American Bach revisited, and more

Michael J. Miles announces that his new recording, American Bach revisited, will be officially released this coming Friday (4 Aug.). A special concert to mark the release will be held at Space Evanston in Evanston, ILL, on 17 Sept., featuring Michael (banjo, guitar) and Jill Kaeding (cello). The album can be pre-ordered on BandCamp.

Michael also announces his coming schedule of one-off workshops for playing country and classic pop/ rock on clawhammer banjo and fingerstyle guitar. Full details are in his latest e-newsletter.

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On Tues. 25 July the IBMA presented a webinar discussion on the topic of generative AI (artificial intelligence) within the music industry, its copyright implications, and its future relationship with human creators. A one-hour-and-fifty-minutes video of the discussion can be seen on the IBMA Facebook and on YouTube.

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The BIB sends a belated 'Happy birthday' to master fiddler Robert Caldwell 'Bobby' Hicks (left) of western North Carolina, whose 90th birthday was on Friday 21 July. Sandy Hatley describes on Bluegrass Today the celebrations in Marshall, NC, with three photos, a video (also on YouTube), and quotations from those present, including fiddlers Michael Cleveland and Aynsley Porchak. One of the places around the world where Bobby has been is Dublin, where he played c.1996 as a member of Ricky Skaggs's country music band, on rhythm guitar and banjo as well as fiddle. He was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017; the photo above is taken from his Hall of Fame bio article.

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The Birthplace of Country Music Museum (BCMM) in Bristol, TN/VA, announces a special screening of the film '"I've endured": the music and legacy of Ola Belle Reed' on Mon. 28 Aug., associated with their ongoing 'Women in old-time music' exhibit. A three-minute-plus trailer of the film can be seen here. More details are on the BCMM newsletter.

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Finally, more IBMA news: the Keynote Speech at this year's World Of Bluegrass in Raleigh, NC, will be delivered by fiddle/ violin maestro Matt Glaser on Tues. 26 Sept., under the title 'Hidden threads: bluegrass in the American musical tapestry'. More details are on the IBMA press release, and still more about other aspects of World Of Bluegrass in the IBMA July 2023 newsletter.

© Richard Hawkins

Fast Track: 'The legend of Bonnie and Clyde'

Fast Track (with Ron Spears on bass and vocals, who was here with Special Consensus in 2007) have just had a further single released from their album Heartache and trouble: it's 'The legend of Bonnie and Clyde', a song by Merle Haggard and his wife Bonnie Owens, written to follow the success of the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde with Earl Scruggs's 'Foggy Mountain breakdown' on the soundtrack. Fast Track (also on Facebook) deliver a driving bluegrass treatment of the song, which can be heard on the Engelhardt Music Group press release.

Haggard's 1968 recording can be heard on YouTube. A 1969 video of Haggard and Glen Campbell singing it, with John Hartford playing some unusual banjo, can be seen here. For the 1968 album recorded by Flatt & Scruggs to capitalise on the film, see the BIB for 7 Oct. 2021.

© Richard Hawkins

'Of the people, from the people, for the people' - Westport 2022: the documentary film!

Uri Kohen, director of the Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival in Co. Mayo, announces on the Festival Facebook:

Rickie O'Neill and BackHouse Film Production spent a few days with us during this year’s festival and made this great movie which we are very excited to present to you.

The movie explores the past, present, and future of our festival, and features music by some of the acts who played at this year’s event.

We hope you will enjoy it and share it with your friends.

Thanks to Uri for the YouTube link; the documentary can be watched below.

Update 11 Oct.: read John Lawless's report on the film (with added information) on Bluegrass Today.

© Richard Hawkins

Recordings, releases, and related news

On 9 Sept. the BIB carried a recording from YouTube of Hazel Dickens singing 'Hills of Galilee'. By coincidence (if that's what it was), on the same day Smithsonian Folkways Recordings announced three coming reissues of classic recordings by Hazel Dickens and her musical partner Alice Gerrard. The two albums Who's that knocking? and Won't you come and sing for me?, completely remastered, are being rereleased on vinyl, and issued for the first time as downloads or on streaming. At the same time (21 Oct.) all the Folkways recordings by Alice and Hazel are being rereleased as Pioneering women of bluegrass: the definitive edition on streaming and CD, with extras including a previously unreleased cut of a Louvin Brothers song.

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Richard Thompson reported yesterday on Bluegrass Today (BT) a new thirty-two-minute documentary film on Hazel Dickens's life: Don't put her down: the life and times of Hazel Dickens, produced and directed by Julia Golonka, who explains in the BT feature how the film was inspired and came to be made. It will be screened at several festivals in coming months.

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The Dark Shadow Recording company announces that the Stillhouse Junkies (who made a big impression at this year's Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival) released their album Small towns on Friday (9 Sept.). On Bluegrass Today, Lee Zimmerman's review of the album includes a playlist with samples of all twelve tracks.

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Kenny & Amanda Smith (above) have released their eighth album together, the twelve-track All I need, which is now available on all streaming platforms, and from their website in CD form. Kenny has appeared more than once at Omagh festivals, and Amanda once with her husband.

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We Banjo 3, originators of Celtgrass, could be heard live last Friday on 'Bluegrass Junction', the premier bluegrass programme on the Sirius XM station. The band's Fergal Scahill had previously (23 Aug.) been interviewed on the Hops and Spirits Bar Conversations podcast series.

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The Moving On Music agency announce that in their Belfast concert on Sun. 23 Oct. the Damien O'Kane and Ron Block Band will be joined by John Joe Kelly on bodhrán; that percussive dancer Nic Gareiss will be performing with fiddler, violist, and composer Ultan O’Brien at the Duncairn, Belfast, on Sun. 6 Nov.; and that in mid November Don Vappie, jazz tenor-banjo maestro, and his band will be playing four dates up North: dates and booking links are here - no connection with bluegrass, but potentially of great interest to mandolinists as well as jazz fans.

© Richard Hawkins

Appalachia in the news and on screen

At the time of writing this post, the southern Appalachian mountain area - especially eastern Kentucky, eastern West Virginia, and south-western Virginia - is being devastated by flooding that is taking lives and destroying homes. All who feel for the music and the general culture of Appalachia should feel also for its people who are enduring these latest trials, burdens, and dangers.

Coincidentally, the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, TN, screened yesterday the 2019 film Hillbilly, produced and directed by Sally Rubin and Ashley York. An investigative documentary, it examines how the stigmas attached to the negative 'hillbilly' stereotypes developed, and how these are linked to the exploitation of the region. A brief trailer is on YouTube, and predominantly favourable reviews are given on the Rotten Tomatoes website.

© Richard Hawkins

Dún Laoghaire Folk Festival, 22 Aug.-11 Sept. 2022

Foggy Notions in association with the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, announce that the Dún Laoghaire Folk Festival will be held from Mon. 22 Aug. to Sun. 11 Sept. 2022. Tickets are already on sale for the first ten shows and sixteen artists - which, unfortunately, do not at present include any acts from bluegrass or old-time music. Bookings can be made free online here. The Pavilion Theatre has been hospitable to bluegrass in the past, presenting shows by the Special Consensus and Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, and a screening of The Broken Circle Breakdown.

© Richard Hawkins

Detached notes

On Tuesday Michael Cleveland, who has played in Ireland several times, first as a member of Dale Ann Bradley's band and later with his own band Flamekeeper, was named a National Heritage Fellow by the US National Endowment for the Arts. As John Lawless explains on Bluegrass Today, 'This is the highest award offered in the United States for the folk and traditional arts, with recipients nominated by members of the public, and then chosen by a panel of experts in their fields.' A list of other recipients of 2022 National Heritage fellowships, together with a video of Michael Cleveland playing with Béla Fleck, is on Bluegrass Today.

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The BIB mentioned on 17 June that the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Rompfest (held on 22-25 June in Owensboro, KY) would include Galway's We Banjo 3, among many other acts and artists familiar to Irish audiences. Bluegrass Today has now published eighteen photos taken at ROMP; no. 7 is a fine shot of Enda Scahill on stage.

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Last November the BIB reported that the Gold Tone Music Group are offering mahogany necks identical to that fitted to their new 'Bluegrass Heart' model banjo. A ten-minute video on YouTube shows the process of fitting one such neck to the pot of a Gibson Earl Scruggs Standard banjo.

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Dark Shadow Recording announces that Colorado's Stillhouse Junkies have a new single, 'Moonrise over Ridgway', which was released last Friday (24 June) - the second to be released from their forthcoming album Small towns. More details are on the Dark Shadow press release.

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The BIB learns with regret of the death of James Reams from cancer at the age of 66. Born in Kentucky, he was for nearly thirty years a moving force in bluegrass and old-time circles in New York as a performing and recording artist, songwriter, and bandleader, with a special concern for documenting the pioneers of the music. John Lawless, who knew him as a friend, has posted an appreciation on Bluegrass Today.

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The BIB mentioned a month ago that Ashby Frank, formerly mandolinist with the Special Consensus, had signed with the Mountain Home Music Company and was about to release a single, 'Midnight highway'. The label now announce Ashby's second single, 'Jump on it', made like the first with a distinguished casr of guest artists. A sample of it can be heard via the press release.

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Thanks to Ellen Pasternack, executive director of Bluegrass Country Soul, Inc., for a reminder that the fiftieth anniversary of the first public screening of the historic film 'Bluegrass country soul' will fall on 6 July this year (the website gives the date 7 July; the BIB recommends celebrating on both dates). The film, shot at the 1971 Camp Springs bluegrass festival, encapsulates the US scene at a pivotal time in bluegrass history. A Golden Anniversary edition of the film is now available. The photo below, by Robert Kaylor, shows the Country Gentlemen warming up offstage at Camp Springs: (l-r) Bill Emerson, Doyle Lawson, Bill Yates, Charlie Waller.

© Richard Hawkins

Reliving Westport experiences

The atmosphere of a session at the Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival is well conveyed by the video above, showing Roger Green (guitar, lead vocal) and César Benzoni (mandolin, harmony vocal), with Kylie Kay Anderson (mandolin) and Owen Schinkel (dobro) of Long Way Home, playing 'Eight more miles to Louisville' in Blouser's bar.

The video is on César's YouTube channel, but (as he makes clear) it was made by Ger Kenny's Pervege Free Films, who regularly film the Westport festival as well as other musical events. Twenty-three videos from this year's festival, and many more from previous years at Westport, can be enjoyed on the Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival YouTube channel, and the festival's organising team have expressed their 'massive thanks' to Ger Kenny on Facebook.

© Richard Hawkins

Bluegrass at Kilkenny Roots Festival, 30 Apr.-1 May 2022

Niall Toner (above) posted on Friday the following exciting news on his Facebook (links added by the BIB):

Very much looking forward to playing the Kilkenny Roots Festival on Saturday the 30th at the Pembroke Hotel, 10 p.m., and at Bollards on Sunday the 1st of May, also at 10 p.m. Most exciting to be doing these gigs with an all-original set AND a new lineup! A few surprises in store, and all to be filmed [...]!!! Be there, or be square!!!

The filming will be for the purpose of compiling a twenty-minute video of Niall and his band in rehearsal and performance, as his contribution to the IBMA songwriter showcases at this year's World Of Bluegrass in Raleigh, NC.

Other bands playing sets of bluegrass or related music in the Smithwick's Music Trail schedule over the weekend include Two Time Polka, the Blue Light Smugglers, Desert Aces, and Woodbine, featuring Gerry Madden on mandolin.

© Richard Hawkins

You gave me a song now on video stream

The production team of You gave me a song, the documentary film of the remarkable life of Alice Gerrard (centre in photo), are happy to announce that it can now be watched on video stream, and can be rented or bought here. Some box sets and other merchandise are still available through the film's website. Part of the proceeds from sales goes to benefit the Highlander Research and Education Center. More details are on Facebook.

© Richard Hawkins

Good things from BU

Corresponding with the focus on the Stanley Brothers in the Dec. 2021 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine, the 58th BU newsletter has a podcast interview with Gary Reid, who probably knows more about the Stanleys and their music than anyone else in the world; a Spotify playlist drawn from their recordings; and two archive articles from the Aug. 2016 issue following the death of Ralph Stanley.

Other good things include the seventh instalment of the special series of articles on Bill Emerson, covering the beginning of the 1970s when he rejoined the Country Gentlemen for what was to be one of the peak periods in the band's history. The Gents, with Emerson, feature prominently in the 1971 film Bluegrass country soul, which was recently re-released in a deluxe edition. The next instalment will cover Emerson's opening up a new career path for bluegrass musicians.

© Richard Hawkins

You gave me a song merchandise ready to ship

Thanks to the organising team of You gave me a song: a film about Alice Gerrard for this fine photo of four-fifths of the Strange Creek Singers (Lamar Grier, banjo; Hazel Dickens, bass; Mike Seeger, mandolin; Alice Gerrard, guitar), plus Tex Logan (fiddle), probably some time in the 1970s. The film team also report that they have no supply chain problems and are ready to sell CD/ DVD bundles and T-shirts with discounts.

© Richard Hawkins

National Native American Heritage Month

The commemorative period now known as National Native American Heritage Month began yesterday (1 Nov.) in the USA. The BIB combines marking the occasion with remembering Raymond Fairchild (left) of Cherokee, NC, who died two years ago (see Bluegrass Today for 14 Oct. 2019, the BIB post of the following day, and Banjo News Letter). A phenomenal banjo-player, he was also proud of his Cherokee ancestry.

The account the BIB gave in 2019 can be amended by watching the first two-and-a-half minutes of Alan Lomax's 1991 film 'Appalachian journey' on YouTube. At 1:55 Lomax asks Raymond 'Are you proud of your Indian blood?'; he replies 'Yes sir. Definitely', and shortly afterwards is shown saying 'I'm proud to be a mountain man; and I'm proud to be a banjo-picker. I don't care what you say about it!'

© Richard Hawkins

News from past visitors

The next two Zoom lessons in the new season of banjo 'clinics' by Ken Perlman, godfather of 'melodic clawhammer banjo', are on syncopated patterns of double-thumbing (25 Oct.) and melodic fingering shapes in open G-tuning, up to the ninth fret (15 Nov.).

Between those dates, at the 24th Annual Banjo Gathering in Williamsburg, VA, on 4-7 Nov., Ken will be presenting a talk entitled 'Banjo rappers: comparing & contrasting styles of some well-known pre-"revival" 20th-century downpickers', a category that includes Tom Ashley, Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, Rufus Crisp, Hobart Smith, and Wade Ward. Ken also sends a reminder of the next Suwannee Banjo Camp, which will be held on 10-13 Mar. 2022. All Ken's previous lessons are available as videos at $25 each from his Encore Collection.

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Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, headliners at the 2019 Omagh festival, accepted the Album of the Year award for Industrial strength bluegrass, the Smithsonian Records album produced by Joe, at this year's IBMA Awards Show. The band will host the Industrial Strength Bluegrass Festival in Wilmington, OH, on 11-13 Nov. More information, and photos from IBMA's World Of Bluegrass 2021, are on the band's latest e-newsletter.

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Valerie Smith, who brought her dynamic band Liberty Pike to Ireland some years back, announces the release of her latest album, Renaissance, on the Bell Buckle Records label. The album can be heard and bought (download $15.00) from her website. Liberty Pike now includes Lisa Kay Howard-Hughes (mandolin, vocals), Wally Hughes (fiddle, vocals, guitar, dobro), both of whom have visited Ireland in other bands, together with Joe Zauner (banjo, guitar) and Tom Gray (bass), a member of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.

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Lorraine Jordan sends the news that in addition to the free access her website affords to the videoed concerts at her Coffee and Cafe venue, there is a link to Rachel Liebling's 95-minute 1991 film High lonesome: the story of bluegrass music on YouTube.

© Richard Hawkins

Bluegrass and tommy guns

The BIB editor writes:

Thanks to Denis McCarthy for his comment on yesterday's post 'The Sackville String Band c.1985 on video'. In response to Denis's two questions:

(1) Yes, the '1920s gangster' motif was anachronistic, but the Sackvilles were at least in good company. Blame it on the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde and its use of Earl Scruggs's 'Foggy Mountain breakdown' on the soundtrack. (The story of how that came about is in chapter 12 (pp 101-116) of Thomas Goldsmith's 2019 book Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain breakdown: the making of an American classic.)

To benefit from the success of the film and the music, Flatt & Scruggs themselves brought out the 1968 LP The story of Bonnie & Clyde, with new songs written by Tom T. Hall (see image above, showing the whole band in gangster outfits; Lester holds the tommy gun, and Earl the violin case). Among other bands who rode this wave, Oregon's Sawtooth Mountain Volunteers (later known as the Sawtooth Mountain Boys) appeared similarly dressed, complete with car and moll, on the front cover of the May 1968 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited.

(2) I last saw Jimmy Kelly over twelve years ago in Dalkey, and would be glad to hear from him again. As the Sackville videos show, he was a highly talented musician - the only Irish bluegrass musician, as far as I know, to have published an instruction method for 5-string banjo - and his withdrawal from the scene is greatly to be regretted. Also performing on bluegrass banjo in the early 1970s were Brendan Sheridan from Oldcastle, Co. Meath, and Brendan O'Reilly of the band Casterbridge Union.

© Richard Hawkins

Alice Gerrard box sets and bundles

More merchandise, this time connected with a friend of Bill Monroe, Alice Gerrard (above), and with a documentary film about her life - the organisers of You gave me a song announce:

We’re happy to announce our 2021 Box Set Summer Sale! Our little boxes contain the seventy-seven-minute film festival cut, bonus scenes, two CDs of favorite film tunes, never-before-released archival music from Alice’s collection, and an assortment of photo cards from Alice's archive. We have a limited supply of signed film posters, LPs, and CDs to bundle with your box order. And you can also order one of our Phil Blank-designed YOU GAVE ME A SONG t-shirts, which some have called 'one of the most comfortable tees in my dresser'. Visit our shop and order here...

© Richard Hawkins

Appalachian music on film and TV

Dale Farmer (right), creator of The mountain minor, the film drama about old-time music in Appalachia, sends his latest e-newsletter, which includes a link to an hour-long TV presentation (accessible on YouTube). In this, he presents many examples of how bluegrass and old-time music have been shown on TV and movie screens, often perpetuating comic or negative stereotypes of country people. In the last few minutes, he gives salutary comments on how one might react to the term 'hillbilly'.

Dale reminds us that The mountain minor, as well as being on DVD and Blu-Ray, is available for public or private screenings. This year has seen the emergence of the cicadas after seventeen years underground; you can find out from the e-newsletter why Dale finds it easy to identify with the cicadas.

© Richard Hawkins

'Bluegrass Country Soul' to be shown at its birthplace on 3 Sept. 2021

Thanks to Ellen Pasternack, executive director of Bluegrass Country Soul, Inc., for this news:

This Labor Day weekend [Sat. 4 Sept.-Mon. 6 Sept.] will mark the 50th anniversary of the filming of 'Bluegrass Country Soul', shot in 1971 at Carlton Haney’s Blue Grass Park in Camp Springs, NC. This year’s festival will include a celebratory screening of 'Bluegrass Country Soul', at 9.30 p.m. on Friday, September 3, on the very site where the movie was filmed!

We’ve created the following short video as part of our celebrations of this historic event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1AwQsUvfg.

The video is just under two minutes long. Other video clips from the film, or about the making of it, are on the Bluegrass Country Soul YouYube channel.

© Richard Hawkins

Old-time music galore

FOAOTMAD, the UK organisation promoting American old-time music and dance, announce on their news blog that nearly three hours of varied old-time music amd interviews can now be heard every week via the Old Time Music Cornwall website, which has embedded players for three shows from the USA: Bill Smedley's 'Old Time Music Hour', Dale Brubaker's 'The Old Time Zone', and Cameron DeWhitt's 'Get up in the Cool'. All shows will be updated weekly.

Colin Tipping, a FOAOTMAD member, also reports that the 1940 film 'Grand Ole Opry', directed by Frank McDonald, will be shown on Thurs. 4 Feb. at 12.35 GMT on TV Freeview Channel 81 'Talking Pictures TV'. The film includes footage of Roy Acuff, Leon Weaver, and Uncle Dave Macon. The familiar clip of Uncle Dave and his son Dorris playing and singing 'Take me back to my old Carolina home' comes from this film.

Remembering Tony Rice and 'O brother' on the BGS

The latest Weekly Dispatch issued by the Bluegrass Situation (BGS) online magazine continues its celebration of twenty years since the US release of 'O brother where art thou?' in December 2000, with Stephen Deusner's article '"O brother where art thou?" created an instant audience for old-time music'.

The BGS is also running a special tribute series of podcasts under the title 'Toy heart: remembering Tony Rice'. In the first of the series, the host Tom Power speaks with Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and David Grisman about their old friend and bandmate. This episode, over ninety minutes long, can be heard here. In a comment on this page, singer, songwriter, and banjo-player Pam Gadd writes: 'this interview is absolutely the most candid, interesting, informative and longed-for understanding of who Tony Rice was.'