News Capsules for the Acoustic Community
Dom Flemons, a founding member of Carolina Chocolate Drops, has announced that he is leaving the Grammy Award-winning African-American string band following a final round of shows with the group in December. [To read the full article, click on the headline.]
The Gibson Brothers were named Entertainer of the Year during the 24th Annual Bluegrass Music Awards show on Thursday night, Sept. 26, at Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was the second straight year that the quintet from upstate New York received the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s top honor. [To read the entire article and see who else received awards and honors, click on the headline.]
Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell were named Duo/Group of the Year, while their 2013 release, Old Yellow Moon, was named Album of the Year , during the annual Americana Music Honors & Awards on Sept. 18 at the Historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. [To read the article in its entirety, click on the headline.]
Sid Selvidge, a Memphis-based singer, guitarist and cultural treasure, and an ardent champion of blues and roots music, who helped launch and served as executive producer of the internationally syndicated Beale Street Caravan radio program, died May 2 at Methodist University Hospital. He was 69 and had been battling cancer. [To read the full article, including reflections from singer-songwriter Amy Speace, who toured with Selvidge in 2010, click on the headline.]
I wasn’t at Max Yasgur’s Farm in 1969 when Richie Havens impressed throngs of people at the Woodstock festival. I was just a youngster then. But I did get to hear him up close and personal in the late 1970s at my alma mater, Huntington High School, in Huntington, New York. He was performing in the auditorium, along with Harry Chapin, at one of the late singer-songwriter’s many benefit concerts. Richie joined his fellow Brooklyn NY-born folksinger in heaven or wherever kindhearted gentle souls go, on April 22, after suffering a heart attack at home in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was 72. [To read the full article, click on the headline.]
Thirty-two songwriters have been named as finalists in the 2013 Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters. Chosen from among more than 700 submissions from throughout the U.S. and Canada, the finalists will perform the two songs they submitted during the New Folk Concerts slated for Saturday and Sunday afternoons, May 25 and 26, as part of the Kerrville Folk Festival. [To read the full article, click on the headline.]
Mumford & Sons received the coveted award for Album of the Year for its sophomore release, Babel, during the 55th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 10, 2013. The live televised broadcast from the Staples Center in Los Angeles featured performances by the rootsy British indie folk-rock band and acoustic folk-rockers The Lumineers, among others. Most of the winners in more than 75 categories were announced during ceremonies held earlier in the day. [To read an article that includes a listing of winners in the American Roots Music Field and select other categories, click on the headline.]
Little Blue Egg by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer was reportedly the most-played album on folk radio during 2012, according to charts compiled by Richard Gillmann from radio playlists submitted to FOLKDJ-L, an electronic discussion group for DJs and others interested in all folk-based music on the radio. Little Blue Egg also features the year's most-played song, "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key." [To view the Top Folk Albums of 2012 chart, click on the headline.]
Frank Christian, a gifted New York City-based guitarist and singer-songwriter, best known for his song “Three Flights Up” that appeared on Nanci Griffith’s Grammy Award-winning Other Voices, Other Rooms album, died December 24. He was 60. [To read the full article and see a video clip, ciick on the headline.]
Nominees in more than 75 categories have been named for the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, to be broadcast live on CBS television stations from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. Mumford & Sons was among the top nominees with nods for Album of the Year, Best Americana Album and Best Rock Performance. [To view the full article, including a list of nominees in the Roots Music Field, click on the headline.]
Chris Thile, 31, a multi-instrumentalist and composer best known for his role as virtuosic mandolinist and singer for the Grammy Award-winning progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and currently with the Punch Brothers, has been awarded a “Genius” grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. As a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, he will receive an unrestricted award of $500,000 over the next five years. [To read the full article, click on the headline.]
The Gibson Brothers, winners of last year’s Vocal Group of the Year and Album of the Year awards, were named Entertainer of the Year during this year’s 23rd Annual International Bluegrass Music Awards show on Thursday night, Sept. 27, at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. This ended a three year winning streak by Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers that had been preceded by another three-year streak by the popular duo Dailey & Vincent.. [To read the full article and learn of all the other winners and honorees, click on the headline].
