Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass.

Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode.

News and Announcements (Church Street News)

• Vasen & Hawtail
• Preorder link
• Tour dates

Releases (The Grass is New)

• Andy Statman album
• Buy on Amazon
• The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist

Other bits

• Sign up for emails https://bluegrassjamalong.com/contact/
• The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist
• Full list of interviews
• Peghead Nation
• Use the code ‘jamalong’ for a free month of any course

Happy picking.

Matt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is the legendary Jerry Douglas.

Jerry joins me again to chat about recording his first new album in six years. It's called 'The Set' and features the band Jerry's been playing with for a decade now.

He talks about what's special about playing with that band and why he chose to re-visit some tunes that will be familiar to his fans for this record, as well as new material, including 'The Fifth Season', which started out as a FreshGrass commission.

We also chat about some of Jerry's other long standing collaborations, including Transatlantic Sessions, the Telluride House Band and Alison Krauss and Union Station. Jerry reveals AKUS have not one but two new albums recorded.

'The Set' is out on September 20th. You'll find all the info and links to preorder on Jerry website

For info and updates on all Jerry's projects, make sure to follow him on Facebook and Instagram

It's always a joy chatting to Jerry. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Happy picking,

Matt

**this episode was edited post release to remove a small section of the content**

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is Fretboard Journal's Jason Verlinde.

Jason shares the story of how Fretboard Journal started, back in 2005, and how it's grown from a print magazine to include a series of great podcasts and The Fretboard Summit events.

We also chat about the current state of the acoustic instrument market and how the vintage market has changed over the past two decades, plus what people can expect from this year's Fretboard Summit, which kicks off in Chicago in just two days.

Visit fretboardjournal.com for more info on the Fretboard Journal magazine and podcasts and fretboardsummit.org for info on the Fretboard Summit.

Happy picking!

Matt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass.

This week, news of a brand new record by Daniel Patrick of the Mandolins and Beer podcast and a new flatpicking course from Grant Gordy on Peghead Nation.

There's also new music from Stephen Mougin and Ned Luberecki, Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland, Sarah Jarosz, Any Leftwich, Aoife O'Donovan and Hawktail and Jerry Douglas!

Don't forget, you'll find the new releases playlist here:

The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist

Also....

Sign up for emails https://bluegrassjamalong.com/contact/

The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist

Full list of interviews

Peghead Nation

• Use the code ‘jamalong’ for a free month of any course

Happy picking.

Matt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is Rebecca Frazier. Rebecca was the first woman ever to appear on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and her band Hit & Run are the only band to win all three Rockygrass, Telluride, and SPBGMA Festival Band competitions.

She joins me to chat about her new record Boarding Windows in Paradise. We talk about working with legendary producer and engineer Bill Wolf, recording with Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan and the band Love Canon and the decade gap between this and her last record.

We touch on so many different aspects of combining music with life and how we change (or don't ) over time. We also talk about our shared love of Dolly Parton's record The Grass is Blue and the influence it had on Rebecca's new record.

I loved this conversation and I hope you do too.

For more info check out rebeccafrazier.com, where you'll find links to her tour dates, social channels and YouTube.

If you're listening to this before the record comes out on September 13th 2024, you can pre-save and pre-order the record.

Happy picking.

Matt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is Becky Buller.

Becky is the winner of 10 IBMA awards, including the 2016 awards for Fiddler and Female Vocalist. She's the first woman in the history of IBMA to receive the Fiddle Player of the Year award and the first person ever to win in both vocal and instrumental categories.

She joins me to talk about her fabulous album and song cycle 'Jubilee'.

We talk about the FreshGrass commission that sparked the piece, co-writing with Aoife O'Donovan, taking part in an historic all-female Newport line up (where she sang '9 to 5' with Dolly Parton) and recording 'Jubilee' in the studio...live...in just a day and a half!

We also talk about the themes of anxiety, self-worth and depression that underpin 'Jubilee' and how the enforced shutdown brought on by Covid affected Becky's mental health.

It's an open, honest and warm conversation that touches on so many things I suspect will resonate with a lot of people. It was a joy to get to have it.

Visit beckybuller.com for more info and tour dates and follow Becky on Instagram and Facebook for regular updates.

Happy picking!

Matt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass.

Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode.

Podcast news

• Interview episodes by category

News and Announcements (Church Street News)

• IBMA announcement
• Lessons With Marcel Molly Tuttle book
• Peghead Nation Folk and Bluegrass Songs for Fiddle
• Don’t forget the promo code below for a free month!

Releases (The Grass is New)

• Billy Strings Leadfoot video
• The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist

Scroll on Buddy

• Green Mountain Bluegrass Festival
• Rebecca Frazier High Country Road Trip video

Other bits

• Sign up for emails https://bluegrassjamalong.com/contact/
• The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist
• Full list of interviews
• Peghead Nation
• Use the code ‘jamalong’ for a free month of any course

Happy picking.

Matt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's episode is a Food For Thought episode. If you're not familiar with them, they're a series of short episodes on a single idea, designed to get you thinking and (hopefully) deepening your understanding of a particular music related area.

This week we've got a simple idea from Dolly Parton - "Find out who you are and do it on purpose."

So many of us think we should decide what kind of musician (or person!) we want to be, then work to become that, but the reality is we've all got something within us that's authentically and uniquely 'us' and we should all be doing our best to lean into it. Not that it's wrong to learn from and be inspired by others, just that only they can be themselves (and we can only be ourselves!)

I hope you find it useful! Back next week with another interview for you.

Happy picking,

Matt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.