John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2004 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.
It’s one John wrote with label head Eddie Sanders and Scott Vestal called Gotta Go Now, which has a pronounced New Grass Revival vibe. With John on bass and lead vocal, and Vestal on banjo, additional support comes from Coy Kilby on guitar, Jonah Horton on mandolin, and Tim Crouch on fiddle. Ashby Frank adds harmony vocals.
As you might expect, the pickin’ is on fire, as is Cowan’s singing.
New Grass fans are sure to love this fast-moving number. Check it out…
Gotta Go Now is available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via AirPlay Direct.
Following on the success of the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project in 2020, a recording featuring top fiddlers playing tunes found in the massive collection of the late John Hartford, the family of the hugely influential musician has announced that work has commenced on a Volume 2.
Hartford was like a force of nature during his performing career. Playing both banjo and fiddle, and accompanying himself and his distinctive baritone voice with foot percussion, John was a headline artist at festivals and shows all over the US. His solo appearances at festivals were so powerful, and affected audiences so intensely, that other acts would write into their contracts that they not be booked to follow him on stage.
For those who never saw him live, words fail in trying to describe the way that he mesmerized a crowd, speaking very little, and letting his music do the talking in an hour-long show. On top of that, his deep and ongoing study of both his instruments, and the players that came before him, only added to his artistry. Oh… and he was a songwriter with few peers, whose catalog lists a number of true classics, some so Hartford-esque that they are quite rarely performed by others.
Since this second volume of the Fiddle Tune Project is primarily a labor of love, the Hartford family is asking fans for their assistance in funding the album. They are offering pre-orders for both the CD and vinyl editions of Volume 2, and have established a Patreon page for those who want to be clued in on the progress. And it appears that the recording will specially feature female artists interpreting John’s tunes.
Like the first, this effort draws on tunes published in the book by Matt Combs, Greg Reish, and Katie Hartford Hogue, John Hartford’s Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes, containing 176 of his tunes, along with drawings the great man scribbled out during his life.
Produced by Sharon Gilchrist and Megan Lynch Chowning, with John’s daughter, Katie Hartford Hogue, announced participants include Rachel Baiman, Phoebe Hunt, Missy Raines, Ginger Boatwright, Natalie and Brittany Haas, Allison de Groot, Della Mae, The Price Sisters, Uncle Earl, and Deanie Richardson, with others to be named as well.
The producers have scheduled a concert for October 7 to help fund the album, where Brittany and Natalie Haas will play through all 176 tunes in the Mammoth Collection, assisted by a house band. It will be held at Nashville’s American Legion Post 82, with all proceeds going to the recording fund.
Here’s a video produced to help promote the project.
With Labor Day coming up, it means that the Grand Master Fiddler Championship is just around the corner. Top fiddlers in bluegrass, old time, swing, Texas, and contest style will get together at the Turner Theater in Franklin, TN, just south of Nashville, on September 1.
There are a great many fiddlers’ conventions all over the US, state conventions, city and county contests, and large events like Galax, Mt. Airy, Clifftop, Weiser, and several others, but the Grand Masters stands apart from all of them, both because of the way the competition is run, and for the level of talent among the contests each year. Reading the winners list offers a “who’s who” of contemporary American fiddling, and contestants also like that awards are given for accompanists as well as fiddlers, with special categories for Youth and Traditional fiddlers.
Past winners include icons like Mark O’Connor, Texas Shorty, Dale Morris, Randy Howard, Danita Rast, and Daniel Carwile, and current players Aynsley Porchak, Maddie Denton, Tristan Claridge, Alex Hargreaves, Trustin Baker, Ridge Roberts, and many others.
Also on that list is Jimmy Mattingly, who took home the trophy in 1981, and will be honored at the 2024 Grand Masters with the Dr. Perry F. Harris Distinguished Fiddler Award. Jimmy got his start in bluegrass, playing in Spectrum with Béla Fleck and Jimmy Gaudreau, and served as a founding member of the Grascals. But his greatest notoriety came as fiddler with Garth Brooks, touring with him all over the world.
Congratulations Jimmy on this high honor, essentially a founder’s award as the Grand Master Fiddler Championship is the brainchild of Dr. Harris.
Musical performers for this year will be Mark & Maggie O’Connor.
This dropping two singles at a time thing looks like it’s becoming a trend. But no one’s complaining about more music!
This time it’s Nashville singer, songwriter, and banjo player Brenna MacMillan, who for the past several years had a band with her brother Theo, called plainly enough, Theo & Brenna. These days the two are promoting their own new solo efforts, and hers is an album of her compositions, Dear Life, recorded with some of her favorite bluegrass and acoustic artists.
From that upcoming album come these two new songs, For Everything, featuring Sarah Jarosz, and If You Dare, co-written with Cory Walker and featuring Peter Rowan. Both are a little bit off the bluegrass track, though MacMillan’s banjo keeps them moored to the genre.
First up, For Everything, which finds a young woman unsure about whether a romance is taking her to the love of her life. It’s arranged in an acoustic country style, with pedal steel, piano, and drums. Very easy on the ear.
If You Dare takes even more risks, from the standpoint of a bluegrass artist, opening with Rowan’s Native American-inspired yodel, delivering an almost ambient track with saxophone from Eddie Barbash, twin fiddles from Billy Contreras – which always challenges the space-time continuum – electric mandolin from Mary Meyer, and Jake Stargel on guitar.
It’s a very interesting recording, though purists may balk.
Both of these new singles from Brenna MacMillan are available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via AirPlay Direct.
New England’s Hosmer Mountain Boys had the chance this summer to perform in Old England, at the Battlefield Bluegrass Festival in Northampton, located in central England.
The four piece band, with guest Silas Powell on mandolin, consists of experienced grassers Cathy Day on fiddle and Tom Bowman on bass, along with fairly new professionals Keegan Day on guitar, and Simon Brogie on banjo. Powell, the only non-New Englander, is from West Virginia.
Though they are a new band, the Hosmer Mountain Boys focus on music from a different era, traditional bluegrass, which is part of what attracted them to festival organizers in Naseby. Festival manager Brian Dowdall and the British Bluegrass Music Association arranged their flights, and even found loaner instruments for the band to use so they wouldn’t need to arrange for transport of their own.
Battlefield ran from July 18-21, and the Americans arrived to play on the 19th, and were immediately impressed that the festival crew had placed a large American flag at their camp site, which made them feel warmly welcomed. Ten UK bands were on the bill, plus the Hosmer Mountain Boys, and a picking contest, workshops, and plenty of jamming. The only thing that set it apart from a typical US bluegrass festival was the smaller size, sold out at 200 attendees, and of course, the accents.
Cathy shared a few words about their trip, and how lovely everyone was.
“We arrived Friday July 18 at 8:00 a.m. in London, and a volunteer from the festival (Steve Wooldrige) drove us two hours north through the countryside to the Naseby Battlefield area where the festival was held. Needless to say, we were all excited to be driving on the windy roads on the left side of oncoming traffic. Brian Dowdall arrange for all loaner instruments for us to make our trip even easier! The instruments were all stellar. He had previously asked us specific details in what we would like and he found perfect matches!
We playedon Friday, closing out the night with an hour long set. We also closed out Saturday night and played a 30 minute gospel set on Sunday morning, then packed up and rode back to London. It was a three day whirlwind which was the perfect way to get our first experience overseas.
The people were just like home, welcoming, generous, and friendly. We picked both nights until 5:00 a.m. with the festival goers. I could go on and on about all the special and unique moments.”
The band also mentioned that just as they hit the stage on Friday night, the sound system crashed, so they had to play their set unamplified. Fortunately, everything was working again by the time music started on Saturday.
Congratulations to the Hosmer Mountain Boys on their first UK trip, and to Battlefield Bluegrass for a successful event.
Fiddler Bobby Hicks, surely among the most celebrated and enduring musicians to ever play bluegrass music, has died from complications of heart disease. After suffering a heart attack on Saturday (8/10), he underwent surgery to install a pacemaker yesterday, and passed away in his sleep at about 3:30 a.m. this morning. He was 91 years of age.
From early days with Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys, through a time playing pop country in Las Vegas, to his memorable stint with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, few did as much to define bluegrass fiddle as thoroughly, and with more joy and spirit, than Bobby Hicks.
Born Robert Caldwell Hicks, July 21, 1933 in Newton, NC, young Bobby first discovered the fiddle in the hands of Smoky Graves, several years after learning to play the mandolin and guitar as a boy. His family played traditional mountain music growing up, and he was pulled into it quite naturally. Once his brother tired of Bobby’s mandolin playing and put him out of their band, he dedicated himself fully to fiddling.
It was after the family moved to Greensboro when he was 12 that Bobby tried his first fiddle contest, placing first in the North Carolina State Championship. He continued on the convention and contest circuit for the next several years, winning his share as he became a fine player. In 1953 his first professional gig came along, playing fiddle for Jim Eanes, where he also got his first taste of recording in Nashville. Not long after he went to work for Benny Jarrell & the Flint Hill Playboys, and country singer Bob Williams.
But Bobby’s fate was sealed when he was asked to play bass on a run of North Carolina dates with Bill Monroe in ’53. As those shows were being completed, Bill asked him if he wanted the job full time, which meant a move to Nashville. Once he realized what a strong fiddler his young bass man was, Bill moved him to that position. During this time Hicks recorded a number of Monroe gems, Wheel Hoss, Roanoke, and Cheyenne, which remain standards to this day.
The Korean War took Hicks away from music for a two-year hitch in the Army from 1956-58. But he rejoined Monroe upon his return, and recorded several more classic tunes with the band. His fiddle appears on most of the tracks on Bill’s Bluegrass Instrumentals record, released in 1965, though most had been recorded in the late ’50s. There we hear Bobby on Stoney Lonesome, Tall Timber, Brown County Breakdown, Panhandle Country, Big Mon, Scotland, Monroe’s Hornpipe, and the cut of Wheel Hoss he had done in 1953. Many of those were double or triple fiddled alongside Charlie Cline, Gordon Terry, Kenny Baker, and Vassar Clements.
What an explosion that album created in bluegrass!
Following that time with Monroe, Bobby took a job with country star Porter Wagoner, where he remained for a few more years in Nashville. Low pay prompted a move to Las Vegas where he quickly found work with country singer Judy Lynn, who kept him in the band for the next seven years. He also developed and performed his own solo show there in Vegas.
But the call of home, and his mother’s poor health, brought him back to Greensboro, where Hicks found ready work with a number of local groups, and teaching private students. His reputation with Monroe also led to studio fiddling opportunities, and he took time to record his solo project, Texas Crapshooter.
Things changed again in 1981 when Ricky Skaggs, then pursuing a career in country music, asked Bobby to join his touring band. Of course, Skaggs exploded onto the country scene with hit after hit, many of them pulled from the catalog of artists like Jim Eanes, The Stanley Brothers, and Flatt & Scruggs. That same year found Hicks caught up in the excitement over the first recording by the Bluegrass Album Band, with Tony Rice, Doyle Lawson, J.D. Crowe, and Todd Phillips. He was included in the first five records they made together while continuing with Ricky.
In 2004, he said goodbye to Skaggs and the road life, at which point he was 71 years old. But Bobby continued to perform with band near his home, now in western North Carolina. He continued to play his fiddle, as well as banjo and guitar, up to the very end.
Banjo player and bandleader Lincoln Hensley tells us that he had been traveling to visit Hicks regularly, and he always wanted to play and sing. Their last get together in person was just a few weeks ago.
Though he didn’t often show it, Bobby was a fine singer, and a top notch banjo picker as well. During Ricky’s country days, Hicks would often be called on to play banjo on songs like Highway 40 Blues and Country Boy.
Here he is a few months ago with Lincoln and the Tennessee Bluegrass Band singing We Could.
A member of the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, Hicks was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017.
Bobby’s widow Cathy says that she is planning a private service, after which Bobby’s ashes will be scattered among the mountains where they live. A public Celebration of Life will be announced at a later date.
Farewell to Bobby Hicks. A bluegrass life, lived to the fullest. We aren’t likely to see his kind again; a true bluegrass hero.
This weekend during the 57th Annual Fries Fiddlers’ Convention, Galax, VA-based photographer Mark Sanderford will be presented with the Fries Musical Heritage Award.
The award is given by the Legends of Grayson committee, the folks who put on the annual Legends of Grayson Old Time Weekend in April, commemorating the unique Appalachian music heritage of Grayson County, VA. The winner is one who has excelled in preserving, promoting, or performing the unique traditional music of Fries, and the surrounding communities of Grayson and Carroll Counties.
Sanderford will be presented with his award on Saturday evening at the convention, which began yesterday in Fries (pronounced “Freeze”), VA. Since the early 1970s he has been prominent throughout southwestern Virginia, capturing black and white images of old time and bluegrass performers, on and off stage, at shows, festivals, impromptu jams, and even in their homes.
Mark is also recognized for having recorded interviews with many of his subjects, as well as their playing, some of whom have now passed on, though their music and stories have been preserved in a number of exhibits. His role as an historian of regional musicians is also mentioned in the announcement of the award.
He is also a musician himself, though he tends to be found crouching on the floor at jams commemorating the events for posterity.
The Fries convention very nearly fell victim to changes in the local Volunteer Fire Department, who had hosted it since 1965 as a fund raiser. Having suffered losses a couple of years running, largely related to not having been able to hold it during the COVID shutdowns, they announced that the Department simply couldn’t face that possibility again. But fortunately town leaders got together and formed a new organization, the Fries Musical Heritage Committee, who will manage the convention going forward.
Many congratulations to Mark Sanderford for this honor!
Here is a meager sampling of the many terrific images available on Mark’s Facebook page.
Bonfire Music Group has a second single from Irish-born singer and songwriter Áine Burns, taken from her upcoming debut project with the label. Produced by her husband, fellow native Irishmer and label mate, Danny Burns, it perfectly reflects their take on contemporary American bluegrass music.
This latest track is Áine’s interpretation of Linger, a hit for Irish alt-rock band The Cranberries back in 1993. It may not be obvious to those of us who live in such a large and populous country as the US, but living in or coming from a small island nation like Ireland, one feels a strong kinship towards national identity, and a group or team with that status.
Burns says that this is part of why she was so pleased when she and Danny came up with a grassed up version of Linger.
“I’ve always loved The Cranberries! After years of performing their songs live, we finally found a cool bluegrass arrangement that we loved. My mother, who is also a singer and a big bluegrass and country music fan, adores our version. That obviously makes me very happy.”
With Áine on lead vocals and Danny singing harmony, studio support came from Tony Wray on guitar, banjo, and mandolin; Tim Crouch on fiddle; Randy Kohrs on reso-guitar; and Ethan Burkhradt on bass.
They give it a smooth acoustic country feel, with bluegrass backing, set of by the Burns’ lovely singing.
Cincinnati bluegrass vocalist, bandleader, and radio host Katie Laur died on August 3.
For 27 years she had hosted Music From The Hills Of Home on WNKU, an NPR affiliate station broadcasting from Northern Kentucky University. She started at the station in 1989, doing a Sunday noon program, which ran until WNKU canceled all local programming in 2017. The show was resurrected a year and a half later on Urban Artifact radio, on Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m. in Cincinnati, which ran for two hours instead of just one.
A native of Paris, TN, Katie’s family moved north to Detroit after WWII, and to Cincinnati in 1966 where she discovered bluegrass music. Already an accomplished performer from working with her family as The Haley Sisters, she took to bluegrass like she was meant to do it. A strong and unique singing voice, with a personality to match, she was soon performing in Ohio with Appalachian Grass, but before long Laur was fronting her own Katie Laur Band, who recorded a pair of albums for the Vetco label in 1975 and ’77.
Her cut of T for Texas on the Good Time Girl record in ’75 was extremely well received by bluegrass radio, and helped put Laur on the map as a bluegrass singer when it was released.
Also appearing on that album were Jeff Roberts on banjo, Buddy Griffin on fiddle, Fred Bartenstein on guitar, Tommy Boyd on reso-guitar, Don Parker and Bill LaWarre on mandolin, and Tom Nutini on bass.
Katie sang on radio several times during the early days of A Prairie Home Companion in St Paul, MN, which gave her a bit of a reputation in the upper mid-west. This was in the days when a female-fronted bluegrass act was certainly an anomaly, though Laur persistently denied being any sort of trailblazer. She always said she was just trying to do the best she could with what was around her.
Given the distinctive sound of her voice, the offer to host on the radio came out of the blue. She had never done any sort of broadcasting before, and took the job a bit reluctantly at first. But her easy charm – and the help of experienced engineer Buddy Griffin, who played fiddle with her band – got her over any initial qualms.
The Katie Laur Band performances helped popularize the radio show, and vice versa, and soon she was a highly recognizable personage in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. She and her group toured all over the eastern US, which Katie loved doing. Though seeing a woman leading a band was groundbreaking in the ’70s, Laur’s love was traditional music, something she did quite well, performing it in public, and teaching the uninitiated about it over the airwaves for nearly three decades.
https://youtu.be/w2YzaqyUDz4
In the 1990s, she put together the Katie Laur All Girl Bluegrass Band, and recorded an album with them. By this time, she had become involved in writing for several local publications in Cincinnati, and participating in various theater companies.
In 2008, Katie was awarded an Ohio Heritage Fellowship for her contributions to music in the state, and the city of Cincinnati followed suit ten years later, recognizing her importance to the music and arts scene there.
Following the Heritage Fellowship, Laur was featured in a piece for Our Ohio, where she described her first experience hearing bluegrass.
In 2022, Orange Frazer Press released a book of Kate’s stories, Red Dirt Girl, a collection of her autobiographical memoirs.
Katie Laur will be long remembered in Cincinnati, and far beyond, as Music From The Hills Of Home was also streamed online towards the end of its tenure. A true bluegrass pioneer, and one of its most entertaining practitioners, she gave a tremendous amount to the music.
Bluegrass singer Amanda Cook has so much new music, she’s releasing it in pairs!
Mountain Fever Records has not one, but two new singles in August for this Florida-born vocalist, now a transplanted Virginian. The label thought so much of Cook that they signed her to a seven-album contract, and offered her a full-time job at the studio to get her up there.
Now she and her band have two more tracks available from their next album, Restless Soul, and she says that it’s a fun idea to drop two at the same time.
“I’m thrilled about the idea of launching a bluegrass tune and a gospel song simultaneously. It’s our first time releasing two singles at once, and I’m excited to offer you a glimpse of both sides of our musical journey on the same day.
Goodbye, written by Jennifer Strickland, is a straightforward bluegrass anthem about heartbreak, and bidding farewell to a troubled relationship. I’m particularly delighted with how this track came together; Troy Boone’s mandolin introduction is perfectly executed, and the band energetically dives into delivering the song in a lively and enjoyable manner.
It’s a fantastic, up-tempo addition to the album Restless Soul.“
With Amanda on the track are bandmates Carolyne Van Lierop on banjo and harmony vocal, Troy Boone on mandolin and harmony vocal, George Mason on fiddle, Brady Wallen on guitar, and Joshua Faul on bass.
Have a listen…
For their gospel offering, Cook introduces another new song with a completely different feel.
“The song It’s Almost Over, penned by Jeff Partin, resonated deeply with me from the moment I first heard it. The song beautifully captures the idea that through His sacrifice, we find hope for an eternal life free from pain and sorrow.
The line ‘take a breath, can’t you feel it, we’re not in control,’ encapsulates this truth: while we face hardships beyond our control in life, we find healing and completeness upon our arrival to heaven.”
It’s Almost Over was recorded with the same personnel, and showcases Amanda’s ability to alternate between tenderness and power in a single song.
Check it out…
Both new singles are available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via AirPlay Direct.
![Good Time Girl [1975] - Katie Laur Band](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ub6h2KWWEcM/hqdefault.jpg)
