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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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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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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The current, and 47th, season of the hit PBS program, This Old House, has come to western North Carolina to be part of the restoration of the region following the flooding from Hurricane Helene. This long-running show, which has made home improvement stars out of successive hosts, is also featuring some of the bluegrass and Americana music that Asheville is known for as a soundtrack.

This Old House is calling this series of shows, which follows five different flooded out families on their repair or replacement journey, Carolina Comeback. And the inclusion of bluegrass music by local contractor Jamie Dose was a matter of pure happenstance.

The lifelong musician is the owner of Old North State Building Company in Black Mountain, NC. As an area contractor, he had seen plenty of homes and properties coming back from the devastation of September 2024. Him seeing a press release from the program started a chain reaction that ended up with his music, reimagined as bluegrass, finding its way onto television.

“I saw a post from This Old House looking for flood stories. I had just visited a riverfront neighborhood that once had 23 homes. Now it has two. Cars in trees. Pieces of homes on top of other homes. Empty foundations. Everywhere you looked—family pictures, teddy bears, people’s lives scattered.”

So he reached out, and heard right back from Producer Chris Emerides, asking if any of the work Jamie was currently doing might be a good fit for the show. With the homeowners’ approval and cooperation, the show arrived on scene as major repairs were being made. The property needed downed trees cleared, the roof patched, and the removal of six feet of silt from the first floor, as they sought to stabilize a home that had been submerged nearly to its second story. No small job, that.

While filming was ongoing, the crew learned that Dose was also a musical artist and songwriter. Once they heard some of his songs, discussions began about having them as an audio bed for these episodes. During this time, Jamie had reconnected with Ty Gilpin, who plays mandolin with Unspoken Tradition, and also works as a free-lance producer and music marketer in Asheville. Together they reworked these blues and rock pieces into bluegrass music arrangements, which Jamie had never considered before.

“Ty was interested in doing my material in a bluegrass format. As someone who’s been around bluegrass a long time, I was excited. I had no idea it would end up on a TV show.”

Two songs are set to be included, Jamie’s Mercenary Wind…

…and his Cavalry.

Musicians playing on the tracks include Dose on guitar and vocals, and Gilpin on mandolin, along with Audie McGinnis, Sav Sankaran, Jason Flournoy, Abby Bryant, Tommy Maher, Don Lewis, Griff Martin, Brian Swank, Joey Recchio, and John Ray.

Season 47 of This Old House began at the end of September, with multiple episodes remaining where these songs will be featured. It is available via local broadcast on PBS affiliate stations, on nearly all cable and satellite systems, and on a number of streaming services. Previous episodes can be viewed online.

The post Bluegrass comes to This Old House for Carolina Comeback appeared first on Bluegrass Today.

Rebel Records has produced a music video for their latest single with Rrinaco, Two or More.

The oddly-named outfit is a sort of alter ego for Corrina Rose Logston Stephens, fiddler and vocalist with arch-traditionalist grassers High Fidelity. She created it to record songs she writes that wouldn’t fit the band’s trademark style, and the music has found a good many avid listeners through a debut album, Little Songs.

Two or More is a reflection on a well-known line of Scripture, Matthew 18:20 to be exact, where Jesus expresses the fact that he will be present among any gathering of two or more people praying in his name.

Corrina says that the song got its start from a moment of prayer she shared with her good friend, Laura Ray, like Stephens a Nashville-based player and singer.

“One day after we’d been hanging out and ended our time together with a little prayer, Laura exclaimed, ‘Two or more, man!’ I knew she was referencing a Scripture spoken by Jesus that refers to gathering together and Him being present, and right then this song started stirring in me. I ended up doing a deep dive into that phrase and everywhere in the Bible that it appears. Instead of trying to explain the sense of comfort, reassurance, and security that I felt in that moment when Laura said it, I ended up just letting it speak for itself, and this song is the result.”

She plays fiddle and sings the lead, supported by her husband, Jeremey, on guitar, Casey Campbell on mandolin, P.J. George on bass, and Kevin Buchanan on percussion.

The music video was created by Warren Swann, who has filmed and edited previous work by Stephens and the band, based on a concept that Corrina had developed.

Upon seeing the finished video, she said…

“The song has always felt like a traveling song to me, and I love that the video really depicts a sense of journey, friendship, and fellowship, underpainted by the sense that something – or Someone – even greater connects it all.”

It’s lovely visually, and the music is superb as well!

Have a look/listen.

Two or More, and the full Little Songs album, are available from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via AirPlay Direct.

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A great many people were touched by the article we posted last month about Katie Powderly, and her organization, Guitars for Girls. Their efforts revolve around finding young ladies, 8-17, who would like to learn to play the guitar, particularly for the sake of the traditional music and storytelling of the Appalachian region.

Things got started when Katie was able to help one girl receive a guitar, and she has now set a goal of 20 for this year. The opportunity is open to girls in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Katie got in touch with us again recently with news that they have extended the program deadline for 2025. She is asking that anyone who knows of a girl who might benefit from this endeavor, to please nominate them online.

Nominations can come from parents, teachers, or friends, or if you are a girl aged 8-17 who would be interested in such a plan, you are free to nominate yourself. They will remain open through November 30, so only a few days remain.

More details and information about Guitars for Girls can be seen in our earlier piece.

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The Country Music Association of Australia has announced the nominees for their 2026 Toyota Golden Guitar Awards. These have been awarded annually since 1973 to recognise, celebrate and honor excellence and outstanding achievement in Australian country music.

The island nation has a robust professional country music scene, as does neighboring New Zealand, and the Golden Guitars are given out to note the best of the best during the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January.

Of course, our readers will be most interested in the Bluegrass Recording of the Year category, whose nominees are:

• Born To Roam – Sons Of Atticus
• I Love Lovin’ You – Michael Carpenter & The Banks Brothers
• Night At the County Fair – Wicker Suite
• They Don’t Flick the Finger In the Outback Anymore – Brendan Radford
• Words for Leaving – The High Street Drifters

Have a listen to the nominated songs below.

Congratulations and best of luck to all the nominees!

The post Australian bluegrass award nominations announced appeared first on Bluegrass Today.

Huckleberry Records has a new music for Rebekah Speer and her current single, Needle In The Heart of West Virginia, set for release tomorrow. They have graciously offered it to our readers a day early, and we are delighted to premiere it this morning.

As you might surmise from the title, this song is about the devastation caused throughout Appalachia by the opioid epidemic, which has wreaked havoc especially among low income communities. Written by Donna Ulisse and Mark Bondurant, it shares the emotional toil and the personal loss experienced by loved ones left behind.

The audio track was left sparse, with only Rebekah’s voice supported by Seth Taylor’s guitar and mandolin, fiddle from Andy Leftwich, reso-guitar from Josh Swift, and Darrin Vincent’s bass. Harmony vocals were provided by Jaelee Roberts and Grayson Lane.

For the music video, shots were filmed at the studio of Shannon Fontaine Photography in Nashville, on the Long Family Farm in Lincolnton, GA where Rebekah was raised, and at the Lincoln County High School Auditorium.

Have a look and listen to the result.

Needle In The Heart of West Virginia is available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via Get It Played.

The post Needle In The Heart of West Virginia video premiere from Rebekah Speer appeared first on Bluegrass Today.

Rick Dollar, host of the syndicated radio program and podcast, The Rick Dollar Show, has announced a partnership with Randy Wood Guitars & Pickin’ Parlor in Bloomingdale, GA. Wood is a builder of fine, professional-grade guitars and mandolins, who also has a full-service retail music store and concert venue near his shop.

As a part of this partnership, Dollar will construct a custom-built podcast studio on the Randy Wood Guitars campus, which will be the permanent home for The Rick Dollar Show.

The arrangement offers benefits to both parties, giving Rick ready access to the many top touring artists who stop in to perform at Randy’s Pickin’ Parlor, and additional promotion to the music store via Rick’s program.

Wood says that it feels right.

“Rick’s show has always honored acoustic music and the artists behind it. Building a studio here expands what our place can offer to musicians and fans alike.”

And Rick agrees, saying that he is happy to have a new home for the program.

“There isn’t a better place to plant deeper roots for this show. Randy’s space has soul — and now it’s going to have a studio built for honest, musical storytelling.”

Work is set to begin soon on building out the studio.

In the meantime, you can hear new and archived episodes of Rick’s interview-rich show online, and keep an eye on who will be at Randy’s Pickin’ Parlor a his web site.

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