Josh Williams unveiled his new band last Saturday at The Station Inn in Nashville. It was their first public performance, and a good many of Nashville’s bluegrass folks were on hand.

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 Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville has just announced the list of this year’s inductees, all of whom have a bluegrass connection.

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

In yesterday’s edition of the New York Times, the music section had a story featuring Tom T. Hall. The story was focused on Mr. Hall’s relationship to country radio stations and was appropriately headlined as…

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.

This post comes as a contribution from Dixie Hall, one half of the songwriting powerhouse Tom T. and Dixie Hall, who manage both Good Homegrown Music and Blue Circle Records.

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!

Last month we told you about the new CD release from Tom T. Hall entitled, Tom T. Hall sings Miss Dixie & Tom T. You can read our story about the CD here.

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.

Music of Coal: Mining Songs from the Appalachian Coalfields is a new two-CD box set released by the Lonesome Pine Office on Youth here in Virginia.

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.

With all the support the bluegrass world has received from Tom T. and Dixie Hall this past few years, many have wondered when Tom T. might release a bluegrass project himself. Not only had the songwriting duo contributed dozens of songs for bluegrass artists - and recorded and released a good many bluegrass projects on their Blue Circle label - they also made a generous donation to the International Bluegrass Music Association last year, when they bequeathed the royalties from their publishing company, Good Homegrown Music, to IBMA upon their deaths.

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.

Here’s a CD release that slipped under the radar the end of last month. Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road have released a new self-titled CD, Carolina Road. The recording is on the Blue Circle Records label and was released on March 29, 2007.

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.