Artist	Song
Dolly Parton	Travelin' Prayer (Billy Joel), 1999
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder	Walls of Time (Bill Monroe), 1999
Lonesome River Band	Am I A Fool (Tew), 1998
Blue Highway	Don't Come Out Of The Hole-(Wayne Taylor), 1999
Country Current	A Walk in the Irish Rain (Steve Spurgin), 2001
Hot Rize	Colleen Malone (Gable, Drumm), 1991
Alison Krauss & Union Station	Every Time You Say Goodbye (John Pennell), 1992
Peter Rowan & Nashville Bluegrass Band	That High Lonesome Sound (Rowan), 1988
Steve Earle & Del McCoury Band	Dixieland (Earle), 1999
Steve Wariner	Heavy Traffic Ahead (Monroe), 2000
Tim O'Brien	Se±or (Bob Dylan), 1996
Dixie Chicks	Long Time Gone (Darrell Scott)
Patty Loveless	You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive (Darrell Scott), 2001
Ronnie Bowman	Cold Virginia Night (Tim Massey), 1995
Claire Lynch	Lovelight (Lynch, Brown Hayes), 2000
Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver	Little Mountain Church (Carl Jackson, Jim Rushing), 1990
IIIrd Tyme Out	John and Mary (Benson, Moore, Carver), 1999
Jeannie Kendall	I Wonder Where You Are Tonight (Bond), 2003
Del McCoury Band	Backsliding Blues (Thompson/Smith), 1999
Lynn Morris, with Junior Brown	Gonna Have Love, 2003
Alan O'Bryant/All Star Tribute	Molly and Tenbrooks (Monroe), 1996
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder	Simple Life (McAnally), live, 2003
Vince Gill	High Lonesome Sound (Gill), 1996

Comment:

It's getting warmer, and the time for outdoors bluegrass festivals is approaching. Two days ago I bought my ticket for the Graves' Mountain Music Festival, a 3-day bluegrass festival that will take place in the beginning of June. This will be the fourth time that I'll return to Graves Mountain (near the Shennandoah National Park in Virginia), pitch my tent in a field that serves as a cow pasture for the rest of the year, put up my lawn chair in front of a stage in an open field and enjoy 20 top bluegrass acts playing almost 30 hours of music over three days and nights.

And that's just counting the stage performances. Once the official program is over, dozens of jam sessions will pop up all over the campground. Anyone with an instrument and enough confidence can join in. Some people pick and sing until early in the morning. For some people these jam sessions are a bigger draw than the main concerts.

What surprises me is how few people know and visit such festivals. Bluegrass is probably the only musical genre in America where you can hear 30 hours of music by some of the best performers in the field for $60 (rough camping included). Or where you can meet and talk to most of the performers, because they all come to their merchandise table to sign CDs after their performance. And still, festivals of this kind usually are attended by 2,000-3,000 people only. I'm not complaining, I like it small and intimate like this. I just feel sorry for all the people who don't know what they are missing.

This mix contains some great contemporary bluegrass songs by some of the top artists in the field. I'm posting another mix, They Can Pick More Notes Than the Number of Ants on a Tennessee Anthill that showcases bluegrass instrumentals.

Feedback: