Ralph Stanley will be a guest today (10/14) on the Diane Rehm Show, broadcast on WAMU 88.5 FM in the Washington, DC metro market. He will join her live in the studio to discuss his autobiography, Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times, due for release tomorrow (10/15) by Gotham Books.

The show can be heard on WAMU online and is syndicated on 150 NPR affiliate stations all over the US. The segment with Ralph is scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. (EDT).

Audio archives are maintained on the WAMU site, and today’s show will be available in the archive approximately one hour after the program ends.

UPDATE 1:00 p.m. – We just heard from WAMU’s Bluegrass Country host Katy Daley, who sent along a couple of photos from today’s visit from a number of bluegrass legends.

While Dr. Ralph Stanley was being interviewed (and line singing) with Diane Rehm, Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen were across the hall on the air with Lee Michael Demsey on Bluegrass Country.  Hillman and Pederson sang a few songs live — Wait a Minute, Love Reunited among them — and talked their 45-years in the music business — Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Desert Rose Band.

They’re in town to play the Birchmere tonight with The Grascals.  Chris Hillman is giving a lecture on his career at the Library of Congress on Friday from Noon to 1.

Here’s the first of our Red Carpet videos from IBMA 2009. It’s only the first of many to come over the next few days.

This one features Katy Daley interviewing Rachel Renee Johnson of the Dixie Bee-liners.

Thanks to Richard F. Thompson for putting together this lovely remembrance of Red Shipley.

Robert Grant ‘Red’ Shipley: September 4, 1937 – October 6, 2007

Legendary radio personality Red Shipley passed away in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, October 6, due to cancer. He had just recently retired from being the host of WAMU’s Stained Glass Bluegrass program, a show he hosted for 25 years. His last show was on September 16.

Shipley’s career as a bluegrass DJ has spanned more than 50 years, with the common factor throughout being the songs that serve as the foundation for his bluegrass gospel programs. He began his career at WJMA-AM in Orange, Virginia, on Memorial Day 1956. Later, during his time at WPIK-AM/WXRA-FM in Alexandria, Virginia, he began a program called Inside Bluegrass, and met Jerry Gray, who was instrumental in taking him to WAMU 88.5. Red filled in initially for Jerry and other bluegrass hosts, and in August 1982, took his place a the host of Stained Glass Bluegrass, where he remained until his recent retirement. Red’s reputation for his partiality for great music has spread world wide via the Internet and the show continues to be heard on BluegrassCountry.org.

Listeners in the Washington, DC area can also hear Stained Glass Bluegrass on WAMU’s 88.5 HD-2 (the hyper digital channels which parallels the bluegrass programming on BluegrassCountry.org.)

After his retirement from the trade show industry in late 1995, Shipley returned to Orange, Virginia., to be closer to his family. This move brought about a unique partnership between WAMU 88.5 and commercial station WJMA-FM in Orange that has allowed Red to continue to serve his regular listeners and has added even more loyal Stained Glass Bluegrass fans in central Virginia.

In September 2006, the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) named Red as its Broadcaster of the Year.

In a formal announcement on the WAMU 88.5FM website, Caryn G. Mathes, General Manager for WAMU 88.5, commented on Sunday ……

“Radio lost one of its own legends last night. I’m deeply saddened by the news of Red’s passing, but grateful that he was able to spend 25 years on the air with us at WAMU, and heartened that he was able to continue doing what he loved for so long.” (more…)

Good morning from Nashville.

Brance and I just had a chance to be a part of radio history. Katy Daley, whose morning bluegrass show is broadcast each morning on both BluegrassCountry.org and WAMU HD-2, is here at IBMA doing the show live from Music City. She invited us down to speak with her on air, and we just returned from a very enjoyable interview.

Katy, and producer/engineer Jen Hitt, mentioned that theirs is among the very first live remote broadcast for HD Radio, and we were delighted to be on hand to see it go down. We talked with Katy about The Bluegrass Blog, about my work with AcuTab and Brance’s with Clear Blue Productions, and she even played a couple of tracks from Acoustic Endeavors.

BluegrassCountry has been offering a free, 24/7 bluegrass audio stream online since 2001, and since are now replicating the signal on WAMU HD 88.5-2 for HD Radio listeners in the DC metro area.

Katy’s show airs each weekday morning from 7:00-10:00 a.m. (ET). I’m not sure if she would approve of me suggesting that everyone should “wake up with Katy Daley each morning,” but it’s not a bad plan as you prepare for the morning slog.

Katy and Jen have also volunteered to provide red carpet fashion coverage for us during our live blog coverage of the IBMA Awards Show Thursday night. They said they would send along fashion hits and misses via text messaging to our Live Blog Headquarters backstage at The Opry.

Join us here on Thursday evening (10/4) around 9:00 p.m. to follow the proceedings online.