A raft of bluegrass artists, including Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, Del McCoury, Ronnie McCoury, Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, Russell Moore, and several others, have autographed a pair of bluegrass instruments for a special auction to benefit musical artists and music industry professionals in need.
The auction is being held on the Charitybuzz web site, in support of Sweet Relief, an industry-wide philanthropic effort to support musicians, and NITO, which does the same specifically for independent artist representatives. Both function much like the IBMA Trust Fund, raising money to distribute upon request to anyone in the music industry who may be down on their luck.
Of particular interest to the bluegrass community in this auction, which ends tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., are a Martin guitar signed by a who’s who of bluegrass luminaries, and a Gold Tone mandolin signed by Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, and Ronnie McCoury. Since this auction has not been widely promoted among bluegrass folks, neither instrument has yet received a bid, meaning someone could grab one or the other at a very good price.
The guitar, having a much larger surface area, bears the signatures of Sierra Hull, Sam Bush, Rob McCoury, Ronnie McCoury, Del McCoury, Alison Krauss, Oliver Wood, Jano Rix, Chris Wood, Jerry Douglas, Ron Block, Barry Bales, Russell Moore, Bob Carpenter, Jimmy Fadden, and Jeff Hanna.
Unfortunately, the auction site does not list the actual model names or numbers for these instruments, but there are a number of photos of each to help identify them.
This is a great chance for someone to obtain an historic piece of bluegrass lore, and help two agencies who do very good work for people in the music industry.
The auction closes at 3:01 p.m. on October 22. See all the details online.
