Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out are loading up the bus this morning and heading out on a two week tour that will take them from their home base in Georgia out to the west coast and back again.

Banjo picker Steve Dilling has agreed to send us updates and photos along the way, which we will publish here as often as they come in. Should be fun.

The tour will find them in Tennessee, Arkansas, California, Nevada, Colorado and Idaho doing a mix of club shows and concerts along the way.

• Fri April 3 – The Down Home,  Johnson City, TN
• Sat April 4 – GoodFolk Productions,  Fayetteville, AR
• Tues April 7 – Freight and Salvage,  Berkeley, CA
• Wed April 8 – The Maverick Saloon,  Santa Ynez, CA
• Thur April 9 – Don Quixote’s Music Hall,  Felton, CA
• Fri April 10 – Trinity Alps Performing Arts Center,  Weaverville, CA
• Sat April 11 – Willits High School,  Willits, CA
• Mon, April 13 – Brewery Arts Center,  Carson City, NV
• Tues April 14 – Special Event Center, Boise St. University Boise, ID
• Wed April 15 – The Swing Station,  Laporte, CO
• Fri April 17 – XM/Sirius Radio Special Taping,  Nashville, TN
• Sat April 18 – The Grand Theater,  Cartersville, GA

You can find more details on any of these tour stops on the IIIrd Tyme Out web site, including afternoon workshops for banjo and mandolin before the Boise State University show in Idaho on 4/14.

Steve Dilling and Wayne Benson will lead the workshops, and attendees get a free ticket to the concert that night.

I’ve had occasion this week to speak with both Alan Bibey and Wayne Benson, two of the premier mandolinists playing bluegrass today. They are teaming up this year for a number of projects sure to be of interest to students of the mandolin, and folks who just love to hear them played.

Within the next several months, Al and Wayne will start work on a new twin mandolin project for Pinecastle Records. Their intent is to write some new music together, and arrange some more with harmony parts for mandolin duets.

Al said that they will have Ron Stewart on banjo, Stewart Duncan on fiddle, Tony Rice on guitar and Barry Bales on bass. He and Wayne will be featured on nearly all the members of the mandolin family and the material is expected to be largely grassy with a few ventures just a bit outside.

If all goes well, you can hope to see this new mando duo CD in the spring of ‘09.

The discussions about the CD have led the pair to also team up for a number of mandolin workshops with the first scheduled for March 26 in Woodstock, GA. The format will have them teaching both an hour long beginner and an advanced/intermediate class following a Q&A with the two of them together. Students who take the beginner or advanced classes will have the chance to spend time with both Wayne and Alan, and the evening will conclude with a duo concert.

Anyone who would like to attend should contact Dan Connell at 678-643-7531. If you are interested in hosting one of their joint mandolin workshops, contact Alan for details.

IIIrd Tyme Out has just announced that mandolin player Wayne Benson will be returning to the band later this month. Wayne was in the band from 1992 to 2004. After leaving the band in 2004, Benson joined The John Cowan Band where he has been ever since. Benson now returns to IIIrd Tyme Out as Alan Perdue leaves to concentrate on two businesses that he owns.

We are sad to see Alan leave, and have cherished the time that we have gotten to play music with him, but are as equally excited to have Wayne re-joining the band.

Benson’s first show back with the band will be at Bass Mountain Park in Burlington, NC on May 25, 2007.