The May/June edition of Bluegrass Music Profiles helped to fill the mail box this past Saturday morning.

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 Williams released his most recent CD, Last Day of Galax, in August but we didn’t get a copy until this week. It clearly shows why Johnny has earned his reputation as among the most expressive singers of traditional bluegrass music we have on the scene today.

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.

Richard Thompson contributes another in his ongoing series of reviews of recent projects that have caught his fancy – this time, Tom T Hall Sings Miss Dixie & Tom T (Blue Circle Records BCR 012), released in early 2007.

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? (more…)

This past Sunday evening, Tom T. Hall was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, along with the Statler Brothers.

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!