Rhonda posted a number of photos from the show on her Facebook page, and there is also a very nice slide show of images online, taken by Heather Byrd of The Tennessean.

Looks like it was a fun show.

The trailer is just a quick look at some of the footage that was shot, without the audio from the song. The vistas and landscapes – from Nelson’s Texas ranch – are quite powerful.

The single and the video (directed by Scott Hansen) are expected to be released early in 2009.

The first thing on the agenda was a brief preview of the music video she recently filmed with Willie Nelson. It’s for a song of his, Back To Earth, featured on her new CD, And The Wheels Turn.

The preview was put together like a movie trailer and though it showed only a few scenes from the finished product, it was clear that the final product will be a pro effort. Shot on Willie’s ranch near Austin, TX, the video takes advantage of sweeping vistas and lush color – plus the powerful imagery of one of country music’s most recognizable icons.

The finished video will be released when Back To Earth comes out as a single early in 2009. We’ll have a copy of the trailer here on The Bluegrass Blog sometime early next week, once we recover from IBMA week craziness.

After watching the preview a time or two, Melonie grabbed her guitarist, Booie Beach, and Ronnie and Garnett Bowman to sing a number of songs from the new CD – Cactus In A Coffee Can, Set ‘Em Up Joe (written by her dad, Buddy Cannon) and I’ve Seen Enough Of What’s Behind Me, written by Ronnie Bowman and Tammy Rogers.

The CD has been getting a good bit of attention from bluegrass radio, and both Kyle Cantrell of XM’s Bluegrass Junction, and Terry Herd of Into The Blue were in attendance at this reception.

Perhaps the chief highlight associated with the new CD for Melonie has been getting to work with Willie Nelson. They did a duet on one of his songs, Back To Earth, for which a music video has recently been shot.

Nelson’s latest CD, Moment Of Forever, was produced by Melonie’s dad, Buddy Cannon, and Kenny Chesney, and they had asked Melonie to sing some harmony while they were tracking.

“I had never met Willie before those sessions, though my dad had met him once – in a broom closet. I can only imagine what happened there!

When I told him I had cut one of his songs, he asked ‘Can I sing on it?’ The song was Some Little Things, which we haven’t yet used on an album. Dad got the idea of having Willie sing on Back To Earth, and asked if he wanted to do it with me. Willie said, yeah and that he would get his manager in touch.

When he came in to sing, I had already sung the whole track, and Willie decided he would do the second verse and harmony on the chorus.”

Just in the past few weeks, the opportunity arose for Nelson to appear in a music video for the song, and arrangements were made for Melonie and her dad to fly down to Texas for the shoot. They all assembled on Willie’s ranch not far from Austin.

“The crew, my Daddy and I were waiting for the man to show up at the town ‘Headquarters’ as it’s called. A black pick up truck came whizzing towards us, dust and gravel flying everywhere. And lo and behold, it was Willie! He asked if we were ready for him and the crew said yes.

He spun gravel and peeled off instead of getting out. In my mind I was thinking, ‘I hope they got the shot!’

Then, from the same direction the truck had flown into came a man on a horse, dressed all in black, from his cowboy hat to his boots. Just like you’d see in an old western movie except this was not someone acting.

I could go on forever, but I’ll just say one more thing about the video… It will be as magical as it was seeing Mr. Willie Nelson come galloping up that September morning on ‘Slim.’

This will be one of my most treasured memories I will ever have!!”

The new Melonie Cannon CD will be available from Rural Rhythm Records on October 7, and sample audio from all 12 tracks is up now online. No word yet on when the video will be released.

I had a chance recently to discuss all this with Melonie, and her excitement about the new project was evident throughout our conversation.

“We just wanted to make a record as good or better as the last one. I found a place for my voice that feels like home in acoustic music, and I don’t want to change it. This is the most natural and organic I’ve ever felt about my singing in my life.”

She had one previous self-titled release on Skaggs Family Records in 2004, and my impression of her was based solely on the glamour photos that had been associated with that project. I had expected an urbane, sophisticated woman-of-the-world, but when we first spoke, the voice I heard was as country as they come.

“Lord no… I’m the furthest thing from that glamour image! Shoot, I’m the biggest redneck there is.”

Melonie comes by her music chops naturally. Her dad is Nashville songwriting and producing legend, Buddy Cannon, whose credits include work with Shania Twain, Vern Gosdin and Mel Tillis. She grew up around country music and top country singers, but discovered bluegrass on her own as a girl.

“I was raised in the country world, and that was the music I heard. My dad worked for Mel Tillis when we were young, and I grew up with his kids – Pam Tillis was our baby sitter.

Still, my family had connections to bluegrass from way back. Daddy played in bluegrass bands in Lexington before he started playing country. My great uncle Dalton Tate gave my dad his first guitar, and he was a bluegrasser. He and his friends – all in their 80s – still get together every week to pick and sing.

I went to school with Deanie Richardson [New Coon Creek Girls/Patty Loveless] since first grade, and later married her brother. She started teaching me songs from the bluegrass and folk world when we were teenagers.

One day her brother took me to The Station Inn and Alison Krauss was playing. She was 16 and I was 15, and from that moment on, the music forever changed my life. Every time they started a song, it sounded like a record. I thought, ‘how do they do that?’

It was like I had walked into the twilight zone. I went and got her records and for the rest of my high school, this was the music I connected with.

Then I started finding artists like Dale Ann Bradley, and she is now one of my favorite singers. I found Del McCoury, and I got into him and Ricky Skaggs’ band. After a while I started digging, and found The Stanley Brothers and the first generation artists. The old Lonesome River Band was another huge influence.”

And The Wheels Turn shows how well she has merged the country and bluegrass influences into her own distinctive sound. Many of the songs are ones that could be cut by country artists, but the arrangements here are acoustic, using the traditional bluegrass instruments.

“The sound of these instruments is soothing to my ears – it’s like heaven to me. I don’t care what they call it – bluegrass, acoustic, country – people can just listen to what they like.”

The star of the show, of course, is Cannon’s voice. She sings with a unaffected purity that is right at home in a bluegrass setting, and blends beautifully with Dan Tyminski, Ronnie Bowman and Sonya Isaacs who sing with her on the new album.

Bowman also contributed three songs to the project. Send A Little Love, Mary Magdalene and I’ve Seen Enough Of What’s Behind Me were all co-written by him. Melonie is credited as a co-writer on three as well, and her dad on two.

One of Buddy’s song which she covers here is the honky tonk classic, Set ‘Em Up Joe, originally recorded by Vern Gosdin in 1988. It fits just fine with banjo, dobro, mandolin and fiddle – just like it was written that way.

It’s a special song for Melonie, and may have been instrumental in her becoming a singer.

“I started out doing this one in the live show a couple years ago. The band loved it on stage and they kept saying that I should record it – as a tip of the hat to my Daddy. I had the chance to sing it on the Opry, and the house came down. Then, I got to tell them that my dad wrote it.

I used to sing this all the time when I was a kid (13-14), but my dad used to drink back then and never really took note. I would plug a mic into an amp and sing along with the record down in the basement.

One day Vern was at the house and said to Daddy, ‘Do you know that kid can sing down there?’ Daddy brought me up and we sang together for the next few hours. They taught me how to sing harmony, what it meant, how it felt.

If it wasn’t for Vern, I don’t know if Daddy would ever have pulled me up from that basement.”

A couple of the songs are flat-out bluegrass where the talents of Adam Steffey, Randy Kohrs, Tim Stafford, Wyatt Rice, Aubrey Haynie, Jody King, Barry Bales and Deanie Richardson really shine.

Melonie shows her vocal chops on the aforementioned Mary Magdalene (Why You Cryin’), which captures an old time Gospel feel – complete with improvised shouts in the background. The chorus was composed of Sonya Isaacs, Tim Stafford, Ronnie and Garnet Bowman, Buddy Cannon, Melonie and Dan Tyminski.

“That session was so much fun. We were sitting around reading the Bible, writing, laughing and having a big Hoohaw.

Sonya and Ronnie had the idea for the arrangement. We set a microphone in the middle of the room, and the two of them got in the corners of the room and just ad libbed those hollers.

I always wanted a to have a Gospel tune about the strong women of The Bible, and a lot of people don’t think much about Mary Magdalene.”

Picking up on that theme, I had noticed that half of the songs on And The Wheels Turn were written or co-written by female composers, and that the themes of the songs were told from a woman’s perspective.

“I’m attracted to strong women songs – guess that’s the tom boy in me. I’m the mother of two boys and I have a husband, a male dog and a male bird. I have to stand up for me, and I respect women who do that.

I end up choosing songs with a great message that speak to me.”

We’ll have more tomorrow from this conversation with Melonie Cannon, including details about her duet – and video shoot – with Willie Nelson.

The song was written by Marla Cannon-Goodman, Jennifer Hanson and Michael Heeney, and offers the first glimpse at her next CD, And The Wheels Turn, due October 7 on Rural Rhythm.

It tells the story of ending a failed romance without remorse, and you can hear an audio sample below.

Listen now:

The new CD draws on the musicianship of some of Nashville’s top bluegrass artists, with contributions from Dan Tyminski, Adam Steffey, Tim Stafford, Randy Kohrs, Aubrey Haynie, Wyatt Rice, Jody King, Barry Bales and Deanie Richardson. Helping out with harmony vocals are Ronnie Bowman, Garnet Imes Bowman, Sonya Isaacs and more.

Melonie is especially excited about one guest artist, with whom she sings a duet. Country music legend Willie Nelson joins her for one track, Back To Earth, a song he wrote and recorded on his Songbird album.

He had high praise for the new CD.

"Melonie Cannon is one of the best singers I know. Her new bluegrass album is fantastic. I love her voice anyway, but singing with a great bluegrass band was a good idea. They blend well together. The fact that I got to sing with her on a song I wrote makes it even better.”

We hope to get some thoughts from Melonie about the new CD soon.