Randy Travis photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Nashville.

Randy Travis, Rodney Atkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ashton Shepherd and The Roys are among the country artists joining award-winning musician and musical director Randy Scruggs and an all-star string band to  bring Charles ‘Pa’ Ingalls’ old time fiddle music to life as part of a PBS special filmed at Middle Tennessee State University, reports The Daily News Journal. Dale Cockrell, director of MTSU’s Center for Popular Music and a scholar of the early American music seen in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little house on the Prairie book series, is coordinating all aspects of the special.

Pa’s Fiddle: America’s Music, will be broadcast during the 2012 June pledge-drive season on PBS stations throughout the country. A new CD, Pa’s Fiddle: American Fiddlers, featuring a portion of the 127 songs mentioned in the Little House books, will be released June 5 but is available as a pre-release special right now at www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com.

Dale Cockrell is the founder, owner and president of Pa’s Fiddle Recordings LLC, a record label dedicated to recording the music referenced in the book series. He worked with actor Dean Butler, who played Laura’s husband, Almanzo, in the “Little House” TV series to create the Pa’s Fiddle project. “I’ve been working on the ‘Pa’s Fiddle’ project for about 12 years now and sometimes it’s felt like we’ve been pushing that boulder up that hill every day,” he said. “Now we’re finally at the top and get to share this music with everyone.” 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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Mel Tillis at the ACM Honors on September 20, 2010. Getty Images/Courtesy of the Academy of Country Music.

Martina McBride, Randy Travis, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kenny Rogers were among the artists who showed up to perform on their behalf.

Dierks Bentley, Brad Paisley, Toby Keith and Barbara Mandrell were among the acts who sent their support via video.

But even more can be said by taking an inventory of the artists who were not on hand that were affected by the people who graced the stage Monday at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium: George Strait, Lady Antebellum, Darius Rucker, Josh Turner, Rascal Flatts, Alan Jackson, George Jones, Reba McEntire, Shania Twain… The real task would be to find artists who did not benefit from the raft of people — musicians, producers, concert executives, songwriters and pioneering artists who were honored at the fourth annual ACM Honors.

The event allowed the Academy of Country Music to give a more detailed account of the behind-the-scenes people and the pioneers of the genre than it could provide during its fast-moving televised awards.

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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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The CMA Board of Directors and nearly 400 Washington luminaries attended an intimate evening of acoustic music in the Coolidge Auditorium in the Library of Congress' Jefferson Building with performances by Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn, Bob DiPiero, Lorrie Morgan, John Rich of Big & Rich, Randy Scruggs, and Victoria Shaw. (l-r) U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, Morgan, CMA Board President-Elect Gary Overton, Shaw, and Rich. Photo: Mitchell Layton, courtesy of CMA.

Libraries are meant to be quiet, but John Rich and Kix Brooks helped a passel of country figures make some important noise Tuesday in Washington, D.C., as the Country Music Association presented a show in conjunction with the Library of Congress.

“Story Tellers And Story Keepers” featured Kix, John and Lorrie Morgan, as well as ace musician Randy Scruggs and noted songwriters Victoria Shaw and Bob DiPiero, representing voices from several sectors of Nashville’s best-known industry. Delivered to a room that included influential lawmakers, the concert also allowed the music-makers to mingle with their guests in a pre-show reception.

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