Raleigh Convention Center roof on fire (12/1/25) – photo from Raleigh Professional Fire Fighters

The Raleigh Convention Center, home to IBMA’s World of Bluegrass convention from 2013 through 2024, caught fire last night, resulting in a 2-alarm fire call downtown.

Many readers will have happy memories of time spent here over the past decade, where seminars, workshops, and concerts were held each year, along with meals. It was also the site of the exhibit hall, and featured prominently during the weekend festival, IBMA Bluegrass Live! Many memories were made during the two years that hurricanes visited Raleigh during IBMA week, when all planned outdoor activities over the weekend had to moved into the convention center.

According to the Raleigh Professional Fire Fighters Association, the fire department responded to multiple reports of smoke and fire on the roof of the convention center around 9:30 p.m. Fortunately, a fire station is close by downtown, and they were on the scene in short order.

The fire, believed to have been ignited through faulty natural gas equipment, was extinguished within 40 minutes with no injuries reported. City officials are visiting the fire scene today to determine the extent of damage to the building, and an announcement later today about necessary repairs is expected.

The photos below were shared by the Raleigh Professional Fire Fighters Association.

Construction has been set to begin soon on a major expansion of the center, expected to double its available space.

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IBMA’s Leadership Bluegrass has scheduled a free webinar for December 4, a panel discussion on using online music streaming as an income source. Titled From the Table to the DSPs and Back Again: How To Make Money Without Selling Recordings, it will be held from noon to 1:00 p.m. eastern time via Zoom.

Jon Weisberger, long-time songwriter and producer, and A&R Director at Mountain Home Music, will serve as moderator, in a discussion with:

• Audrey Fletcher – Director of Marketing at Mountain Home Music
• Erin Moorman – Senior Director of Marketing with Syntax Creative
• Ariel Rosemberg – Management for Sister Sadie, Marketing for DelFest

They describe their subject thusly:

With sales of physical product (CDs, LPs) at historically low (and stable) levels, artists have seen a dramatic shift in the way revenue is generated by their recordings. This virtual workshop will look at how streaming has become a major source of recorded music revenue, and how it differs from table sales; how to take advantage of the opportunities streaming platforms provide for building audiences and income; and how alternatives to physical product can offer increased merch sale revenues.

This webinar is offered free of charge to everyone by the IBMA Leadership Bluegrass Alumni Committee. One need not be a member of IBMA, nor a graduate of Leadership Bluegrass to log in and attend.

To join the meeting, simply log in on Thursday at noon using this link.

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Bluegrass artist Luke Shamblin has chosen a Hazel Dickens classic, Hills of Home, for his latest single, as a personal tribute in this 100th anniversary year of her birth. Like Hazel, he is a West Virginia native, now living in North Carolina.

The song is a heartfelt tribute to home, both the place and the concept, something felt deeply by Hazel’s generation. Those who left the small towns and rural regions in Appalachia knew they had given up a great deal in order to access the larger opportunities of the cities, and they often felt it deeply.

Luke retains the simplicity of the song as written, a ballad where emotion rises above melody. It takes a secure vocalist to bring this one home, and Shamblin does so quite well.

He says of this release…

“This song has always hit me in the heart, and is the first song of Hazel’s I ever learned to sing. Hazel captured something that every Appalachian knows deep down—that no matter how far you go, those hills never really leave you. I wanted this version to feel like coming home.

When I started thinking about the arrangement, I wanted to keep it simple and let the lyrics and melody of this beautifully sad song stay front and center. I had to have my favorite singing partner and fellow West Virginian, Corey Hensley, join me—and when Suzanne Cox agreed to sing the high harmony above Corey, it was an absolute dream come true because Suzanne is one of my all-time favorite singers of ANY genre.

I really hope people enjoy this one…I certainly enjoyed making it!”

Shamblin plays guitar, Hensley bass, and Jason Barie adds fiddle.

Have a listen.

Hills of Home by Luke Shamblin is available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via Get It Played.

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Have you written the next great Christmas song?

The people with the USA Songwriting Competition are running their 10th annual Christmas Songwriting Competition this month.

Through December 23, original songs may be entered for a $35 fee, with $1,000 worth of merchandise offered as the first prize. Plus, the top 15 finalists’ submissions will appear on a special Christmas compilation CD.

Songs can be entered online by YouTube, Soundcloud, or Reverbnation, or they can be sent in by postal mail on a CD or audio cassette. All entries will be judged by a panel of industry experts, with winners announced by February 14, 2026.

The complete rules can be found online, along with a printable entry form. Online submissions can be entered here.

Good luck all!

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Bonfire Music Group has a new single for South Carolina singer/songwriter Andrew Crawford, one that takes a look at a tragic and bloody event that took place about a hundred years ago in his home state.

The song is called The Millworker’s Wage, and it tells the story of a time shortly after the Great Depression, when textile workers all along the east coast went out on strike. On September 6, 1934, the Mayor of Honea Path ordered strikebreakers to fire on striking workers at the Chiquola mill, who were picketing outside their workplace. Seven workers were killed and 30 more injured on what came to be known as Bloody Thursday.

Believe it or not, it got worse. Other striking workers were evicted from their company-owned homes, which they were forced to rent, and municipal authorities even prohibited the local churches from providing funerals for the slain men.

The strike was officially broken on September 23, with the union obtaining none of its demands, a most disheartening end to a disastrous ordeal.

Andrew says that this song hits close to home.

“I wrote this one with my wife, Brandi Colt. It’s about the rarely talked-about Chicola Massacre in Honea Path, South Carolina, when a textile strike turned violent and seven mill workers were killed, one of whom was a distant relative of mine. I grew up hearing stories about mill life: the hard work, the long hours, and the way generations of families gave everything to those factories. This song is about that fight for dignity, about how some things change and some don’t.”

Crawford sings lead, and plays guitar and mandolin, with support from Tim Crouch on fiddle and bass, and Brandi Colt on harmony vocals.

Check it out.

The Millworker’s Wage is available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via AirPlay Direct.

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Ricky Skaggs opens the Opry 100th anniversary show – © Grand Ole Opry, photos by Rachael Black

On Friday, November 28, the Grand Ole Opry celebrated the 100th anniversary of their first live radio broadcast with two shows, featuring 25 different Opry members to commemorate the centennial.

Needless to say, none of the performers from that inaugural program were available, but Ricky Skaggs opened the show playing Tennessee Wagoner on the very same fiddle that Uncle Jimmy Thompson had played to kick off that first broadcast. He was joined by all the various Opry members on the show, including Bill Anderson, Mandy Barnett, T. Graham Brown, Steven Curtis Chapman, Henry Cho, John Conlee, Dailey & Vincent, The Gatlin Brothers, Vince Gill, The Isaacs, Jamey Johnson, Dustin Lynch, Kathy Mattea, Charlie McCoy, Scotty McCreery, Del McCoury, Gary Mule Deer, Lorrie Morgan, Riders In The Sky, Ricky Skaggs, Don Schlitz, Marty Stuart, Pam Tillis, The Whites, and Mark Wills. Suzy Boggus, who has been invited to join but has not yet been inducted, also appeared.

Marty Stuart, picking with the Tennessee Mafia Jug Band, payed tribute to the show’s string band roots, along with the Opry Square Dancers. He returned to lead the assembled cast on Wabash Cannonball.

And Ricky Skaggs and The Whites performed the Carter Family classic, Keep On The Sunny Side.

Later, Vince Gill was tapped to sing the song voted by fans as the greatest ever sung on the Grand Ole Opry, George Jones’ He Stopped Loving Her Today.

The gospel music heritage of the Opry was heralded by The Isaacs, with John Conlee and Mark Willis, singing a medley of It Is Well With MY Soul, Amazing Grace, I’ll Fly Away, and I Saw The Light.

Del McCoury joined Ricky and The Whites for Uncle Pen.

We at Bluegrass Today are happy to extend a hearty congratulations and Happy Birthday to the Grand Ole Opry on such an august occasion!

Additional Opry 100 events and celebrations will continue on into 2026. You can see all the details online.

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Here’s a Christmas offering from Dear Maribella & the Pigkickers, the Trakimowicz siblings from Hampstead, NC, who have made a mark of late with their family bluegrass sound. They have created a grassy arrangement of the holiday classic Silver Bells, which was first released in 1950, sung by Bing Crosby and Carol Richards.

It’s delivered here by big sister AnnMari Trakimowicz, who plays guitar, supported by Isabella Trakimowicz on fiddle, Peter Trakimowicz on banjo, Chris Trakimowicz on mandolin, and their dad, Joel Trakimowicz, on bass.

They’ve put together this clever video to share the song. Everybody sing!

Silver Bells from Dear Maribella & the Pigkickers is available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via AirPlay Direct.

You can check out all the Christmas bluegrass we have covered at Bluegrass Today by following this link.

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Estación 39 is an ideal example of a band that hails from environs well outside US borders, but still stays true to those musical traditions birthed in the American heartland. Based in Buenos Aires Argentina, the band — which includes Matt Giliberto (vocals and guitar), Nuala McLoughlin (vocals and fiddle), Juma Molina (banjo and backing vocals), Dani Boy W (mandolin and backing vocals), Irina Rabenstein (upright bass and backing vocals) — makes music spawned from a rarified traditional template, but shaped with their own individual imprint. 

“We try to sound classic, like the old bluegrass bands, singing into a microphone, like Bill Monroe, the Osborne Brothers or the Stanley Brothers,” they told Bluegrass Today when profiled for a Bluegrass Beyond Borders feature. “We know that not being native the sound isn’t going to be the same, and I think that gives something exotic to our sound that makes it interesting. Between the five of us we gather various influences, some shared, like Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Osborne Brothers, New Grass Revival, The Dillards, Hot Rize, Bluegrass Album Band. Also Béla Fleck, Brittany Haas, Billy Strings, Punch Brothers, Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, Allison Krauss and more.”

The band is so confident and comfortable in fact, that each of the seven songs on this new EP could give rise to the suspicion that in another life anyway, they’re a product of some rural realms. Indeed, if one didn’t know better, it would be easy to come to that conclusion based on their choice of material alone. The band’s take on the seminal standard, Shady Grove, and their whimsical cover of, of all things, The Ballad Of Jed Clampett — the latter sung in a charming native dialect with various humorous asides tossed in as well — managed to find an easy and otherwise unassuming fit. 

They aren’t the only examples of the band’s ease at replicating that bluegrass sound. Fox On the Run takes a fanciful turn, while the rousing title track offers an opportunity to deliver an impressive instrumental outing.

Though it’s only seven songs long, ETIGBA provides an exceptional showcase for Estación 39’s earnest endeavors. Clearly, they’re a band that’s entirely committed to delivering bluegrass, courtesy of their own individual instincts.

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Engelhardt Music Group has released another single from big bad banjo man Russ Carson, he of Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder and the popular YouTube and Instagram profiles 81Crowe, where he is well known as both a banjo instructor and proponent of Gold Star banjos.

Even before his time with Skaggs, Russ made a name for himself as a strong and consistent banjo player, with a sterling stint with Audie Blaylock and Redline, and on a number of strong solo projects.

The new single, Look Me Up By The Ocean Door, comes from his current album, Songs That Birds Don’t Sing, and features Ron Block on lead vocal. Most any other artist would bring Ron in to pick the five, but as Russ has that well covered, he wanted to simply highlight Ron’s singing. Block does a fine job on this superb Cox Family number, written by Sidney and Suzanne Cox.

Carson says of the new album, his first in some time…

“This is an amazingly exciting collaboration of some of the genre’s top musicians and vocalists. Some of these guys I’ve been honored to play with for years; others are artists I’ve dreamed of working with. We’ve cut some traditionals, some originals, and some fantastic songs that have been forgotten for 20+ years. It’s taken five years for this project to become a reality, and the creative powerhouse that came together to make this happen, along with the intent to honor those we’ve lost along the way is what kept this dream alive.”

On Look Me Up By The Ocean Door, Russ has Jake Workman on guitar, Aaron Ramsey on mandolin, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, and Mike Bub on bass. Harmony vocals are provided by Tina Adair and Dennis Parker.

It’s mighty good. Have a listen.

Look Me Up By The Ocean Door, and the full Songs That Birds Don’t Sing album, are available now from popular download and streaming services online. Radio programmers can contact EMG via their web site.

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The Brothers Young, teen grassers out of Roanoke, Virginia, have released their new bluegrass Christmas album, and it holds treasures you will want to add to your playlist.

Ayden (banjo, vocals, production) and Blane (mandolin, vocals, humor, and ‘Michael Jordan-esq’ leaps into the crowd) are joined by Steve Farmer (bass) and Stefan Kraft (guitar) on their second full album. Good friend Charlie Milliron, sits in on the dobro, and church friend David Thacker adds some first-rate fiddle.

The twelve songs on this project range from tender and holy (What Child Is This and Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem) to sassy (Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, Run Rudolph Run ) to driving bluegrass, (Breakin’ Up Christmas, Christmas Time’s A Comin‘) which are great picking by anyone’s standards. Breakin’ Up Christmas is an instrumental that was made popular by old-time fiddle player Tommy Jarrell, who played around Mt Airy, NC.  

Hard to believe, given their ages, but The Brothers Young have given nearly 1,000 performances and are well known up and down the Crooked Road, especially at The Old Fiddler’s Convention in Galax, where the boys continue to impress. This past summer, Blane won the youth mandolin division, and Ayden placed second in the adult division. Back in 2021, the boys won best band in the youth division at Galax.

Blane, who had the unenviable task of singing harmony while going through puberty, does a phenomenal job singing Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. This is his coming-of-age album. Instrumentally, he can pick with anyone and hold his own.

Or as Blane put it…

“The true enjoyment came when recording Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, by showcasing my comedic talents in a song.”

Ayden is a true Renaissance man. Aside from being an outstanding traditional banjo player and jazz pianist, he taught himself how to record, mix, edit, and master recordings. And Ayden carries the additional weight of being the band leader and visionary. Anyone who has ever tried to record and mix knows that this young man is a quick learner.

He humbly recognized the achievement.

“Working on two albums in one year has helped make me a better producer.”

And Ayden, who knew you spoke Hawaiian, shared a boisterous Mele Kalikimaka.

Because Christmas albums only tend to get a month of seasonal play each year, you will want to see the Brothers Young live. The brothers have a busy 2026 festival schedule, which is happy news for us!  They are one of the most entertaining bluegrass bands out there. Crowds love them not only for their musicianship but also for their humility, humor, and brotherly banter.

You can check out all the Christmas bluegrass we have covered at Bluegrass Today by following this link.

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