Cindy Baucom sent in a couple photos from the past weekend at the North Carolina Banjo Clinic in Burnsville, NC.

The event was hosted by Rod Johnston of Village Productions. Instructors included Tom Adams, Graham Sharpe, Mike Scott and Terry Baucom. Banjo students from across the country participated in the two-day event. Instruction was given for players at all levels from novice to advanced as the instructors rotated hourly throughout the classrooms. The Steep Canyon Rangers wrapped up the event with a performance Saturday evening at the Burnsville Town Center.

Following the success of this clinic, Johnston already has plans for other banjo clinics in the future, with possible expansion to other instruments as well.

On Sunday, November 2, 2008, the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky, unveiled a brand new Curly Seckler exhibit.

The exhibit, which will remain up for one year, includes photos, posters and LPs from Seckler’s 70 plus years in bluegrass music, as well as a guitar case, stage clothes and a hat.

After the unveiling ceremony, Seckler, accompanied by his friends Willis Spears and Larry Perkins, sang for the museum board members, trustees and other VIPs, Other featured performers included Dewey Murphy, Gloria Belle, Fletcher Bright and Ronnie Reno.

Prior to that, on October 8, Seckler went along to the WSM radio studio where he was a live guest of Eddie Stubbs during the latter’s evening show.

Two days later he joined with the Steep Canyon Rangers for a show at the Station Inn in Nashville.

On October 24, Curly was in Durham, North Carolina, to tape The State of Things for WUNC radio. He chatted with host Frank Stasio about his career and performed several songs backed by the Steep Canyon Rangers.

The State of Things is broadcast on weekdays from 12:00 noon to 1:00pm Eastern time on WUNC. The program featuring Curly Seckler is tentatively scheduled to be transmitted in December. Watch for details soon or check the WUNC web site.

During the following day Seckler visited Crewe, Virginia, for a live interview and performance on WSVS radio. This station was the home base for Curly Seckler in 1954, while he was with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs. In addition to doing daily programs on WSVS and weekly appearances on WRVA’s Old Dominion Barn Dance in Richmond, Virginia, the Foggy Mountain Boys taped all of their Martha White radio programs at WSVS and sent them back to WSM to be broadcast. At that time, WSVS radio’s most popular DJ was Little Jody Rainwater, who had worked with Seckler in the Foggy Mountain Boys in 1950. Rainwater joined Seckler for the interview, thus the duo were reunited in the WSVS studios for the first time in 54 years. (WSVS programs bluegrass and classic country music, and you can tune in online.)

That evening (10/25) Seckler, showing the stamina of someone half his age, and the Steep Canyon Rangers gave a fantastic performance to an enthusiastic audience at the Kenbridge Town Hall, in Kenbridge, Virginia. WSVS station manager Chris Gowin co-ordinated the events as well as attending to the sound system. A portion of the proceeds of the show went to benefit a local chapter of the Salvation Army.

Curly Seckler is now looking forward to his next big event in his life: his 89th birthday, on December 25! He and his wife, Eloise, will also celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary on December 26.

It is expected that Seckler will do more shows with the Steep Canyon Rangers in 2009, while he will also perform at several bluegrass festivals with Big Country Bluegrass next year.

For additional information, bio, and photos, please you can visit Curly’s official web site.

More big bluegrass doin’s on online radio this Saturday (10/25).

At 1:00 p.m. (EDT) former Foggy Mountain Boys Jody Rainwater and Curly Seckler will join Steep Canyon Rangers for a live set on WSVS AM 800 in Crewe, VA. They will be performing together that evening in nearby Kenbridge, and will offer a taste of the show over the air (steamed live at www.wsvsam.com).

WSVS was the radio home for Flatt & Scruggs in 1954 and ‘55, where they did a live noontime show each weekday and also taped their Martha White shows for WSM in Nashville. Rainwater, who had left the band several years earlier, was a show host on WSVS while Lester and Earl were based in Crewe.

Curly and Jody look forward to spinning yarns about the old days on Saturday’s show, and getting a chance to perform together again backed by a fine young band who learned to play listening to the recordings they had made.

Then at 8:00 p.m. on WNCW in Spindale, NC, Merlefest will announce their artist lineup for 2009. [See update below]

John Adair from Merlefest and Christie Hutchens from Wilkes Community College will be on WNCW’s Martin Anderson to run down all the acts who will be on tap for the festival April 23-26, 2009.

Listen live online at wncw.org.

The lineup will be posted on the Melefest site after the show has concluded on Saturday at 9:00 p.m.

Update 10/26:  Ooops….. The Merlefest radio show is on Tuesday, October 28 at 8:00 p.m.

Steep Canyon Rangers will be doing two shows this month with legendary bluegrass pioneer Curly Seckler.

Seckler was the mandolinist and tenor singer with Flatt & Scruggs during their hey day in the 1950s and early ’60s, and later became a member of Lester Flatt & The Nashville Grass when Lester and Earl went their separate ways. Known for his songwriting as much as his soaring tenor, Curly contributed classics like No Mother Or Dad and That Old Book of Mine to the bluegrass repertoire.

Relative newcomers compared to Seckler’s 70 plus years in the business, Steep Canyon Rangers have been carving out a niche in the bluegrass world for the past few years. Their most recent CD, Lovin’ Pretty Women, has spent many months on the various bluegrass charts - and they performed the title track as the opening number on last Thursday’s IBMA Awards Show.

The Rangers will appear with Curly Seckler this Friday (10/10) at The Station Inn in Nashville, and again on October 25 at the Kenbridge Town Hall in Kenbridge, VA. SCR will do their regular show and then be joined by Seckler for some of his classics as well as songs from his recent recordings.

If you live within a comfortable drive of either show, you might take advantage of one of the few opportunities to catch Curly perform live.

WAMU’s Bluegrass Country will again be broadcasting live from IBMA this afternoon, bringing a taste of the 2008 World Of Bluegrass event to listeners worldwide who are unable to attend.

Wednesday’s (10/1) lineup include will include performances from Lonesome River Band and Steep Canyon Rangers, plus a discussion about IBMA’s Leadership Bluegrass program. Katy Daley told us that today’s broadcast will start with a live duet performance of Jerusalem Ridge by Michael Cleveland and Jesse Brock.

Appearing on (Wednesday 10/1) are:

• Michael Cleveland and Jesse Brock
• Archie Warnock on Leadership Bluegrass
• G-2 Bluegrass Band
• Audie Blaylock
• Lonesome River Band
• Steep Canyon Rangers

You can listen to Bluegrass Country via audio streaming online, and via HD Radio (88.5-2) in the Washington DC market. They will be coming to you online from their suite in the Renaissance Hotel 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and 6:00-7:00 p.m. (EDT).

Songs From The Road is a loosely-knit side project band that features members of such noted touring acts as Steep Canyon Rangers, The Emmit Nershi Band, Shannon Whitworth and the Refugees, Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, Town Mountain, Super Grit Cowboy Band and The Grit Pixies.

Their debut CD, Songs From The Road, was released in 2006, produced by Charles Humphrey III of Steep Canyon Rangers, who also played bass.

A second project is in the works, Songs From The Road Vol II - As The Crow Flies, is due on January 15, 2009. A download-only, three song EP will be released shortly featuring a sneak peek of material from the upcoming CD. It will be available from CD Baby and iTunes.

The lineup on the new CD has Charles on bass, Mark Schimick on mandolin, Andy Thorn on banjo, Nicky Sanders on fiddle, and Sam Wharton on guitar. Guest vocalists include Robert Greer, Lance Mills and Shannon Whitworth.

One song from As The Crow Flies can be heard now on the band’s MySpace and ReverbNation pages. The songs is Taxman, and the lyric is one that may grab the attention of a lot of folks in the US during an election year.

Taxman, taxman leave me alone.
Stop knocking on my door ’cause there ain’t noboby home.

Brance made mention last week of the Mountain Song Festival in NC, put on by Steep Canyon Rangers to benefit the local Boys & Girls Club.

Graham Sharp from SCR tells us that the festival on 9/13 was a big success, with appearances from Sam Bush, Tim O’Brien, Cherryholmes - and SCR, of course. The big surprise hit was an appearance from banjo player, actor, and comedian Steve Martin, who joined the Steep Canyon guys on stage for a brief set.

Graham tells us that Steve entertained the crowd for several minutes, and joked at one point that the event would have been a big success were it not for his fee.

Here’s a YouTube clip of Steve playing his song The Crow with SCR.

The Steep Canyon Rangers have decided that those who haven’t seen them live, shouldn’t be excluded from the experience. To that end, they’ve began posting live tracks from recent shows on their myspace page. Currently there are two tracks from a performance in Gettysburg last month. Both tracks were previously recorded on SCR CDs.

The band tells me they are planning to start posting live versions of new material soon. The idea being to obtain fan feedback on a broader scale than could happen only at the shows. Most bands do perform new material while working out arrangements and deciding which material to record.

Fans could tell us anything they’d like us to know about a song, just to have people involved in the process; kind of like how we play new songs live and gauge the fan response.

The idea, I suppose, is to build interest in the new music and give fans an ongoing look at the creative process, two things that the internet is well suited for.

The Steep Canyon Rangers are uniquely positioned to function in this way since they write all their own material and won’t be bound by any copyright issues. In addition to the fan feedback, this serves to allow fans a chance to hear the live sound.

Right now the tunes are offered on myspace and reverbnation, but other sites may be included in the future.

This weekend is the 3rd Annual Mountain Song Festival in Brevard, NC. The Steep Canyon Rangers organize this festival each year to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club in the community. It’s a great event that has raised $63,000 for the club in the last two years. This year is sure to be a great festival and maybe we’ll get a couple more live tracks.

This morning (7/18), XM satellite Radio’s Bluegrass Junction will offer the debut airing of The Steep Canyon Rangers’ visit to Studio Special. The guys will be on at 8:00 a.m. (EDT) performing live in the studio and chatting with host Kyle Cantrell about the band’s comings and goings, and their plans for the remainder of 2008.

If you miss the Rangers this morning, the show airs several more times over this upcoming week (all times EDT).

• Saturday (7/19) - 11:00 a.m.
• Sunday (7/20) - 6:00 p.m.
• Monday (7/21) - 8:00 p.m.
• Tuesday (7/22) - Midnight (technically Wednesday morning)
• Thursday (7/24) - 3:00 p.m.

The latest (May/June) issue of Bluegrass Music Profiles is out, with a cover feature on Steep Canyon Rangers.

The article features an interview with guitarist and primary vocalist Woody Platt, who discusses the band’s humble beginnings, their first record deal (with Rebel Records), working with outside producers and how their material is chosen and arranged.

“There’s a formula that bluegrass music has that we tend to follow. We don’t necessarily copy it in our arrangements, but in our approach we feel like we add something youthful and fresh to bluegrass. We definitely, within the tradition, fit right in there.”

Publisher Kevin Kerfoot shares a quick overview of what you’ll find inside:

In the current issue you’ll also find a DJ Profile with WSM’s Bill Cody, an interview with Balsam Range’s Darren Nicholson, Shop Talk with Wayne and Kristin Scott Benson, Larry Sparks and Jerry Butler’s Bluegrass Favorites, a Promoter Profile with Festival of the Bluegrass’s Jean Cornett, an interview with The Dixie Bee-Liners’ Buddy Woodward and Brandi Hart, and a Songwriter Profile of Jim Lauderdale.

You can read an excerpt from the Platt interview and learn more about Bluegrass Music Profiles on the magazine’s official web site.

Our friend Cindy Baucom wrote in to tell us about a new festival she’s a part of this year. The 1st Annual FarmFest will be held at the Farmington Dragway in Farmington, NC. The dates set for the festival are April 11-12.

The festival is more than just bluegrass music, it’s a celebration of traditions of the Carolinas. In addition to some great bluegrass music, there will be food, displays, a children’s area, craft show, merchandise vendors, open mic, jam sessions, camping and more.

The line up of bluegrass acts for the festival are:

• Steep Canyon Rangers
• Cadillac Sky
• Lou Reid and Carolina
• Kenny and Amanda Smith Band
• Carrie Hassler and Hard Rain

Besides all these great bluegrass groups, there will also be a special Allstar Bluegrass Super Jam featuring Terry Baucom and Special Guests-including Wes Golding, Josh Williams, Lou Reid, Wayne Winkle and more.

Tickets for the weekend, if purchased in advance, are $40.00. At the gate, the tickets will be $25.00 per day. Children 10 and under will be admitted FREE. Rough camping is available for $5.00 per day.

Tickets will be available at ETIX.com (not yet listed) and a number of businesses across the region

Vendor spaces cost $20.00 per day until 3/31/08, after 3/31/08 they will be $25. Vendor space includes one comp admission.

For additional information, call 1-800-891-0350, or visit farmfestnc.com

Asheville, NC paper, the Asheville Citizen-Times, ran this story over the weekend about Woody Platt. The story, concerned with fishing as the main topic, appeared in the Outdoors section of the paper.

Woody is best known to bluegrass fans as the lead singer in the popular Steep Canyon Rangers. Apparently he also loves to fly-fish. In fact, so much so that he started his own business selling fly-fishing gear and serving as a part-time fishing guide.

When he isn’t touring with the band, Platt guides one-person fishing trips on area streams and rivers. He also owns The Open Fly, a fly-fishing equipment booth in a downtown Brevard mall called Gravy.

I know many people in bluegrass who have an interest in fishing, myself included. Maybe Woody should think about expanding his business to include being a fishing advisor to bluegrass musicians!

We heard from Charles Humphrey, bass player with Steep Canyon Rangers, to tell us that he has started work on a second CD with the Songs From The Road Band. The first release was a side project of Charles’ to record his original music, as will be this second.

Nicky Sanders, SCR fiddle man, joins Charles on this project, along with Mark Schimick on mandolin, Andy Thorn on banjo, and Sam Wharton on guitar. Other guests include Robert Greer, Lance Mills and Shannon Whitworth as vocalists, Clyde Mattocks on lap steel and resonator guitar, and Jill Fromewick on harmonica.

Charles says that they are tracking now, and expect to have this CD available later this year. He describes the project this way…

“The record will have 12 tracks and is full of bluegrass, country, and cosmic american music!”

I guess that about covers it.

Short notice on this one, I’m afraid…

Steep Canyon Rangers will be performing live on WDVX Blue Plate Special today at noon (1/11).

The show originates from Knoxville, TN and is broadcast in that market at 102.9 FM - and via live streaming online.

They don’t maintain audio archives, so catch it live if you see this in time.

Del McCoury’s web folks have posted a clever and humorous video to promote the now annual New Year’s Eve Party at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

Joining Del and the boys will be Ronnie Bowman, Drew Emmitt, Jon Fishman, Vince Herman and Steep Canyon Rangers starting at 8:00 p.m. (CST) on 12/31/07.

The brief video does a great job of explaining what sort of show this is by playing on the stereotype of the cranky bluegrass fan.

Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster, or from The Ryman box office.

We just got a note from Graham Sharpe, banjo picker with The Steep Canyon Rangers, to let everyone know that they will be joining Eddie Stubbs tonight for an interview on WSM in Nashville. They’ll be on in the 9:00 p.m. (EST) hour.

Graham also mentioned that they the guys had received a Spirit Award nomination for the song Call The Captain, from their current Lovin’ Pretty Women CD. These nominations are primarly for more mainstream country artists, but Cadillac Sky and Mountain Heart received nods this year along with the Rangers

These awards are based on online ballots, and the voting period begins today. Graham said that you can hear Call The Captain on their MySpace page.

You can hear their interview with Eddie on WSM 650 AM in Nashville, or via live streaming online.

UPDATE: 5:00 p.m.: Steep Canyon Rangers are headed to The Lucy Opry in Memphis for a show on Friday night (11/16). An earlier report here had them somewhere else on Friday.

This past Friday evening (10/19), The Steep Canyon Rangers played a show here in Roanoke, VA. I was familiar with their recordings, and caught a few brief sets at IBMA, but this was my first chance to see them live in an extended club concert setting.

They performed before a full house at the the 202 Market restuarant in downtown Roanoke, and just as when I saw The Infamous Stringdusters there earlier this year, the audience was composed of both old and young - Friday night clubbers, seious bluegrass lovers and hard core Rangers fans.

Over the course of three strong sets the band demonstrated their unique approach to the music, where the instruments are played in a traditional bluegrass style while the material owes as much to old time and blues as it does the bluegrass canon. The great bulk of their songs are written within the band, and most were taken from their most recent release, Lovin’ Pretty Women.

Each member of the group contributes to the band sound. Graham Sharpe’s banjo playing is powerful and inventive, whether the style calls for a bluegrass, old time or blues feel. Mandolinist Mike Guggino’s mastery of the Monroe style is always in evidence, and Woody Platt’s vocal delivery and guitar work manages to be both unorthodox and appropriate at the same time. Charles Humphrey excels on bass, whether he is providing accompaniment or taking a solo, and his dead pan delivery as an emcee is dead-on in fronting much of their show.

But it was fiddler Nicky Sanders that kept my attention the bulk of the time. He represents one of the rarer species in and around bluegrass music: a player with the technique and virtuosity of a conservatory-trained performer, but who has also captured the soul and authentic feel of traditional string music. He is a joy to watch, and though The Steep Canyon Rangers would offer a compelling performance without him, he adds an element that completes the package in a most appealing manner.

You can find their complete tour schedule on the band’s official web site.

Yesterday John and I had the chance to sit down with the guys from Steep Canyon Rangers and conduct a short interview. We video taped it and I’ve uploaded here.

The guys spend some time discussing this past year and how it went for them after winning Emerging Artist in 2006. They also discuss, songwriting, the new CD, the next CD, and more.

The video is approximately 5 minutes in length and should load fairly quickly for most users. Enjoy!

In addition to the new Charlie Sizemore CD we highlighted yesterday, there are several other notable bluegrass projects released on August 14 that are worthy of your attention.

New from Rebel is Lovin’ Pretty Women from The Steep Canyon Rangers. We have mentioned this project a number of times recently, and now that it is available widely, we expect it will get a lot of attention. Clever songwriting and crisp execution mark this CD as a keeper.

You can hear audio samples on the band’s MySpace page, or check out their video bio with both live clips and CD audio.

Sugar Hill has SCENEchronized, the first new set from Seldom Scene in quite some time. Both long time fans and followers of a newer vintage should enjoy this CD. Even with Ben Eldridge as the lone original member, the song selections, arrangements and performances all bear the hallmarks that have set this band apart for more than 30 years.

More details on SCENEchronized can be found in our earlier post, and audio samples can be found in iTunes.

Also from Sugar Hill comes Sam Bush’s first live concert DVD, On The Road. It was recorded last August in Colorado, and features The Sam Bush Band in their element - live on stage. Featured are Scott Vestal on banjo (and banjo synth), Byron House on bass, Stephen Mougin on guitar, Chris Brown on drums, and Bush on mandolin, fiddle and lead vocals.

I could not find any video clips online, but there is a full track listing on Sam’s web site.

John recently posted about this CD by the Steep Canyon Rangers. The street date for Lovin’ Pretty Women is set for August 14, 2007.

The CD is being premiered for the next couple weeks on XM Radio (for details see John’s post).

The title track from the CD is a catchy tune that blends bluegrass and old-time with some clever lyrics. The result is a song that should do well for the band. They were kind enough to give us the track for inclusion here on the blog. So sit back, relax, and listen to the Steep Canyon Rangers latest single, Lovin’ Pretty Women.