The Top Ten Reasons to Attend World of Bluegrass 2012

Reason #1: It's great, we're here, and you should be too!

The great band Della Mae is just wrapping up their showcase and Jim Hurst, The SteelDrivers and Volume Five are waiting in the wings ready to go on next, as I'm writing this message to you! We're halfway through World of Bluegrass week with three big days left! You still have time to hop in the car, on a bus, on a plane, a train, hot air balloon, or a bike and join us in Nashville! Check us out on Facebook here and here to see the videos, photos and comments from all corners of the Nashville Convention Center--which is literally ringing with great music and the laughter of old friends.

You should be here, too!

Still coming up Thursday: our annual IBMA Town Hall meeting for all members and those interested in finding out about membership, the Special Awards Luncheon with the presentation of IBMA's Distinguished Achievement Awards and industry awards for broadcasting, event production, print/media, liner notes and graphic design for a recorded project, and a new award for bluegrass songwriter of the year!

Tomorrow night is the International Bluegrass Music Awards at the historic Ryman Theater, hosted by Del McCoury and Laurie Lewis. I'm backstage at the Ryman right now, listening to soundchecks by one amazing band after another, and getting more excited by the minute! You definitely don't want to miss this one, folks! Tickets are still available at ryman.com, in person at the Ryman Box Office, and at the World of Bluegrass registration desk through tomorrow afternoon (Sept. 27).

If you can't be here in person, be sure to catch us on the first ever live streaming broadcast on www.bluegrassnation.org or www.bluegrasstoday.com, or live on Sirius XM satellite radio, WSM-AM or wsmonline.com.

Fan Fest, with more than 60 great bands, a world-class fiddling competition, the masters workshop stage, an exhibit hall, celebrity jams, the great "Kids on Bluegrass" set, and jamming unlimited kicks off Friday morning, Sept. 28 and runs through Sunday, Sept. 30. Single day and three-day passes are still available at the gate. Kids under 16 are free with an adult, and there are special discounts for students with a high school or college ID. Here's the line-up.

Great business connections are being made, amazing music is being played, and big fun is still to be had during the next four days of World of Bluegrass in Nashville, Tenn.!

Hope to see you! If you can't join us, follow us on Twitter, on Facebook (IBMA & Bluegrass Nation pages) and Instagram, and tune into the show tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. Central.

-Nancy C.

Laurie Lewis & Del McCoury to Host 23rd International Bluegrass Music Awards Sept. 27

Laurie Lewis & Del McCoury to Host 23rd International Bluegrass Music Awards

Nominations for the IBMA Awards, the centerpiece of World of Bluegrass week,
to be announced at a special press conference Wednesday evening, August 15, at The Loveless Barn in Nashville.

NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 12, 2012 -- A powerful and delightfully unusual pairing of bluegrass superstars -- Laurie Lewis and Del McCoury -- will host the 23rd Annual International Bluegrass Music Awards this year, on Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium.

Nominations for the International Bluegrass Music Awards will be announced at a special press conference scheduled for Wednesday evening, August 15, at The Loveless Barn in Nashville.

The IBMA Awards are the centerpiece of World of Bluegrass week, scheduled for September 24-30 in Nashville. Produced by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), the trade organization for global bluegrass music, World of Bluegrass also includes the industry’s Business Conference and Bluegrass Fan Fest.

“I’m thrilled to be invited to co-host the Awards Show with the great Del McCoury!” said singer/songwriter/fiddler Laurie Lewis from her home in northern California. “I predict this will be a very significant and poignant event, as the bluegrass community comes together to recognize and honor its own, and to pay tribute to some of the pioneers we’ve lost this year, including the great Earl Scruggs.”

A two-time winner of the California State Women's Fiddle Championship, Lewis began her career in the mid-1970s as a co-founder of all-female bluegrass band The Good Ol' Persons. She’s worked as fiddle player on the Masters of the Five String Banjo tour with Ralph Stanley; was twice voted IBMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year; and The Oak and the Laurel, her collection of duets with musical co-conspirator Tom Rozum, was nominated for a Grammy® in 1996.

Lewis also contributed songs to the Grammy-winning True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe, and to Grammy-nominated Clinch Mountain Country. Her original tunes have been recorded by Kathy Mattea and Patsy Montana, whose cover of Laurie’s “Cowgirl Song” is the unofficial theme song of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. She’s toured and worked in various configurations over the years, and in 2006 began working regularly with a band she calls “The Right Hands.” Lewis’ latest recording, Skippin’ and Flyin’, an acclaimed tribute to Father of Bluegrass Bill Monroe, features her pals Linda Ronstadt and Kathy Kallick (her old friend and fellow Good Ol’ Person).

“I was excited to be asked to host the IBMA Awards again,” said IBMA Hall of Fame member Del McCoury from his home near Nashville. “With World of Bluegrass moving to Raleigh next year, this might be the last Awards Show IBMA will hold at the Ryman Auditorium, at least for a few years. It's a tremendous honor for me to be co-hosting with my old friend, Laurie Lewis. We haven't had the opportunity to perform or record together much over the years, but she's a great lady and I know we are going to have a lot of fun hosting the show."

Born in York, Penn., McCoury was a briefly a member of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, working as the band’s lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist in 1963. He performed as a regional artist for some years, and in the 1980s welcomed his sons, Ronnie (mandolin) and Rob (banjo), to his ensemble. Today he is leader and patriarch of The Del McCoury Band, a quintet that includes his sons, plus fiddler Jason Carter and bassist Alan Bartram. The band has seen spectacular success in the 21st century, bringing huge new audiences to bluegrass at venues and events like Madison Square Garden, Bonnaroo, and High Sierra, and introducing bluegrass audiences to new music through appearances and recordings with artists as diverse as the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Steve Earle, and Phish. Five years ago, McCoury began hosting his own annual DelFest in Cumberland, Md.

At the 2003 IBMA Awards Show, Ricky Skaggs had the pleasure of inviting the Del McCoury Band to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry. For those who attended, it was an unforgettable moment. A 2010 recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts, McCoury was inducted into IBMA’s Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2011.

The IBMA Awards Show will be broadcast live on Sirius XM Satellite Radio (Bluegrass Junction, Channel 14) and syndicated to more than 300 U.S. markets and 14 foreign networks, thanks to the sponsorship of Compass Records, Deering Banjos, BMI, the International Bluegrass Music Museum, BluegrassToday.com and 650 WSM AM. Program directors and station managers may sign up to be affiliates online at www.ibma.org.

The International Bluegrass Music Awards are voted on by the professional membership of the IBMA.

For more information on World of Bluegrass, including tickets to the International Bluegrass Music Awards, visit www.ibma.org, join IBMA’s Facebook group, or call 615-256-3222 (888-GET-IBMA). Tickets are on sale now at the website and at the phone number listed above.

# # #

Contacts:
Judy McDonough, JEMMedia:
(615) 243-5994, mcdonoughmedia1@yahoo.com,

Caroline Wright, Interim Publication Editor/Special Projects Director, IBMA
(615) 256-3222, caroline@ibma.org




Judy McDonough
615-243-5994
Twitter: @jemmcd
mcdonoughmedia1@yahoo.com

Laurie Lewis to Release New Album in Tribute to Bill Monroe

BLUEGRASS FIDDLER-VOCALIST
LAURIE LEWIS
TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM OCTOBER 18

Her New Album, SKIPPIN’ AND FLYIN,’
a ‘Lively ... Deep’ Personal Tribute to Father of Bluegrass

Austin, TX — Bay Area fiddler extraordinaire Laurie Lewis, called a “bluegrass/folk star” by the San Francisco Chronicle, will release her latest album, a heartfelt tribute to Bill Monroe, SKIPPIN’ AND FLYIN’ (Spruce and Maple Music), on October 18.

Lewis, twice named IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year and a GRAMMY Award winner and nominee, is also a singer, songwriter, bandleader, guitarist, bass player and record producer. It all comes together on SKIPPIN’ AND FLYIN,’ which mixes Lewis’ originals and songs from the bluegrass repertoire and contemporary writers and features her expressive vocals; instrumentation by award-winning, legendary and longtime players; and special guest vocalists such as Linda Ronstadt.

“I realize, looking back, that my path as a musician and songwriter, and my whole approach to making music, were influenced in various ways by what I found in Bill Monroe’s music,” says Lewis.

SKIPPIN’ AND FLYIN’ brings together a fine mix of songs by Monroe himself, Jimmie Rodgers, Maybelle Carter, Del McCoury and other writers and new tunes written and/or arranged by Lewis — each perfectly suited for a Monroe tribute.

Lewis’ album release show is set for November 26, at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, California.

On September 28, she and longtime musical partner Tom Rozum will be hosting World of Bluegrass attendees at the Nashville Convention Center for mentoring sessions on harmony singing. http://worldofbluegrass.org/node/247

Her upcoming tour behind SKIPPIN’ AND FLYIN’ includes stops at festivals and venues in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon and across California.

Laurie Lewis’s Upcoming Performances include:
Sept. 24, Fortune-Williams Festival, Staunton, Va.
Sept. 25, Cataloochee Ranch, near Maggie Valley, N.C.
Sept. 30, Three Sisters Bluegrass Festival, Chattanooga, Tenn.
Oct. 2, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, San Francisco
Oct. 9, Santa Barbara Old-Time Fiddlers Convention, Santa Barbara, Calif.
Oct. 15, Bluegrass Benefits Mount Diablo Music Education Foundation, Concord, Calif.
Oct. 22, FAR-West “Best of the West” Awards, Eugene, Ore.
Oct. 29, Bluegrass for the Moke, Mokelumne Hill, Calif.
Nov. 17, Hampshire College, Amherst, Mass.
Nov. 18, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Nov. 19, Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, Mass.
Nov. 26, CD Release Show, Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, Calif.
Dec. 3, Monterey Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival, Monterey, Calif.

For more information, visit http://www.mcguckinpr.com and www.laurielewis.com

Media Contact: Heidi Labensart, McGuckin Entertainment PR, 512.478.0578; heidi@mcguckinpr.com