News digest #5

Thanks to Tom Connor for this poster image for the forthcoming visit in May-June 2013 by Roni Stoneman, 'First Lady of Banjo' (see the BIB for 23 Nov. 2012). The poster (click to enlarge) shows the dates when Roni will be in different parts of Ireland and events for which she is already booked. Anyone who can offer Roni a show or a picking party should contact the BIB editor emeritus, or John Nyhan by e-mail.

The updated schedule of events up to 9 Mar. 2013 at the Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre at Naul, Co. Dublin, can be read here.

Thanks to Sharon Loughrin for the news that Rose's Pawn Shop (USA) will begin their tour next week a day earlier than previously announced, with a date on Tuesday 5 March at the Weigh Inn, Omagh, Co. Tyrone. The rest of their schedule (up to Sunday 10 March) is on the BIB calendar.

Bluegrass Daily published this link to archives in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, and specifically to Collection no. 20061, the Jack Bernhardt Papers. The 300+ items in this archive include cassette recordings of interviews with many major figures of bluegrass, old-time, and contemporary country music, including Bill Monroe and Jesse McReynolds, Tommy Jarrell and Henry Reed, and Tammy & Jerry Sullivan. Professor Bernhardt has presented the McAuley Lectures at the annual Appalachian & Bluegrass Music Festival at Omagh from their inception up to 2011.

Late extra: Homespun's 20% 'Love the blues' sale on instructional DVDs for instruments including mandolin, fiddle, flatpicking guitar, and lap-style slide guitar, will continue till midnight (US time) tomorrow - Wednesday 27 February. Full details here.