Dallas Morning News ran a story yesterday about Virginia’s Crooked Road and the music that inhabits this area.

Starting in Flyod, VA at the Country Store, the story continues along the trail all the way to the Ralph Stanley Museum and Traditional Music Center. The story relates some of the stories behind the historic stops along the Crooked Road.

The story concludes with a short schedule of 2009 events to take place along the Crooked Road.

If you’re looking for a musical vaction, this story may be of interest to you.

The April issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray contains an article focused, of course, on the food of Virginia’s Crooked Road.

In a regular feature about food and travel, called Go Away, Rachael visits several locations along The Crooked Road. I’ve not read the article, but I’ve been told that the music is given some time in the magazine, with references to specific bands that Rachael listens to while traveling along The Crooked Road.

If anyone has a copy, please comment and give us some details.

The Crooked Road, Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, has a brand new web site, with a fun twist and a chance to win a custom built mandolin or guitar. The Trail is the state of Virginia’s official tour guide for traditional music lovers, which offers a driving route that connects major venues and historical sites throughout southwest Virginia that would appeal to fans of Appalachian music.

The new site has a clever option where you can build your own custom bluegrass song, and send it to a friend. The site will ask you to respond to a series of questions to obtain the name of your song’s recipient, their relationship to you, and some of their interests and hobbies. Immediately after responding to these queries, it will present you with a song, played and sung by No Speed Limit, which includes references to all of your responses.

You’ll then be able to send the song to whomever you wish, by either phone or email, and enter the contest to win a new mandolin or guitar.

The Build-A-Lyric site will surely give you a chuckle, and you may find yourself sending them to several of your friends. They don’t have the ability to create a song for every name that you might choose, and the other responses are limited as well, but it’s still a hoot – and the music is great.

The instruments in the giveaway are from southwest Virginia luthiers. The mandolin is made by Gerald Anderson, who studied with Wayne Henderson, and the guitar by Spencer Strickland, who is Anderson’s apprentice.

The newest release in the Crooked Road series from the Virginia Folklife program is just out. It is by Linda Lay, Sammy Shelor & Crooked Run, and entitled Taking The Crooked Road Home.

Linda Lay grew up in Bristol, VA singing and playing with her family’s string band since she was a small child. She later formed her own band, Appalachian Trail, which was a fixture at festivals in the Blue Ridge area for twenty years, and performs now with her husband David, and David McLaughlin as Springfield Exit.

Most of our readers know Sammy Shelor as the powerhouse banjo picker with Lonesome River Band, which has been his home for the past 17 years. He and Linda did a show at a folk festival a few years ago, and plans to record together were hatched not long after.

They are assisted on this CD by David McLaughlin and Jeff Parker on mandolin, David Lay on guitar, and Ron Stewart on fiddle. Though the sound is solid traditional bluegrass, most of the songs are new, with contributions from Tom T. and Dixie Hall, Mike Evans and Harley Allen.

Sammy said that recording this project was a blast for him.

“I love the way bluegrass music is played in southwest VA and east TN, and this project perfectly captures the drive, the power and the soul of that sound. Linda is the strongest vocalist I have ever worked with, and I think those who have never heard her sing are in for a surprise.”

Audio samples for all 12 tracks can be found online.

Like the last few Lonesome River Band releases, Taking The Crooked Road Home is available for purchase on the band’s site as an audio CD, or for immediate digital download as MP3 files.

Radio service is being handled by Sammy Shelor, so show hosts who would like a copy for airplay should contact Sammy via the LRB web site.