Alan Jackson, The bluegrass album, and Carnegie Hall

Thanks to Roger Ryan of the Country Music Association of Ireland for the news that country music superstar and singer/songwriter Alan Jackson will perform in concert at the world-famous Carnegie Hall in New York on 28 October at 8.00 p.m. The show will feature songs from his The bluegrass album, to be released on 24 September and now available for pre-order from the AJ website. Eight of the fourteen songs on the album are his own compositions.

At Carnegie Hall he will be joined by the prominent bluegrass musicians whom regular guitarist Scott Coney assembled for the album: Sammy Shelor (banjo), Adam Steffey (mandolin), Tim Crouch (fiddle), Rob Ickes (reso-guitar), and Tim Dishman (bass), with Ronnie Bowman and Don Rigsby contributing harmony vocals.

In the past week Bluegrass Today has published two major features on the collaboration: an article by John Goad on the show at the Station Inn, Nashville, to launch the album, and an interview by John Lawless with Adam Steffey on how enjoyable the experience of working with Jackson was, and how positive the results are. Our favourite Adam Steffey quote about the album:

I know that we have people in our music who are superstars at being annoyed by anything different, but I think bluegrass fans will really like it.