Dailey & Vincent photo courtesy of Rounder Records.

The International Bluegrass Music Association announced the nominees for the 21st annual International Bluegrass Music Awards, scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 30 at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium.

Reigning two-time Entertainers of the Year, duo Dailey & Vincent, tops the list of nominees with 10 nods for Entertainer of the Year, Vocal Group, Album of the Year and Best Graphic Design (Dailey & Vincent Sing The Statler Brothers), Song of the Year (“Elizabeth”), Recorded Event (“Give This Message to Your Heart” with Larry Stephenson) and Gospel Recorded Event (“Don’t You Wanna Go to Heaven”), along with nominations in the Male Vocalist (Dailey), Bass Player (Vincent) and Best Liner Notes categories (Fred Bartenstein, for the album Singing from the Heart).

Two-time Male Vocalist of the Year, Russell Moore (1994 & 1997) and his band, IIIrd Tyme Out, are nominated in six categories: Entertainer of the Year, Song of the Year [“Hard Rock Mountain Prison (‘Till I Die)”], Album of the Year (IIIrd Tyme Out), Male Vocalist, Gospel Recorded Performance (“The Eastern Gate”) and Vocal Group of the Year—an award the band received seven times from 1994-2000.

Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, Sam Bush and The Grascals racked up five nominations each. Michael, the seven-time Fiddle Player of the Year who could match Stuart Duncan’s eight-year record in this category in 2010, leads a band nominated for Entertainer of the Year, Instrumental Group, Bass Player (Marshall Wilborn), Mandolin (Jesse Brock) and Fiddle Player of the Year.

Recognized as the “Father of Newgrass,” Sam Bush returned to his musical roots for his latest album, Circles Around Me, nominated for Album of the Year. Sam and his band are also nominated for Instrumental Group of the Year, Instrumental Recorded Performance (“Blue Mountain”), Mandolin Player of the Year, and Song of the Year for “The Ballad of Stringbean and Estelle”—composed by Sam with Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson about the 1973 murder of Grand Ole Opry star David “Stringbean” Akeman and his wife by burglars in their rural Tennessee home.

The Grascals, nominated for Entertainer and Album of the Year (The Famous Lefty Flynn’s), are also recognized in the Instrumental Recorded Performance and Recorded Event categories with “Blue Rock Slide” and “I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome.” Two-time Banjo Player of the Year, Kristin Scott Benson, is nominated again for the award.

Along with the Grascals/Hank, Jr. collaboration, “I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome,” several interesting cross-genre compositions show up in the IBMA Recorded Event of the Year category: Blue Highway with Americana star Darrell Scott, Larry Stephenson with legendary country music couple Marty Stuart and Connie Smith, and Claire Lynch with singer/songwriter icon Jesse Winchester.

The Gibson Brothers were nominated in four categories; and the Josh Williams Band, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder and The Del McCoury Band each received three nods.

The bluegrass industry’s highest honors of the year go to the new members of the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. This year’s inductees are singer/songwriter, banjo and fiddle stylist John Hartford and the pioneering business manager of Flatt & Scruggs, The Earl Scruggs Revue and Earl Scruggs Family & Friends, Louise Scruggs. John passed away in 2001, and Mrs. Scruggs in 2006. Click here to learn more about this year’s Hall of Fame inductees.

Click here for the full list of 2010 IBMA nominees.

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Lady Antebellum on stage at the Ryman Auditorium during the Music City Keep On Playin' benefit concert. Photo credit: Photo by Ed Rode/edrode.biz.

The stars came out in a big way, as did a number of companies and the American people when GAC presented Music City Keep On Playin’ — A Benefit For Flood Relief.

Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum and Dierks Bentley were among the artists who delivered nearly 20 songs during Sunday’s three-hour live special from Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. The event raised more than $1.7 million as of midnight CT and counting.

Music City Keep On Playin’ was the first national fundraiser organized to aid victims of a devastating flood that engulfed much of Nashville two weeks ago. In a scant 48 hours, the city took in over 13 inches of rain, more than the Middle Tennessee ground could absorb. The Cumberland River swelled over its banks, damaging some of the city’s landmarks, including the Grand Ole Opry House, LP Field, Bridgestone Arena and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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Vince Gill photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean has estimated the total damages from this week’s flood could top $1 billion, though Music City is still digging out.

Many of country’s stars — including Vince Gill, Darius Rucker and Kenny Chesney — have stepped forward to raise money or put a public face on the tragedy for the nation. Others, including Brad Paisley and LeAnn Rimes, are still waiting to see how much equipment they might have lost when the Cumberland River swelled over its bank.

Among the ongoing flood-related stories:

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Larry Gatlin (center) and the Gatlin Brothers, photo courtesy of Absolute Publicity.

In the early 1990s, Larry Gatlin got fed up with Nashville and moved back to Texas. He’d lived in Music City for almost 20 years, and during that time, he’d had a nice string of hits tinged with the harmonies of his brothers Steve and Rudy. But as the public moved on to other sounds, the hits stopped coming. Larry felt unwanted in Tennessee and split.

Now he’s dividing his time between the Lone Star State and Nashville, and beginning Thursday, he’ll be a frequent host for the Grand Ole Opry’s Thursday night Opry Country Classics shows at the historic Ryman Auditorium. It’s an appropriate association. The Gatlins have been Opry members since Christmas Day 1976, and Larry came up in the midst of some classic country sounds, befriended by such country icons as Dottie West and Johnny Cash.

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Harold Reid, Jimmy Fortune, Jamie Dailey, Darrin Vincent, Don Reid and Phil Balsley. Photo by Randi Radcliff.

The venue drips with history, but for large parts of Wednesday, the Country Music Hall of Fame was filled with laughter. Dailey & Vincent performed a half dozen songs from their new Cracker Barrel album Dailey & Vincent Sing The Statler Brothers. The Statlers themselves were on hand for the event, and the quartet’s unrelenting humor launched Darrin Vincent into high-pitched yelps of laughter.

A sample of the one-liners between Statler members — and real-life brothers — Harold and Don Reid:

Don: “[Humor] was very much a major part of our career. We always included humor on stage because we had Harold, and people were gonna laugh when they see him.”
Harold: “I don’t know if people are laughin’ at me or with me. I never did figure that one out.”
Don: “But we intertwined that with the music, which was also funny sometimes, until [Dailey & Vincent] got a hold of it and made it serious.”
Harold: “Now we’re gonna have to get a hold of it and make it funny again.”

The support for D&V is serious. The turn-out for the performance — which included such Statler classics as “I’ll Go To My Grave Loving You,” “Flowers On The Wall” and “The Class Of ‘57” — included Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, Oak Ridge Boys Duane Allen and Joe Bonsall, Hall of Famer Ralph Emery, gospel icon Bill Gaither and bluegrass players Ronnie McCoury, Rob McCoury and Ronnie Bowman.

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Alan Jackson photo courtesy of SonyBMG Nashville.

The music business is rife with executives lamenting the downturn in album sales, but that doesn’t stop artists from turning out new CDs, and a bevy of projects are on the way in the coming months from Alan Jackson, Johnny Cash, Josh Turnerand Danny Gokey — all hoping to spur the rest of us to visit a store or a website and plunk down a few bucks for new music.

Even if the industry isn’t moving as much product as it used to, you can’t blame artists for continuing to put out new albums. The fact is if they only had one song to sing, they’d all be bored. Put out 10 or 12 or 20 — well, it certainly allows for a lot more opportunities to heat up the creative juices. And that’s what it’s all supposed to be about in the first place.

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Dailey & Vincent at the 2009 IBMA Awards. Photo by Dan Loftin, courtesy of Karen Byrd Public Relations.

Dailey & Vincent didn’t take home quite as many trophies as they did in their first year of eligibility, but the duo still played a strong hand at Thursday’s International Bluegrass Music Awards, taking home three honors. Their collection included a repeat as the genre’s Entertainer of the Year. The act also claimed Vocal Group of the Year and went home with Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year for “On The Other Side.” Dailey & Vincent earned seven awards at the 2008 ceremony.

“We’ll do our best to take [bluegrass] to the masses,” Darrin Vincent told the audience this week at the Ryman Auditorium, according to the Associated Press. Continue Reading

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