Casey Henry has agreed to send us occasional updates from The American Revival Tour, where she is performing with Dixie Bee-Liners. Also on the tour are Sierra Hull & Highway 111 and headliners Uncle Earl.

Here is Casey’s report.

The arrival of November saw The Dixie Bee-Liners, Uncle Earl, and Sierra Hull and Highway 111 burning up the roads of the southeast in the first week of our much anticipated tour – American Revival: Celebrating the New Stars of American Roots Music.

When three bands of young-ish people get to travel together for four weeks, hi jinx will ensue. We have a long-running tour game involving sausage, but I’ll leave that for another time. Our most fun show, by far, was Halloween at the American Theater in Hampton, VA. Buddy Woodward, Bee-Liner mandolin player, is great at zombie makeup and we took full advantage of his talents. He also helped out Sierra’s band, giving fiddler Christian Ward a slash across the face, bassist Jacob Eller a bullet hole in the head, and transforming guitarist Clay Hess into a very convincing wolf-man. Ron Block went as Ron Howard—no makeup needed! Uncle Earl was four bad witches and one good witch.

Punch Brothers Chris “Critter” Eldridge and Noam Pikelny came for the night’s show. Critter dressed as a Christmas party guest, complete with battery-powered lights. Noam borrowed a spare witch hat and grey wig from Uncle Earl. They joined the Earl girls on stage to sing Happy Birthday to their fiddler, Stephanie “Pumpkin” Coleman, who turned 24.

Our post-show Halloween celebration took place at a little martini bar down the street—Six—where we had tapas and cocktails and played with the motorized witch hat KC Groves had found at the grocery store. It played Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead, and wagged its bell-adorned, pointed tip merrily back and forth.

Monday night we played at the Birchmere in Alexandria, a legendary bluegrass venue. For most of the Bee-Liners it was the first time we’d played there and we were honored to get to take the stage where the Seldom Scene ruled for so long. I actually had my fifteenth birthday party at the Birchmere. My parents took me and a group of my friends to see the Johnson Mountain Boys play. My friend Nancy Peterson, who came to the show last night, was at that party. She said it was like coming full circle, getting to see me play on that same stage.

Today is a travel day—more than 500 miles down to South Carolina. The Bee-Liners are stopping by WAMU this morning to play a little in-studio music and then hitting the road.

For more pictures and anecdotes, see Sierra Hull’s blog. I feel this must be the most-blogged-about bluegrass tour ever!

Another bluegrass/old time package tour starts this week, combining three national touring acts with a female focus.

Billed as The American Revival Tour - Celebrating The New Stars Of American Roots Music, this road show will include 19 shows in 25 days, each with performances from Dixie Bee-Liners, Sierra Hull & Highway 111, and Uncle Earl.

The tour starts in Raleigh, NC on October 29 and wanders through NC, VA, SC and GA until the second week on November, when they head down to Louisiana and Texas. After a swing through the middle of the country, the road show concludes in Pittsburgh on November 22.

All three bands are female fronted – at minimum. Uncle Earl is comprised of five talented women, Dixie Bee-Liners is half-and-half, and Sierra Hull manages a quartet of fellas in her band.

We asked Tobias Tumarkin, who is producing this tour for Columbia Artists Management, whether they had planned to make this a spotlight for the ladies from the start.

“We didn’t plan for it to work out that way, but when it looked like that was the way it was headed, we liked it, and even considered making a reference to that in the title before deciding to go with American Revival.

What we wanted was to find groups that were up and coming and whom we felt would do a great job in appealing to theatre crowds who are often different than fans that you would usually find at Bluegrass Festivals. We wanted to expand the audiences of the band and introduce great new bands to audiences that might not already know these groups.

In coming up with the specific bands we worked closely with Michael Jaworek of the Birchmere. Michael has a vast knowledge of bands from all over the country and acted as an advisor and helped us reach out to make contact with the bands we wanted to work with.”

Uncle Earl will be headlining the show, and KC Groves, who plays guitar, mandolin and bass with the group, is raring to go.

“We’ve so excited be a part of this series and hope that we can, by playing to some new audiences, spread the joy that we know bluegrass and old time music can bring.” (more…)

Here is a gallery of photos from last night’s (9/29) IBMA festivities.

We are very fortunate this year to have Dean Hoffmeyer shooting for us during World Of Bluegrass. He is a Pulitzer-nominated photographer with The Richmond Times Dispatch, and his work speaks for itself. Dean’s work also graces a number of recent bluegrass CD covers, including the recent Grasstowne and Jason Davis projects.

Dean will be providing photos over the next few days, including Thursday night’s Awards Show. He will posting them as soon as he shoots, so we’ll have galleries going up during the show, while Brance and I are posting the winners in real time here on The Bluegrass Blog.

Young mandolin prodigy Sierra Hull has started classes at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but is still touring with her band, Highway 111. She is adapting to having to fly to make the dates, but mixing school work and band work is something she has been doing for the past two years.

They have a show tonight near the Tennessee/Kentucky border, and will be stopping off at The Square Room in Knoxville at noon for a live broadcast on WDVX’s Blue Plate Special. You can listen over the air at 102.9, or via live streaming from WDVX.com.

Sierra also shared a few words about her move to Boston and studying at Berklee.

“So far, Boston has been treating me great! I just had my first week of classes at Berklee and really enjoyed them. I’m starting to know my way around pretty well now and have met so many really talented musicians already. It’s really neat to be in an environment that is totally merged in music, and I really feel like I’m going to learn a lot there. The faculty and staff have been so good to me, and I really feel supported here in regards to keeping a busy tour schedule, which makes me very happy!

I’ve been up there for almost two weeks now, and this is my second weekend out gigging since being there. Last weekend we were in North Carolina and New Jersey. One thing I quickly realized is that I shouldn’t be afraid of being exposed to so many different types of music. Part of me sometimes worries that being around so many things can really have an effect on what you think you love or what your dreams truly are. It was a cool experience for me to leave Berklee after being there for a week surrounded by so many diverse styles of music and go to a bluegrass festival. Upon pulling unto the festival grounds and hearing a band on stage in the background it was like I became so excited and just full of contentment. It was nice to get that special feeling of… this is what I love and who I am, and I’m happy to be that.

We are in Tennessee this weekend, which is wonderful. That’s the fun thing about being able to still tour some… I’m lucky enough to be home more often. We will be playing in Knoxville early on Friday for WDVX’s Blue Plate Special. Then we’ll be at the Wings Over Big South Fork air show in Oneida, TN later that night, and then Saturday brings us to my hometown – Byrdstown, TN – for the Sierra Hull Festival that they put on every year. It’ll be great to go home and see all my friends and family!! It’s been a busy summer, so I’m looking forward to that.”

Del Rey and Will Hoge will also appear on today’s Blue Plate Special.