Freddy Fender

The Recording Academy has announced the newest additions to the GRAMMY Hall of Fame collection. The 2012 class highlights diversity and musical excellence and includes both singles and albums. Among the  new inductees are Gene Autry’s “Deep In The Heart of Texas,” Freddy Fender’s “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Jamboree.

To be inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame, recordings must be at least 25 years hold and exhibit qualitative or historical significance. Recordings are reviewed by a committee comprised of professionals from all branches of the music industry before final approval is granted by The Recording Academy’s National Board of Trustees. With the latest addition of new titles, there are now 906 recordings in the Hall of Fame, which is displayed at the GRAMMY Museum.

“The Recording Academy is dedicated to celebrating a wide variety of great music and sound through the decades,” Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy, said. “We are especially honored to welcome this year’s selection of some of the most influential recordings of the last century. Marked by both cultural and historical significance, these works truly have influenced and inspired audiences for generations, and we are thrilled to induct them into our growing catalog of outstanding recordings.” Continue Reading

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Blake Shelton on the Grand Ole Opry stage. Photo courtesy of the Grand Ole Opry.

Fans touring the Grand Ole Opry will now have Opry member Blake Shelton along as a video guide. While a tour guide will be accompanying visitors during their look behind the scenes of the Opry, Blake will join the group via video at the Opry’s backstage entrance, in Studio A and in the Opry Green Room. He will be providing fans with both historic information and personal stories of his Opry experiences.

In the backstage check-in area and Opry Member Gallery, Blake will appear to recall the night he was asked to join the Opry family. There will also be highlights of Opry invitations and inductions featuring Trace Adkins, Craig Morgan, Josh Turner, and Carrie Underwood. “Opry membership is a thrill that never gets old,” Blake says during the video. Continue Reading

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Connie Smith photo courtesy of conniesmithmusic.com.

Connie Smith has been selected as this year’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Artist-in-Residence. Connie will serve as host and curator for intimate performances by herself and her favorite collaborators on August 22, August 29 and September 12. Created in 2003, the Museum’s residency program honors an artist that has contributed a large and significant body of work to American popular music. Cowboy Jack Clement, Earl Scruggs,  Kris Kristofferson, Vince Gill and Buddy Miller are some of the past honorees.

“Connie Smith possesses one of the most powerful and recognizable voices in country music,” said Museum Director Kyle Young.  “Her body of work includes more than 50 albums, and her signature song, ‘Once a Day,’ remains one of country music’s most popular classics. When Connie sings, she takes us on an emotional journey, wringing every teardrop and ounce of feeling from her lyrics. We are thrilled that she will be bringing those talents to the Ford Theater for three one-of-a-kind shows. ” Continue Reading

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Dailey & Vincent photo courtesy of Rounder Records.

Dailey & Vincent continued their winning ways during the 21st annual International Bluegrass Music Awards Thursday at the Ryman Auditorium. The act collected five trophies, including its third consecutive Entertainer of the Year honor.

Dailey & Vincent also won Vocal Group and Recorded Event of the Year, the latter shared with Larry Stephenson for “Give This Message To Your Heart.” Dailey & Vincent Sing The Statler Brothers, recorded for Cracker Barrel, led the band to two additional victories: Album of the Year and Best Graphic Design for a Recorded Project.

Appropriately, they performed “Elizabeth” during the awards show with a guest appearance on the third verse by Jimmy Fortune, who wrote and sang lead on the Statlers’ original 1984 release.

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Bill Monroe photo courtesy of www.myspace.com/williamsmithmonroe.

Bill Monroe, widely regarded as the father of bluegrass, may soon get the same sort of movie treatment that’s been given to Johnny Cash and Ray Charles.

Actor Peter Sarsgaard, known for his work in “Jarhead” and the new “Knight And Day,” is in the early stages of development in a film about the late mandolin player, according to The Wrap. Peter is apparently a big fan of Bill, who played a central role in creating and shaping the acoustic genre named after his band, the Blue Grass Boys.

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Dierks Bentley photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

Paying homage to his musical roots in a manner that’s atypical for a mainstream star, Dierks Bentley’s Up On The Ridge album hits the marketplace on Tuesday just as the title track reaches the Top 25 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.

Dierks already toured to give a preview of the project, appropriately ending the jaunt at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, where the bluegrass genre coalesced during the 1940s in the first Grand Ole Opry appearance of a Bill Monroe band that included Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. The Ryman is less than a mile from the Station Inn, a bluegrass club in Nashville that Dierks frequently attended before he ever got a recording contract. His experiences there gave him some background in the bluegrass genre that offset some of the hard-rock sounds he gravitated to as a kid, and Up On The Ridge pays homage to his education.

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The 2010 Country Music Hall of Fame inductees, clockwise from upper right: Don Williams, Ferlin Husky, Billy Sherrill and Jimmy Dean. Photos courtesy of the CMA.

Some of music’s finest talents — Ronnie Milsap, Shelby Lynne, Craig Morgan, Ricky Skaggs and Vince Gill — were among a bevy of significant artists and Music Row executives who witnessed Sunday’s induction of two new members to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum: Ferlin Husky and songwriter-producer Billy Sherrill.

In a here-today-gone-tomorrow culture, the names might not ring familiar to everyone. A girl in her 20s outside the Hall asked at the end of the night about Sunday’s soiree, then shrugged her shoulders in a “Who?” sort of manner when told the names of the inductees. But both men provided important building blocks to get the genre to the mainstream idiom it is today.

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Keith Urban photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

With the 45th annual Academy of Country Music Awards a dozen days away, the ACM dropped a long list of trophy recipients Tuesday that’s tattooed with a few publicly recognizable names — including Keith Urban and Mel Tillis — as well as a bunch of significant songwriters, musicians and executives. The off-camera winners, as they’re called, will be formally recognized when the West Coast-based Academy presents its annual ACM Honors in Nashville Sept. 21.

Keith is being honored with the Jim Reeves International Award for bringing global attention to country. Born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, he’s done that somewhat naturally by connecting the dots between his homeland, the U.S. and Canada. Named for one of the first country stars to establish a strong presence overseas, the International Award has previously gone to such figures as Garth Brooks, Roy Clark, Dick Clark and Dolly Parton.

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Emmylou Harris photo by Rocky Schenck, courtesy of Nonesuch Records.

According to the UPI, Emmylou Harris was presented with an honorary doctor of music at a bluegrass festival in San Francisco by the Berklee College of Music yesterday.

Berklee President Roger Brown made the presentation, along with Emmylou’s longtime friend Linda Ronstadt and bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs — both Berklee honorary doctorate recipients. Continue Reading

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