad. Anyone who likes good traditional brother harmony style bluegrass will want to have this CD I’m sure.

The other two tracsk are The Road From Rosine and Fox Run The Henhouse. Fox Run The Henhouse is from the previously released Tim Hensley CD, Long Monday. The Road From Rosine is an instrumental written by Jim VanCleve and debuted at the 2007 IBMA Award Show.

Radio DJs should be on the lookout for this CD, and fans of good bluegrass should be listening for these tracks.

Here’s the live video of LRB performing Them Blues. Enjoy!

Rural Rhythm Records is committed to tradition and progress simultaneously. In an effort to promote all the good bluegrass recordings they are putting out these days, the label has just started their own Bluegrass Radio service. They are calling it Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks.

If you’re a radio DJ, you may have already received a copy of Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks. This CD is a special promotional radio disc including seven new singles from current and upcoming Rural Rhythm releases. The tracks are from these artists: Mountain Heart, Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain, Mashville Brigade, Dwight McCall, Randy Kohrs, Rickey Wasson, and Cody Shuler & Pine Mountain Railroad.

I’m told another disc is underway and scheduled for a mid-July shipment.

If you didn’t receive a copy for your show, visit the Fresh Cuts & Key Tracks web page to see what it’s all about. DJs who did not receive a copy should contact them and request to be added to their radio list.

Fans, keep an ear tuned to your favorite bluegrass radio show and check out the new tracks. We’ve already told you about some of these records, and we’ll be bringing you news of the others as soon as we have it!

Yesterday (3/22) saw the release of Bluegrass Smash Hits Volume 1 from The Mashville Brigade.

Most every Tuesday evening the guys perform at the Station Inn there in Nashville, TN. Last night was no different, except that the usual performance doubled as a CD release party.

The first single release from the CD is their remake of the Flatt & Scruggs classic, Take This Hammer. In coordination with this release we’re hosting a fun promotion here on The Bluegrass Blog. For the next ten days, all registered readers will be able to enter our Take This Hammer promotional drawing. One lucky reader will win an autographed copy of the new CD, plus their very own personally signed claw hammer! (see photo) Nine other winners will also get a signed CD.

Courtesy of Rural Rhythm Records, everyone who enters the contest will also be able to download a free, MP3 copy of Take This Hammer from the new CD.

There is no cost to enter and the contest is be open to all registered users on The Bluegrass Blog. The guys do ask that the winner use the hammer responsibly!

UPDATE 5/2: This contest is now closed - winners to be announced shortly.

The Mashville Brigade may not be that familiar a name to most festival going bluegrass fans, but the individual members of the band should be. The Brigade is comprised of: Aaron McDaris (The Grascals) on banjo and harmony vocals; Darrell Webb (Rhonda Vincent & The Rage) on guitar and lead vocals; Ashby Frank (Special Consensus) lead vocals and mandolin; Jim VanCleve (Mountain Heart) on fiddle; and Randy Barnes (NewFound Road) on bass.

The Brigade is today’s modern version of the Sidemen. Started a year or so ago as a fun midweek gig at The Station Inn in Nashville, The Mashville Brigade releases it’s first CD on April 22, 2008. The CD is produced by the band’s own Jim VanCleve, and contains 16 tracks, all of them standard bluegrass hits. Bearing the title Bluegrass Smash Hits, Volume 1, this disc is the first in a new series of releases planned by Rural Rhythm Records.

Ashby Frank commented on the genesis of the group.

I’ve gotten to pick with these guys at various festivals and in the halls and rooms of events like IBMA, SPBMGA, and the Galax Fiddlers Convention for years. Since we both grew up in North Carolina, I’ve known Jim for the longest, actually before I even really got into Bluegrass. The first time I ever played on a Bluegrass Festival stage was with Jim in Denton, NC. I think we put together a band with my sister and opened up the festival on a Tuesday or Wednesday night.

Randy, Darrell, Jim, Aaron and myself have performed with each other as a part of quite a few different collaborations, through fill-in work or special events like the MACC Festival in Columbus, OH. Once all of us had moved to Nashville, we talked about getting something together to play around town and maybe a festival or two. It took us a few years to get together, but it’s finally worked out, and it’s a whole lot of fun.

The band started basically as a new version of the Sidemen, the infamous group that used to perform every Tuesday night at the Station Inn. The Mashville Brigade started filling that same time slot and as Jim VanCleve tells it, one thing just led to another.

The Mashville Brigade has really grown into something much larger than we ever could have anticipated from when we first began playing at the Station Inn a little over a year ago. It all basically started as an outlet for us to have some fun while playing the music we all grew up on. But since the bluegrass culture around Nashville is really a pretty tight-knit bunch of friends, we suddenly had a good sized audience each Tuesday night, full of friends and family, in a room that is known for bringing out the best in people. This comfortable atmosphere really allowed the music to grow and take on it’s own unique personality. It was really starting to blow up, and the crowds just kept getting better each week. So, after some time, we started thinking, “this band really needs to record something”! Now, after listening back to the masters of the Mashville Brigade’s first album, I can honestly say that we are all very happy with what we were able to do!

The CD was recorded in a rather unique manner for the age we live in. The guys met at the Station Inn, their primary creative outlet, during the daylight hours and tracked the entire thing in under 8 hours with no overdubs. (more…)

Here’s a new CD release from Rural Rhythm that we missed recently. Tim Hensley is a seasoned veteran of both the bluegrass and country music genres. Hensley has toured as a side man for Ricky Skaggs, Patty Loveless, and Kenny Chesney. Now he’s stepping into the spotlight with his first ever solo recording, Long Monday.

A multi-instrumentalist, Hensley has previously played both mandolin and guitar with the stars he’s toured with. He’s also contributed backing vocals to many of their well known songs. On Long Monday that vocal arrangement is reversed. Hensley is still playing guitar and mandolin, but this time he’s singing lead, with background vocals coming from Ronnie Bowman, Melonie Cannon, Vince Gill, Sonya Isaacs, Patty Loveless, and more.

The CD is produced by Country Music super-star Kenny Chesney, with whom Hensley has been performing for six years.

Tim gets up there every night and rocks with us, but it’s after the shows, walking back to the bus that you can hear his voice in the halls, singing what he truly loves. You hear enough of someone singing something that really matters to them, well, you wanna help them realize their music, too. That’s how it felt with Tim and the bluegrass stuff…It was letting the world get to hear something we’ve been lucky enough to get to hear almost every night for the last five or six years.

Chesney brought in ACM Song of the Year writer Buddy Cannon to co-produce the project.

Hensley traces his musical roots back to his days singing in church with his family and then Southern Gospel bands, before moving into bluegrass and commercial country territory. The CD reflects his musical journey. Many of the songs have a more contemplative feel that is typical on a bluegrass album. Don’t worry, there’s some hard driving bluegrass present as well though. It takes the form of tunes like Fox Run The Henhouse and Shady Grove.

Joining Hensley instrumentally are such bluegrass luminaries as Rob Ickes, Aubrey Haynie, Wyatt Rice, Tim Stafford, Adam Steffey, and Dave Talbot.

The songs come from all directions on this CD, some are traditional tunes that you’ve heard before, arranged afresh by Hensley and Chesney. Others are written by bluegrass songwriters such as Tim Stafford, Shawn Camp, Larry Cordle, and Ronnie Bowman. Also present are tunes from the pens of John Prine and Rodney Crowell. Hensley wrote one of the tunes himself.

If you like a smoother sounding bluegrass, this CD is the one for you. The press release accompanying the CD sums it up quite well.

Blending the various genres he has passed through - Southern Gospel, bluegrass, singer/songwriter, mountain soul and strait-up the middle country, Long Monday is a survey course in much of what’s great about organic American music.

Make no mistake, this is not a country album. It’s just not a banjo-centered bluegrass record. While it contains its share of fiery banjo picking, it tends to center more around the sound of the acoustic guitar as played by Hensley, Stafford, and Rice. And that’s not a bad thing!

Audio samples are available on Tim’s website.

As John mentioned just a few minutes ago, we attended the Mountain Heart showcase earlier this evening in the Rural Rhythm suite and they were every bit as good as I expected them to be.

John snapped a few photos of the band during the show, and with the band’s permission I shot a few minutes of video footage. As a disclaimer let me state that I edited this video while watching the Grasstowne showcase this evening. IBMA, there’s no place like it!

Anyway, here’s a short 4 minute video that should give you a glimpse of the Mountain Heart show this evening.

Mountain Heart fiddler Jim VanCleve was recently honored by the Indie Acoustic Project when his solo album, No Apologies, was awarded Album of the Year in the Roots Music Category. No Apologies is on the Rural Rhythm Records label.

Here’s the mission statement of Indie Acoustic Project:

The purpose of the Indie Acoustic Project awards is to generate increased awareness of indie artists and record companies by promoting and recognizing outstanding works of innovative, independently produced acoustic music from around the world, and to provide a means of helping the artists to reach a wider audience.

Jim commented on receiving this award.

It is a such a huge honor to see No Apologies receive the kind of accolades it has. For it to be named Album of the Year out of all the great music released in the Roots genre this year, is just amazing!

Other artists of interest winning awards this year were Sean Watkins and David Grisman.

Rural Rhythm Records has just announced the signing of a digital distribution agreement with existing physical distributor RYKO. RYKO has been handling physical “brick & mortar” distribution for Rural Rhythm for over ten years.

Our goal is to provide our artists and catalog the most comprehensive availability to the consumer which includes these very important channels of distribution. We are very excited to be able to offer our catalog for digital download on I-Tunes, Rhapsody, Walmart.com and many others. ~Sam Passamano, President - Rural Rhythm

Rural Rhythm plans to launch with just four titles available via these new delivery avenues. The titles are Mountain Tradition (Clay Jones), Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain, No Apologies (Jim VanCleve), and the soon to be released Old Photograph (Randy Kohrs).

Randy Kohrs shared his excitment at having his music available digitally.

I’m excited to see Rural Rhythm join the digital download world and further promote bluegrass music to new audiences, as much of the younger generations rely solely on it to buy their music.  Hopefully, it will help discourage illegal downloading and copying, as well.

All future releases, including the April release of Dwight McCall’s new CD will be distributed according to this new agreement. Over the next six months, the label plans to begin adding older titles from their catalog as well.

I think this is a great step into the future of the music industry for this label. Let’s hope more bluegrass labels follow suit.

Rural Rhythm Records announced on Friday that they have signed Dwight McCall to their label, and will release his next project, Never Say Never Again, in April of 2007. A single track from this CD, Blue Eyed Boston Boy, will be released on Prime Cuts Of Bluegrass, Vol. 86 in mid-March.

Dwight has spent the past ten years as a member of J.D. Crowe & The New South, playing mandolin and singing tenor, and appearing on both the Come On Down To My World and Lefty’s Old Guitar projects with Crowe.

Never Say Never Again includes a number of Dwight’s original songs, plus ones from Brink Brinkman, Jon Weisberger, Wayne Winkle and Craig Market. Assisting Dwight on the recording were Alan Bibey, Steve Gulley, Lou Reid, Rickey Wasson, Ron Stewart, Harold Nixon, Randy Kohrs, Brian Stephens and Missy Werner.

McCall’s father, Jim McCall, was also a Rural Rhythm artist, recording three albums for the label with Earl Taylor & Jim McCall with The Stoney Mountain Boys. Rural Rhythm President Sam Passamano commented on the multi-Generational connection.

“Dwight is a perfect fit for Rural Rhythm bridging our rich past history, Earl Taylor & Jim McCall, with our present. He delivers a fresh contemporary new tradition bluegrass sound as a new generation artist that appeals to all ages.”

There are audio samples for each track on Dwight’s web site.

Noted dobroist and vocalist Randy Kohrs has just signed a multi-project deal with Rural Rhythm Records.

The first release in this new collaboration will be Old Photograph, Randy’s fourth solo effort, due in the Spring of 2007. A single, Rockwell’s Gold, will be released in January on the next Prime Cuts Of Bluegrass (Volume 85).

Randy is especially excited about the new CD, as he will be listed as author or co-author on nine of the twelve tracks. Guest artists include Scott Vestal, Tim Crouch, Jim Hurst, Stephen Mougin - and a duet with Rhonda Vincent - along with contributions from his band, The Lites.

Sammy Passamano with Rural Rhythm tells us that they have been talking with Randy for several months about bringing him into the family of artists, and are delighted that things have worked out so quickly.

Randy’s last CD, I’m Torn, saw significant chart action in 2004 on the Bluegrass Unlimited National Bluegrass Survey, on both the album and single charts.

We’ll keep an eye out for Old Photograph audio samples online, and will update when we find them.

Carrie Hassler has plenty to celebrate these days. The debut CD with her band, Hard Rain, is being produced by Mountain Heart’s Jim VanCleve, and the first single, Seven Miles From Wichita, is being distributed to radio via Prime Cuts Of Bluegrass. She has signed with Rural Rhythm Records who will release the self-titled project on September 26.

We don’t have a lot more information about Carrie or her band, but she does have several audio samples up on her web site. These are full downloads, but not of the finished track that will appear on the CD when it is released.

Her band is made up of Josh Miller on banjo, Kevin McKinnon on mandolin, Keith McKinnon on guitar, Josh Swift on resophonic guitar and Travis Anderson on bass. They are all featured on the new CD, along with guest artists (and Rural Rhythm labelmates) Jim VanCleve and Clay Jones, as well as Adam Steffey and Darrin Vincent.

Mountain Heart’s celebrated young fiddler, Jim Van Cleve, steps out today with his first solo release. No Apologies is the title of his debut project on the Rural Rhythm label, where he showcases his well-established prowess as a fiddle man, but also his skills as a vocalist, producer and songwriter. Jim has invited the other members of Mountain Heart to participate, and Adam Steffey, Jason Moore, Barry Abernathy, Clay Jones and Steve Gulley are all featured, along with Ron Stewart, Rob Ickes, Bryan Sutton, Ronnie Bowman and Sonya Isaacs.

The CD should be available today in stores and from online resellers. There were no audio samples on the Rural Rhythm web site, but we did find a few on Jim’s MySpace page.

Jim shared some thoughts with us recently about how differently he reacted during the process of recording and releasing this project as a solo artist, as opposed to a member of Mountain Heart, or as a sideman on another artist’s session.

“In cutting No Apologies there were several major differences that became obvious to me as we were recording. First, I noticed that I was being INTENSELY more picky than I normally am. In doing a lot of studio work, you begin to learn what you sound like, kind of what your ‘thing’ is, and along with that, you learn when your performance is good and/or just ‘good enough.’

I noticed at about day three of cutting this record, that ‘good enough’ wasn’t good enough anymore. I realized that I was being VERY exacting in getting what I wanted from everybody that was playing or working on the record…from myself, from the engineer, from the label, even from the art director! I probably drove everybody crazy. I about drove myself crazy! I just became extremely driven to make the best project I knew how, from every angle. And that was mostly due to my name being on the front of the album when I was done…I would be solely responsible for the finished product…no group to disappear into or hide behind as you can kind of do with a band situation like Mountain Heart. A lot of times with Mountain Heart, we have an outside producer, and a lot of the things that I had to be on top of with No Apologies, I don’t really have to deal with on a Mountain Heart recording. So basically, I was realizing that as a producer, I was really doing a lot of work just trying to get the BEST performance from everybody I was paying to work on this record! In a lot of ways, the music was the easiest part…mostly because that’s the part I enjoy the most.”

We also wondered what it might be like to step out front as a singer after having been associated as a member of such an acclaimed vocal group as an instrumentalist.

“I have been taking notes, criticism and instruction for several years now from some of the finest singers in our industry with Mountain Heart. So it was actually pretty cool to get to finally do that myself some too. I let them (Barry Abernathy and Steve Gulley) tell me what they thought of it after the fact, and they were all really supportive… it seemed like they were almost proud in a way, actually. It’s fun to do, and I’m glad I finally got that monkey off my back!”

Jim will celebrate the CD’s release with a special performance tonight at The Station Inn in Nashville. There will be food and drink, and CD signing, followed by a performance from Mountain Heart. The release party begins at 5:30, with music from No Apologies being performed around 6:30. Mountain Heart goes on at 9:00, and separate tickets are required for their show.

We are hoping to have some photos from the party and show which we can post on The Bluegrass Blog tomorrow.