BluegrassRadio.org will be re-airing the Riverbend Bluegrass Festival show recorded last Saturday this evening (4/26) at 7:00 p.m. (EDT). Performers featured include Ernie Thacker, returning to the stage after his two year recovery from a serious accident, followed by The Chapmans, Grasstowne and Lou Reid and Carolina.

BluegrassRadio.org is a free, listen-supported Internet radio service that runs a 24/7 bluegrass feed, available for both iTunes and Windows Media. Visit their site to choose a feed and listen in anytime.

As a young man just gaining an interest in bluegrass music, the bluegrass festival was almost heaven for me. One of the first festivals I can remember attending was at Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. I grew up there in Missouri so it seems natural I would have fond memories of this festival. This is where I first encountered the mandolin playing of Danny Roberts, the flatpicking of John Chapman, and the thrill of excitement of being at a bluegrass festival.

Silver Dollar City has hosted a bluegrass festival since 1975. Back then it was called the Mountain Folks Music Festival. Over the years the festival has changed names and dates more than once. Four years ago it became Silver Dollar City’s Bluegrass & BBQ Festival. The festival is a long running one, starting on May 10 and continuing through June 1, 2008. During these 23 days, the park will be running a total of nine stages throughout each day, with over 60 bluegrass bands performing. Each performance is scheduled at 30 minutes and during the course of the festival there will be in excess of 1000 sets.

I had the chance to speak with D.A. Callaway, the festival coordinator, and he shared some interesting details about the event. With that many stages running for this length of time, the technical staff will be working hard. Callaway tells me they have 25 full time technical staff to run sound and lighting during the festival. The park hours are 9:30 AM to 7 PM each day. The shows begin in the morning and continue throughout the day.

Silver Dollar City is a large theme park that attracts a lot of tourists, but Callaway assures me that of the 10,000 attendees the park will average each day of the festival, 40-50% of them are there for the music. These are fans that might not be at the park if it wasn’t for the festival. Those are great numbers to contemplate on both sides of that equation. 4-5K people per day in attendance specifically to hear bluegrass music is a great turn out. But 5-6K people each day who aren’t there for the music, will surely hear it as they enjoy the other offerings of the park. Perhaps a few new bluegrass fans will be born next month in Branson!

With 60+ bands performing I was curious how artists are selected for inclusion in the festival. (more…)

The Riverbend Bluegrass Festival in Ocilla, GA begins today, and BluegrassRadio.org will be on hand to record all of the main stage performances this weekend.

Artists to be recorded include Grasstowne, Lou Reid and Carolina, The Chapmans, and more.

The Grasstowne performance will be broadcast on Sunday April 20, 2008 @ 1 PM EDT. Next Saturday, April 26, 2008, BluegrassRadio.org will broadcast the entire main stage performance from all the bands. That will take place starting at 7 PM EDT.

If you don’t have plans Sunday, or next Saturday evening, be sure to attend the Riverbend Bluegrass Festival online at BluegrassRadio.org.

The Chapmans have launched a new band website. It’s an interactive flash based site that is basically one page with popups for all additional info. It’s not a bad design, but it does use some bandwidth.

The photo gallery was pretty slow to load, and I’m on high-speed, but it was worth it to see papa Chapman in that ten-gallon hat!

The tour schedule feature is pretty cool, but I had to use Firefox to view it. It never would load in Safari. So be aware that your milage may vary depending on your preferred browser. It not only provides dates and locations, but also an animated tour map with a red line tracing their tour route. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the Indian Jones map, but without the plane.

The real unique feature though is Chap TV. If you click on the TV, the popup will load the Chap TV. Chap TV is…well, I’ll let them explain it.

It was an idea that was conceived on one of those really late overnight drives on tour, when Jason decided to pull out his new camcorder and start filming all the excitement. Being dark and all, he put the camera on night mode, and then the light bulb went off in the collective heads of The Chapmans… if millions of people wanted to watch the home video’s of Paris Hilton, maybe they wanted to see some of The Chapmans too. So we started filming every exciting moment out on the road, back stage, riding in the ChapMobile™, in the studio, broke down on the side of the highway. Then we got to thinking how difficult it was gonna be to get all our fans into our living room to watch the footage, and after a failed attempt to get permits to build a 10,000 sq. ft. addition to our house, we decided to build it in cyberspace. Enter Chap-TV.

I’m not sure but that the boys may have overestimated the size and interest of the audience just a bit, but it’s still fun stuff. You’ll also see an occasional appearance by other bluegrassers the Chapmans come into contact with. The single bass jam featuring Jason Chapman along with Justin Carbone and Alan Bartram, was inspiring.

Watch this introductory video. That last question really has me thinking. (more…)

We posted last week with the happy news that John and Vickie Chapman were celebrating the birth of their daughter, Kylie, tempered with the sadder news that she was being treated for complications from Meconium Aspiration.

We now hear that Kylie was released from the hospital on Tuesday (4/2) and is safely at home with mom and dad. Wonderful news for all The Chapmans.

Here’s an item that will be of interest to fans and friends of The Chapmans. We just received word that John and Vickie Chapman are celebrating the birth of their daughter, Kylie, but not without some complications.

She had to be delivered by emergency Caesarian this past Saturday, and then moved from Springfield, MO to Kansas City for advanced pediatric care. John is with the baby in KC, along with his brothers, Jason and Jeremy, while Vickie recovers from surgery in Springfield.

John shares the details…

“On March 22nd at 10:43am, Vickie and I got to lay eyes on our new little girl, Kylie Grace Chapman. She is every bit as beautiful as either of us could have ever imagined.

When we got to the hospital, it was determined that there was something causing the baby distress, and she was going to have to be delivered by C-section. She had wrapped her cord into a true knot and gotten it around her neck.

Unfortunately all this stress caused a condition called Meconium Aspiration. After delivery she had to be taken by helicopter to Kansas City to a hospital with special machines and treatments not available in Springfield. Since being here she has continued to respond well to treatments.

She in not out of the woods by any means, but we are very hopeful. She is still in critical condition and we are watching her minute by minute. Hopefully soon Vickie will be well enough to join me here and be able to spend time with me and our new baby girl.

We want to thank all the people who have given their support and thoughts. Thank you all so much.”

Anyone who would like to reach them can send cards, well wishes or donations to help with medical expenses to:

It’s not just Randy Kohrs who is shocking the pundits with the power of grassroots bluegrass fans in effecting online balloting.

The Chapmans also find themselves as the sole bluegrass artists in a head-to-head competition with a bevy of pop and rock acts at BestOfBands.com. Thanks to the support of their fans, they have made it through to the final round of five in the Best of Bands, Make My Video competition where the winner receives a professional performance video shoot valued at $20,000.

The video will be shot in Las Vegas, with a venue chosen based on the genre of the winning band. All airfare, accommodations and ground transportation are covered, and the three most actively voting fans of the winning band will also win an all-expense paid trip to Vegas to attend the shoot.

Voting in this final round starts on December 1, and a quick, free registration is required to participate in the balloting, which runs through the end of December. Repeat votes are allowed, but only once in each 24 hour period.

Jeremy Chapman said that they were inspired and excited to see how the support of bluegrass fans has kept Randy Kohrs’ video in the top five at CMT Pure Top 20 Countdown, and hopes to get a similar level of support at BestOfBands.com.

“We need to get as many people as possible to create a profile before December 1st so we can have a head start in the competition. We’re up against a few heavy metal bands, and would just be embarrassed if they could claim to have better, more devoted fans.

Remember when creating your profile to upload a picture - even if it’s of a tree or Jimmy Martin - so that they know that you’re not a computer. Otherwise all your diligent voting won’t count.”

If you want to show the world that bluegrass fans are as rabidly passionate as metal bands - at least metaphorically - perhaps you will want to show your support for The Chapmans in this competition. Starting 12/1, there will be a Make My Video button near the top of their BOB profile page, and you need only click it once to register your daily vote.

We heard recently from Jeremy Chapman of The Chapmans, who wanted to share a video bio of the band that they have posted on YouTube.

It runs just over minutes and is entitled The Family Business. In the video, the boys talk about how they came to become a family band, with the interview segment inter cut with clips and photos of the early days when John, Jeremy and Jason were barely big enough to hold a guitar. The documentary-style presentation carries us through the band’s emergence as a serious bluegrass act, culminating with them being named as the Emerging Artist of the Year in 2002 by the IBMA.

Jeremy says that the project just dropped into their laps.

“Around May of ‘07 we were approached by a couple of Film Students from Missouri State University who had seen us perform not long before, and were interested in doing a documentary on the band for a film project. So we set up a small concert at a local music shop and then had a pretty informal interview afterwards. It was definitely a lot of fun to go through all the old photo albums and home videos to get them some background on the band. I forgot we were once that little.

In the end though I think we were all impressed with how interesting they made us look.”

He asks that fans and friends keep up with them via the band’s MySpace page.