This latest edition of the glossy bi-monthly magazine has as its main feature a six-page, wide-ranging profile of that prolific bluegrass song writing duo Tom T. and Dixie Hall.

Other bluegrass personalities interviewed by the magazine include current blue-eyed boys Dailey & Vincent; Ernie Thacker, who discusses life after his near-fatal traffic accident; fiddle ace Michael Cleveland; and Ronnie Prevette, who talks about life playing mandolin in Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys.

Audie Blaylock and Mike Andes, of Nothin’ Fancy, talk about their favorites and there are profiles on DJ David Blackney and songwriter Charley Stefl.

Regular features include the BMP Top 30 Hot Singles and Top 10 Albums charts, news and CD reviews.

Details regarding subscription and single issue purchase rates can be found at the magazine’s website.

Johnny is in his element here, singing the sort of driving, soulful bluegrass that has been his staple for years, recording and performing with his wife in The Jeanette Williams Band, or as Johnny & Jeanette Williams. Joining him this album are Jeanette on bass, Chase Johner on mandolin, Tony Mabe and Debbie Yates on banjo, Billy Hawks and Kathleen O’Connell on fiddle, and Kenneth Berrier on steel guitar.

Williams is also a first rate songwriter, contributing 11 of the 15 tracks, 2 co-written with Tom T. and Dixie Hall. The title track is a lament he wrote some time ago as he was preparing to pack up and leave the legendary Old Fiddler’s Convention in Galax, VA. It nicely captures the once-a-year community that exists for this gathering, mixed with many of the familiar jam tunes heard in the field each year.

Another standout is his This Country Living’s Changing Every Day, which includes a clever lyric that will resonate with a lot of bluegrass fans.

This country living’s changing every day.
I spend all my time checking emails instead of bailing hay.
I’m computerized – with ATV’s replacing mules out in the barn.
This country living’s changing every day.I don’t know why I’m complaining ’cause my back don’t hurt this way.
This country living’s changing every day.

Johnny shows his classic country chops on Hank Williams’ I Can’t Help It If I’m Still In Love With You, and even covers The Allman Brothers’ Midnight Rider, which is now as standard in bluegrass as it is in the rock world.

His singing is strong and compelling throughout, with vocal support from Jeanette and Amber Collins. The rhythm section and soloists are spot on as well, and the songs are all honest, and sincerely performed.

Anyone who enjoys traditional bluegrass, country or old time music will surely want this one in their collection. Audio samples and online orders are enabled on the Jeanette Williams site.

A special Johnny Williams & Friends concert is scheduled for this Friday (10/17) at The Rex Theater in Galax, VA, featuring most of the performers from Last Day Of Galax. It will be broadcast on WBRF-FM 98.1 in SW VA, and streamed live online.

Williams is now working with Big Country Bluegrass, on guitar and lead vocals. You can find a tour schedule on their web site.

Since he ‘retired’ Tom T Hall has, arguably, been busier than ever. Along with his equally beloved wife Miss Dixie, he has continued to write songs in abundance. They are prolific writers of songs, bluegrass songs, their true vocation. As Miss Dixie has said in an interview, ” ‘Retirement’ in my book is giving up work to do what you love doing and we happen to love bluegrass music so we’re having a blast.”

Tom T Hall Sings Miss Dixie & Tom T comprises a dozen of the very best songs from the duo’s catalogue of songs written in recent years. The supreme quality of the lyrics and melodies is undisputed, in my view. Many of the songs have already been recorded by others; Chris Jones, Dave Evans, Junior Sisk, the group Nothin’ Fancy and Ryan Holliday among them, and their popularity is already well established in the bluegrass song catalogue. Tom T is still ‘the story teller’, admittedly aided and abetted by his producer and wife, Miss Dixie.

Perhaps the most well-known song in this collection is A Hero In Harlan. Hall draws every ounce of emotion from the song which relates the story of the passing of a man from a coal mining community, only in this instance he falls in battle, rather than in a coal pit. Pretty Green Hills relates the story of an elderly man who yearns to enjoy the vista only, poignantly, to be buried all too soon in those very hills.

The CD begins with I’m A Coal Mining Man an up-tempo tribute to coal miners and their contribution to the American economy. Other highlights are Leaving Baker County, which is about finding some meaningful status elsewhere; the tribute to one of the legends of bluegrass One Of Those Days (When I Miss Lester Flatt); and the nostalgia-filled Somewhere In Kentucky Tonight, a man’s reflection of life viewed from industrial Ohio.

However, the one song that captures a real slice of American life as much any is A Headstone For Harry, a wonderful vignette with the couplet, “Me and my pals at the Somerset poolroom, Ain’t famous for nothing but standing around broke.” You can’t beat it, can you?

The final track tells Jimmy Martin’s life story in 5 minutes. It’s synonymous with Martin’s action-packed life, complete with introduction, yodel and guitar from the man himself.

Accompanying Hall, who occasionally plays guitar, are Kristin Scott Benson, Earl Scruggs and Tim White (all on banjo), Wayne Benson (mandolin), Robert Bowlin (rhythm guitar, Dobro®), Mike Bub and Ben Isaacs (bass), Glen Duncan (fiddle), Terry Eldredge and Jimmy Martin (guitar), and Randy Kohrs (resonator guitar). Rebecca Isaacs Bowman, Sonya Isaacs, Don Rigsby and Josh Williams provide background vocals.

Vocally Tom T is a one-off. He has a rich, expressive baritone, retaining that expressive and wonderfully resonant delivery that is synonymous with the original storyteller in his heyday during the 1960s and 1970s.

“Having a blast” is a very good way to describe everything about this collection, the picking, the singing and the general ambience.

Tom T. has long been associated with bluegrass music. He got his start playing in a bluegrass band. He spent many years as the storyteller of country music, but in more recent years he has been writing songs for various bluegrass artists. He started his own label a few years ago, Good Homegrown Music, to produce and promote bluegrass music.

At Hall’s request, the red carpet saw many bluegrass stars Sunday night. In attendance were: Michelle Nixon, Dailey & Vincent, Heather Berry, Earl Scruggs, Larry Stephenson, Charlie Sizemore, Chris Jones, Alecia Nugent, Roni Stoneman and Judy Marshall.

The director of the Hall of Fame and Museum, Kyle Young, narrated the evening and shared that Hall had once confessed that

…the best music he ever heard and ever played was under a tree with a bluegrass band.

CMT News has the full story with details.

Congratulations to Tom T. Hall, it’s a well deserved honor!

It is aptly titled Before Bluegrass, because the music presented here is in the style of the 1920-1940’s. Recorded live with no overdubs, this CD reflects the traditions of early Appalachian recordings such as The Bristol Sessions. The CD features Heather and her husband Tony Mabe performing as a duo. The couple bears witness to the traditions that led to bluegrass music. You’ll hear echos of the Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, Charlie Pool and other old-time influences on this CD

My husband and I have been wanting to record a project like this since we first started dating. Now thanks to Tom T. and Dixie Hall and Blue Circle Records, we are so happy to present this album to you.

These are the kind of songs that we grew up on, and are very near and dear to our hearts. For name’s sake, we’re calling this "Before Bluegrass" because it really is the style of music that bluegrass came from.

…we want to not only help to preserve the heartfelt, beautifully pure music that they made, but to also maybe introduce it to new audiences who will hopefully love it just as much as us.

Heather and Tony are proud that there are no overdubs, punches, vocal tuning, or effects on this recording. It is just them playing and singing songs they love. Not all the music is old though. Tom T. and Dixie Hall contributed a couple of new songs that fit the style of the recording.

If you’re interested in hearing some samples of this recording, visit Heather’s home page. There are short samples from 5 songs featured in an embedded flash jukebox.

The Blue Circle Records MySpace page features several other samples. And here is a youtube music video for one of the songs on the record.

Among them was veteran songwriter and bluegrass entrepreneur Tom T. Hall, who shared a few words about the show on Josh’s web site.

At nine-fifteen, a hush lay over the crowd and then suddenly a wild burst of applause swept the room as Josh, Clayton, Tim, Jason, and Chase took the stage; after all the years of playing in other bands, including Rhonda Vincent’s Rage, we were now looking at The Josh Williams Band.

All of the songs that Josh had recorded over the years could now be performed at his own discretion. He made mention of the fact that he had worked many nights when he got to sing only one song. And now he had the stage all to himself with his own band.

Miss Dixie and I looked at one another and smiled. After all the learning, practice, watching, patience and dedication to his craft and his art, Josh Williams had arrived.

Josh’s band features Clayton Campbell on fiddle, Tim Dishman on bass, Jason McKendree on banjo, Chase Johner on mandolin, and Williams on guitar and lead vocals.

You can read the rest of Tom T.’s comments on Josh’s site, and see several photos from the show on photographer Bobby Jones’ web site.

The honorees are selected annually in three chronological career categories: pre WWII, WWII to 1975, and 1975-present.

Ernest V. (Pop) Stoneman will be honored in the first (pre WWII) category. He was the patriarch of the Stoneman Family, one of the most prolific and infuential of the early country recording artists. One of his sons, Scotty Stoneman, is claimed as a primary influence by successive generations of bluegrass and old time fiddlers.

The next category (WWII to 1975) produced a tie. Both Tom T. Hall and The Statler Brothers will share this year’s honor. The Statlers have not done much bluegrass – though they belong in every hall of fame for giving us Roadhog Moran & his Cadillac Cowboys – but many of their songs have found their way into the bluegrass Gospel repertoire.

Tom T. Hall, of course, has dedicated his recent career to writing, recording and promoting bluegrass music, and with his wife Dixie, has left a legacy to the music in the form of a bequest to the IBMA upon their passing.

In the modern (1975-present) category, Emmylou Harris, gets the nod. Though she is more generally regarded as a country artist, her contributions to bluegrass are legion, from performing/recording with Seldom Scene to having hired, performed with and promoted the careers of artists like Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice and Sam Bush.

Congratulations to this year’s inductees!

HT: Jon Weisberger

Who Needs Country Radio? Not Tom T. Hall

The story spends a good deal of time discussing Hall’s growing alliance with the bluegrass music industry. The author suggests that the reason Hall has been pitching his tunes to bluegrass artists in recent years is that Hall felt the bluegrass artists would be true to the songs and not change them to make them commercially acceptable for country radio, thus preserving the integrity of his music.

Who would record them without changing them to make radio happy or forcing him into complicated business deals?

Bluegrass singers would.

Tom T. goes on to discuss his history of growing up in Appalachia, and made this great comment about writing bluegrass songs in collaboration with his wife, Miss Dixie.

Maybe our bluegrass songwriting works so well because we have such different views of Appalachia. As an outsider Miss Dixie sees these people as the hard-working, family-loving salt of the earth. As a member of the clan I see them as just the neighbors. She can see the trees, while all I can see is the forest.

The article is a fairly length piece, at a solid two pages, and worth the read. Four streaming audio files are also included featuring Tom T. and Charlie Sizemore.

Several years ago, we were enjoying a visit to Bluebird Hill (our Clinch Mountain home in Hiltons, VA) and received news of a mysterious fire at the church. A candle had somehow self-ignited and smoldered for many hours creating much cleanup work of smoke damage.

As hard as I tried, I could not get Tom T.’s interest in this subject as a song idea until later that week when we received a phone call from Linda Lay & Stony Point requesting a Christmas song p.d.q.

Although a totally different story, the candle thought came through for us and we worked out Oh, Christmas Candle. Since then it has also been recorded by Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Over the weekend our friend, and fellow blogger, Craig Havighurst, interviewed Tom T. & Dixie Hall for Nashville Public Radio. The main focus of the interview is on the CD, how it came to be made, the songs, etc. If you’d like, you can listen to the interview, or read the transcript, by visiting Nashville Public Radio online.

The set contains 48 songs covering topics from coal mining history to union organization. The set was produced by Jack Wright who also wrote the extensive liner notes, which are contained in nicely printed book accompanied by historical photographs of the coal industry.

Songs were contributed to the project by such artists as Ralph Stanley, Dwight Yoakam, Natalie Merchant, Tom T. Hall, Blue Highway and the Carter Family.

The set can be purchased for $35 directly from the Lonesome Pine Office on Youth. Supplies are limited to 5000 units so they won’t be available forever.

Here’s a description of the Lonesome Pine Office on Youth and their mission.

The Lonesome Pine Office on Youth advocates for the needs of youth and families with the objectives of positive youth development, empowerment of families to solve their own problems effectively, identification and coordination of local resources, and through these efforts, the creation of safe and healthy communities which prevent delinquency.

Well, today’s the day for the Tom T. bluegrass project. Blue Circle has released Tom T. Hall sings Miss Dixie & Tom T., a collection of 12 songs they wrote together, sung by Tom T., and featuring a superstar gathering of bluegrass pickers. The concept for the CD began as a Christmas gift from Tom T. to Dixie.  He presented her with a card that read:

"To Miss Dixie. This is good for a c.d. We’ll record in our studio; you choose the songs and the pickers. You produce and I’ll do songs we have written together. Local and Pal will handle (canine) security. We will call the project TOM T. HALL SINGS MISS DIXIE & TOM T. Merry Christmas! Love, T."

Guest performers include Earl Scruggs, Kristin Benson and Tim White on banjo, Wayne Benson on mandolin, Mike Bub and Ben Isaacs on bass, Tom T., Robert Bowlin and Terry Eldridge on guitar, Glen Duncan on fiddle and Randy Kohrs on resonator guitar. Assisting Tom T. with harmony vocals are Don Rigsby, Sonya Isaacs, Josh Williams and Rebecca Isaacs Bowman.

Radio promos have been sent and July 3 marks the official release date. A couple of audio samples are available on the Blue Circle site, and samples for all the tracks can be found on CD Baby.

The title cut on the CD was written by Dixie and Tom T. Hall and sung by new band member (guitar) Jerry Butler. Lorraine Jordan also contributes lead vocals and mandolin. Josh Goforth provided fiddle and vocals. Ben Greene played banjo and contributed vocals. Todd Meade holds down the low notes on the bass. Kim Gardner guests on dobro.

Tom T. Hall commented on the band:

We are proud and honored to claim Carolina Road, not only as Blue Circle recording artists, but as friends and heroes. Lorraine has made great choices with her selection of band members.

Audio samples are not yet available on the band’s website.

Tom T.and Dixie have contribuited many songs to Bluegrass community of the last few years and the catalog continues to grow.

This will be an great asset to the IBMA, in the years to come. Tom T. and Dixie have once again shown their love for Bluegrass Music.