Click on the Episode #2 link in the player.

Soon after, Haden was performing on the Grand Ole Opry. On November 17, 2009 he’s going to be putting on a very special concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A. Presented by the LA Philharmonic, Haden will be performing with his family, including son-in-law funny man Jack Black, and some powerhouse bluegrass guests.

Dan Tyminski, Sam Bush, and Jerry Douglas will be joining the Haden clan for this show. It sound like a fun show.

Visit the LA Phil website for more information and ticketing info.

Here is the first installment, with Sam and the boys laying out a live version of the title track, along with some interview segments with Bush. Scott Vestal is on banjo, Stephen Mougin on guitar, Byron House on bass and Chris Brown on drums.

Sugar Hill also sent some photos from Sam’s album release party in Nashville on October 20. It was a star-studded affair, held at the Sound Emporium, which not only marked the street debut of Circles Around Me, but Sam and Lynn Bush’ 25th wedding anniversary as well.

Donica Christensen at Sugar Hill tells us that it was a fun-filled evening…

“The event was ‘invitation only’ and the guests included press and industry contacts, fellow musicians, and close personal friends of Sam and Lynn.  Sam’s record was played throughout the evening, and since it was also an anniversary party – we had a mic set up for toasts.  There were some great ones, including Garth Fundis, Dan Hays, Jerry Douglas, Rob McCoury, Guthrie Trapp, Jeff Hanna, and more.”

UPDATE 12:55 p.m. – Sam Bush has offered Bluegrass Blog readers a free download from his web site. Just go to sambush.com, and enter ‘bluegrassblog’ on the home page for a free download of Midnight on the Stormy Deep from Circles Around Me.

He’ll be on the second episode of Music City Roots, a new live concert venture broadcast each Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. (CDT) from The Loveless Barn, just outside of Nashville. Eddie Stubbs and Jim Lauderdale co-host, with live artist interviews conducted by Craig Havighurst each week.

Mike Farris and Miss Tess and The Bon Ton Parade will also be on tonight’s show. It will air from 7:00-9:00 p.m. on WSM AM-650 in the Nashville market, and online via live streaming.

The series launched last week with a performance from Emmylou Harris, and many of the upcoming episodes will feature bluegrass or grassy artists.

• 11/4 – Josh Williams and John Cowan
• 11/25 – John Cowan
• 12/2 – Dale Ann Bradley
• 12/9 – Donna Ulisse and Emmit-Nershi Band
• 12/16 – Cherryholmes, Mountain Heart and Nashville Mandolin Ensemble

WSM is also recording the shows and will make them available on their web site for on demand streaming.

Catch Sam tonight at 7:00, or check out samples from Circles Around Me at sambush.com.

Stephen and Jana are both musicians, with Stephen currently working as guitarist with Sam Bush, and as a free lance producer and session player.

Jana was the bass player and lead singer for Fragment, a very popular group from the Slovak Republic.

We visited with them during IBMA in late September, where Jana was clearly ready for the baby to come. Stephen sent along a few photos, along with a brief status report…

“We’re up to our eyeballs in baby stuff here at the hospital! Things are well, baby is rockin’, momma is rockin’!”

Congratulations to Stephen and Jana from The Bluegrass Blog!

Our good friend Doug McKelway conducted the interview. He and Sam spoke at length about Sam’s new CD, Circles Around Me. The CD is due to be released on October 20, on Sugar Hill Records. They also spoke about the digital age of music, recording a duet with Del McCoury, Sam’s place in the mandolin world, and more.

Thanks to Donica and all the folks at Sugar Hill Records for making this interview possible.

The interview lasted close to 15 minutes, and we’re bringing it to you in full. Enjoy…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our good friend Doug McKelway conducted the interview. He and Sam spoke at length about Sam’s new CD, Circles Around Me. The CD is due to be released on October 20, on Sugar Hill Records. They also spoke about the digital age of music, recording a duet with Del McCoury, Sam’s place in the mandolin world, and more.

Thanks to Donica and all the folks at Sugar Hill Records for making this interview possible.

The interview lasted close to 15 minutes, and we’re bringing it to you in full. Enjoy…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our Thursday started with a Sam Bush interview, conducted by Doug McKelway. Sam talked about his new CD, Circles Around Me, due for an October 20 release on Sugar Hill. That interview will be posted in the next few days.

From there we shot for the elevator to make it in time for an interview with Katy Daley at WAMU’s Bluegrass Country. This time, it was Brance and I – and Doug McElway – who were being interviewed, and we had a lovely chat with Katy about that night’s upcoming awards celebrations. The four of us were conspiring for the Awards Show Red Carpet coverage, which was scheduled just a few hours later.

We all hustled down to the ballroom to set up before Thursday’s pre-awards show reception, where we set up our little Red Carpet, with cameras and lights. Katy and Doug, both arrayed in their finest formal duds, spoke to the bluegrass glitterati as they passed along media row. Most of the nominees for the IBMA awards stopped to speak with us, and many a memorable exchange took place.

Some were funny, some more serious, and everyone was in a celebratory mood. Interviews with Doyle Lawson, Dale Ann Bradley, Sammy Shelor, the McCoury family, Dailey & Vincent and many, many more will be included when we start posting these videos over the next few days.

Thursday’s big event, of course, is the awards show, and this one was perhaps the best ever. Producers Cindy Baucom and Chris Stuart did a fine job choosing performers, mixing new and established acts, traditional and modern bands, and it moved along at a very comfortable pace.

Some of the jokes were worse than corny, though. You know what they say about the theater…  “Dying is easy – comedy is hard.” Maybe the best plan is to let the musicians do music, and save the comedy for pros in that realm?

The music was the main attraction, though, and boy was it good. Lonesome River Band, Dale Ann Bradley, Hot Rize (with Kathy Mattea), Del McCoury Band, Dan Tyminski Band…  Each came on stronger than the next, though it seems safe to suggest that Dailey & Vincent stole the show with their pitch-perfect, a capella performance of Don’t You Want To Go To Heaven When You Die.

The induction of The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers was a highlight, with surviving members Bobby Osborne, Paul Williams and Melvin Goins taking the stage to share some memories, and later laying down a powerful version of Pain In My Heart, a Goins composition.

It has been suggested that The Dillards may have set a new record for acceptance speeches, besting even Jimmy Martin’s time, though I haven’t seen an official count. They were also inducted into the Hall Of Fame, and each of the original members (Rodney Dillard, Doug Dillard, Mitch Jayne and Dean Webb) spoke at the microphone, with Jayne reading a heartfelt message from Andt Griffith who congratulated “the boys” for their honor.

It was a delightful moment, and a fitting way to start the home stretch of the show, which was once again a sellout at the Ryman Auditorium.

You can read our play-by-play of the show as it went down live in our live blog presentation, and see a good many photos in a pair of galleries (here and here).

It was quite a night, one that made us all proud of bluegrass music.

Sam Bush is giving away a pair of tickets to the show, held this Saturday (9/12) in Nashville. If you’ll be in town, enter online to grab a pair of seats – plus two for a future Nashville Symphony concert.

Sam has also released two more videos in his Ask Sam Anything series, where he responds to fan-submitted questions. First up is his answer to “What made you want to play music?”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The show will feature noted bluegrass and folk performers with the symphony, and was programmed as a tribute to the Americana Music Association’s convention next week, and the IBMA World of Bluegrass Convention at the end of the month, both held in Nashville.

Sam Bush, Alison Brown, Jerry Douglas and Abigail Washburn are among the list of guest artists for Classical Americana, and Craig Havighurst has put together a video that explains the motivation behind this unique musical collaboration.

You can find out more about this concert by visiting The Nashville Symphony online.

Entitled, Good’le Days: Essential Recordings, the new CD is part of Rounder’s budget-minded Perfect 10 Series, each of which includes ten tracks from an important Rounder artist. They show the selling price online as $7.99.

How would you like to pick just ten tracks to represent the music of such a legend? Well, here’s what Ken Irwin and Marian Levy came up with…

• Skippin’ in the Mississippi Dew
  
• Gum Tree Canoe
  
• Gentle on My Mind
  
• Lorena
  
• In Tall Buildings
  
• The Vamp from Back in the Goddle Days
  
• Wrong Road Again
• Good Old Electric Washing Machine — circa 1943
  
• Take Me Back to My Mississippi River Home
  
• Old Time River Man

The tracks were taken from recordings Hartford did for the Flying Fish label between 1976 and 1989. They include featured performances from guest artists and frequent Hartford collaborators Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Mark O’Conner, Roy Huskey Jr., Benny Martin, Norman Blake, Vassar Clements and Tut Taylor.

The Nashville Symphony will be doing a special show on Saturday, September 12, which they are billing as their inaugural Classical Americana concert at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. The theme for this show is an exploration of the links between classical and roots music.

A number of bluegrass and old time artists will be featured performers – Alison Brown, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Byron House, and Abigail Washburn among them. They will join the Nashville Symphony, led by Resident Conductor Albert-George Schram, on a program of American music including Gospel, blues and folk melodies plus works from George Gershwin and Aaron Copland.

Full details and ticket information can be found on the Nashville Symphony web site.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sam had told us that it was one that his bluegrass and newgrass fans would really appreciate, and he wasn’t kidding. Other than the subtle percussion from Sam’s regular drummer, Chris Brown, this is pretty much a bluegrass record – and Bush has quite a bluegrass group lurking underneath his rock-edged road band.

Through all 14+ tracks, Scott Vestal shows why he has been held in such high regard by banjo players these many years, initially as a hard-driving Scruggs/Baucom/Crowe picker with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, and later as an envelope-pusher with his own recordings. On Circles his playing is simply brilliant, as is Stephen Mougin’s tasteful acoustic guitar. Byron House has been a bass player’s, bass player for years, and he delivers solid timing with a huge tone – as always.

Sam is in fine voice, and the production is transparent, leaving the sound of the acoustic instruments to ring true with very little compression or effects. He is featured most prominently on mandolin, and Del McCoury even joins in for a couple of duets. Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer also appear as guests. Courtney Johnson even makes a posthumous appearance in a banjo/fiddle duet recorded in 1976.

We hope to be able to stream some audio from this terrific CD soon, but in the meantime, here’s Sam with a few words about when you can get your own copy…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wichita tells me they are going to have a good time with this. Sam will have his mandolin in the studio with him as they host the show. It seems Wichita has issued a challenge to Sam concerning TV theme songs. Wichita has bet $20 that Sam won’t be able to play more than three TV show theme songs off the cuff with Wichita calling them out as they go. I love ya Wichita but I think my money may be on Sam for this one!

They also have plans to discuss the history of Bluegrass, and specifically the era of the 60’s and 70’s. They’ll also discuss the viability of Satellite Radio and the similarities between the situation now and the old days of terrestrial radio when Bluegrass was just getting started.

Another topic of discussion with the recently proposed “More Bluegrass Law” and its import for the citizens of The City of Bluegrass.

Sam will be hosting a contest as well. It’s a “Sound Like Wichita” contest with the winner receiving a guitar shaped commode seat with Wichita’s picture on it! Details here.

Each episode of The Grand Old Time Machine airs Fridays at 9pm Eastern and Saturday night at 12, then the following Tuesday at 3PM Eastern. So tune in tonight to hear Sam co-hosting with Wichita. It should be a good show!

In an interview we did with Sam back in April, he let on that this new project would mark a return to the sort of bluegrass/newgrass vibe on which he has built his career. Great news for his legion of fans from that side of the tracks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Primarily known for his work on fiddle and mandolin, Bush has earned many awards through the years since he had his first mandolin at the age of 11. These include 3 first place prizes in the junior division of the National Oldtime Fiddler’s Contest in Weiser, Idaho. He was one of, if not the, leading light in the progressive bluegrass movement, being a member of both the Bluegrass Alliance and New Grass Revival, a group that he co-founded in 1971.

For two years Newgrass Revival toured with Leon Russell. Bush recorded a seminal album with Strength In Numbers, playing with Bela Fleck, Mark O’Connor, Jerry Douglas and Edgar Meyer. When the New Grass Revival disbanded in 1989, Bush joined Emmylou Harris’ band the Nash Ramblers, with whom he stayed for five years.

Sam has collaborated with many prominent names, playing in a wide range of styles with the likes of Doc Watson, Linda Ronstandt, Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Dolly Parton, Ann Savoy and Tony Rice.

He has several solo albums, most of which were released on the Sugar Hill label.

The Sam Bush Band are regulars at Merlefest, Rockygrass and the Telluride Bluegrass Festivals as well as other large festivals throughout the US. His new album, Circles Around Me, will be released October 20, also on Sugar Hill Records.

In 2007, he won the IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year, as he had previously in 1990, 1991 and 1992. He had also been chosen as “Best Mandolin Player” for four consecutive years (1986, 1987, 1988, 1989) in the Frets Magazine Reader’s Poll when they were still in publication.

This Americana award is well-merited.

It is a set of ten songs and tunes featuring Bryan in the studio with many of the artists with whom he has performed in recent years. Punch Brothers make an appearance (sans regular guitarist Chris Eldridge) along with Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, Hot Rize, Stuart Duncan, Jerry Douglas and several other notables. The intention was to capture the music live in the studio, with minimal overdubs or tweaking.

The CD’s vibe is nicely captured by Nate Chinen in a mini-review in the New York Times’ Playlist column on July 8:

The contemporary bluegrass style upheld by the flat-pick guitarist Bryan Sutton has a lot to do with high-polish whimsicality. There’s no room for raggedness on his crisp new album, “Almost Live” (Sugar Hill), but as the title suggests, looseness is a priority.

You should be able to find Almost Live for sale wherever you like to purchase bluegrass CDs, or in iTunes where you can hear audio samples as well.

It looks like this one may do well, as it is the #1 selling bluegrass CD at Amazon.com today.

Doyle Lawson and Sam Bush are both posting YouTube videos with answers to submitted questions. Here’s Sam’s latest, where he answers a query about how he approaches a jam situation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

First up is a sneak peek at the recording of his upcoming Sugar Hill CD, which he has told us will be much more of an acoustic project than his last few albums. He won’t be playing any electrified instruments himself, and predicts that his many fans in the bluegrass world will find much to like in this one, Circles Around Me, due on October 20.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.