Rounder Recording Artist Blue Highway headlines Friday night, June 6, at Sally Gap Bluegrass Festival near Williamsburg, KY.

The Sally Gap Bluegrass Festival returns June 6-8 at Jackson Farm, near Williamsburg, Ky.

Fronting this year’s show are Blue Highway, which will perform on Friday,and the Lonesome River Band, Saturday’s top act.

The festival is sponsored by Jackson Farms and Southern Sun.

The event focuses heavily on children’s activities, with a special workshop, the “American Traditional Music Project,” in which participants will be building their own banjos.

The festival also features the Sally Gap Children’s Band and special classroom teachers workshop, “Utilizing Bluegrass Music in the Classroom,” utilizing the International Bluegrass Music Association’s teaching model. The workshop will be held at the University of the Cumberlands.

Other bands on the play bill are Kentucky Win, Southern Sun, Blue Moon Rising, Blue Storm, and Ron, Vernon,
and Straight Creek, Virgil Bowlin and Peerless Mountain and the Dixie Ryders.

Ticket and camping information is available at http://www.sallygapbgfestival.com.

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BlueHighway “Through the Window of a Train” (Rounder)

Burlington, MA – Rounder Records is pleased to announce that many of its artists will be performing at MerleFest on April 24–27 in Wilkesboro, NC. MerleFest began in the spring of 1988 and has grown from two flat-bed trailers and 4,000 attendees to 13 stages with more than 81,500 festival participants. This “one time, one night, one man show,” according to MerleFest Executive Director B. Townes, has turned into one of the largest American roots festivals in the country. A complete list of Rounder performances is below. For more information and stage schedules, visit www.merlefest.org.

Blue Highway (Thursday & Friday, April 24 & 25)
One of the most esteemed groups in contemporary bluegrass, Blue Highway excels at every facet of the music, from instrumental dexterity to impeccable vocal interplay to literate, powerful songwriting. Individually, Jason Burleson (banjo, guitar, mandolin), Rob Ickes (Dobro), Shawn Lane (mandolin, fiddle, vocals), Tim Stafford (guitar, vocals), and Wayne Taylor (bass, vocals) are at the forefront of the genre, appearing on innumerable projects as sidemen, songwriters, and solo artists. Their latest album, Through the Window of a Train was released in February and finds the band continuing to grow and mature in all areas. Blue Highway has released eight acclaimed albums, received a Grammy nomination for their album Wondrous Love, topped the Bluegrass Unlimited radio charts, and won an astonishing 13 International Bluegrass Music Association awards (individually and collectively).

Blue Highway “Through the Window of A Train” CD Review on BluegrassJournal.com

Sierra Hull & Highway 111 (Friday & Saturday, April 25 & 26)

Beginning at eight years old, Sierra Hull has become an adored and respected young mandolin picker in bluegrass circles. Since then, the 16-year old Hull has competed in and won numerous mandolin and guitar championships, showcased at The International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass, and was a featured performer on the Great High Mountain Tour, which included an all-star bluegrass lineup (with Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley, and others), that performed songs from the soundtracks of O Brother Where Art Thou and Cold Mountain. On May 6, Rounder Records will release Secrets, her national debut album. Secrets was co-produced by Hull and Ron Block (Union Station) and features Block, Dan Tyminski, Barry Bales, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Tony Rice, Jim VanCleve, Rob Ickes, Chris Jones, Jason Moore, and 17-year-old banjo whiz Cory Walker (who is also in Sierra’s band, Highway 111).

The Claire Lynch Band (Saturday & Sunday, April 26 & 27)

Claire Lynch has long been recognized as a creative influence in bluegrass music – first for her early years with Alabama’s Front Porch String Band (which was labeled as “a musical force to be reckoned with” by John Starling) and later for her superb singing and songwriting. Two of her five albums on Rounder have been nominated for a Grammy® and, among her many other nominations, she won the IBMA Award for “Female Vocalist of the Year” in 1997. Her latest album, Crowd Favorites, was released in October and is a collection of some of the most-requested songs from Claire Lynch’s impressively rich repertoire.

Claire Lynch “Crowd Favorites” CD Review on BluegrassJournal.com

Tony Rice (Friday & Saturday, April 25 & 26)

Tony Rice spans the range of acoustic music, from straight-ahead bluegrass to jazz-influenced new acoustic music, to songwriter-oriented folk. He is perhaps the greatest innovator in acoustic flatpicked guitar since Clarence White. Over the course of his career, he has played alongside J.D. Crowe and the New South, David Grisman (during the formation of “Dawg Music”), led his own groups, collaborated with fellow picker Norman Blake and recorded with his brothers. Rice remains one of bluegrass’ top instrumentalists, bringing originality and vitality to everything he plays.

The Dan Tyminski Band (Sunday, April 27)

Dynamic on stage, down to earth off stage, Dan Tyminski has the voice, instrumental chops, and charisma to be counted among the most recognizable and popular male vocalists on today’s bluegrass and country music scenes. Since 1994, his ace instrumental skill (mainly on guitar, but also on mandolin) and burnished, soulful tenor singing has been a key component of Alison Krauss and Union Station, arguably the most visible and successful bluegrass band in the modern era. Prior to that, he rose to national prominence as a member of bluegrass favorite, the Lonesome River Band. With Union Station on hiatus for most of 2008, Tyminski has formed a new incarnation of the Dan Tyminski Band, with whom he is releasing his new album Wheels on June 17. This new edition includes longtime Union Station associate Barry Bales (bass), former Union Station and Mountain Heart member Adam Steffey (mandolin), sideman extraordinaire Ron Stewart (banjo, fiddle), and newcomer Justin Moses (fiddle, dobro).

Rhonda Vincent & The Rage (Saturday, April 26)
The reigning queen of bluegrass, Rhonda Vincent, was born with music inside of her. She inherited timeless bluegrass strains from her family and the hills of her Missouri homeland. You can hear them echo every time she sings, or when she runs her hands across a mandolin, guitar, or fiddle. Yet Vincent’s music is a transformation of tradition – a very modern manifestation of her roots in classic bluegrass, refracted through her very real experiences as a bandleader, musician, songwriter, mother, wife, and woman. Rounder released her latest album Good Thing Going in January and it is Vincent’s most personal album to date. With hope, resilience, and gratitude, Vincent presents a set of songs that range from timelessly straight-ahead bluegrass to effervescent swing and heartfelt ballads.

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Burlington, MA – Rounder Recording artist’s currently hold the top four slots on the Billboard bluegrass albums chart with Rhonda Vincent’s Good Thing Going at #1, Blue Highway’s Through The Window Of A Train at #2, and the self-titled albums from Dailey & Vincent and The SteelDrivers at #3 and #4 respectively. This is Rhonda Vincent’s seventh week at #1, a position that she’s held since the album’s release on January 7. Blue Highway debuted at #2 last week, moving Dailey & Vincent to #3, while The SteelDrivers’ release from January 15 has stayed within the top 10 over the past 6 weeks.

With Good Thing Going, Rhonda Vincent presents a set of songs that range from timelessly straight-ahead bluegrass to effervescent swing and heartfelt ballads. The twelve tracks that make up Good Thing Going include five originals or co-writes, alongside a range of contemporary and classic cover tracks including a beautiful rendition of “The Water is Wide” with country superstar Keith Urban.

Blue Highway’s Through The Window Of A Train, the band’s eighth album, was released on February 12 and features 12 songs, all written or co-written by Blue Highway’s five accomplished songwriters whose songs have been recorded by bluegrass staples Ronnie Bowman, Mountain Heart, Ricky Skaggs, and others. Through The Window Of A Train showcases Blue Highway at their songwriting, instrumental, and vocal peak.

Released January 29, the self-titled debut of new bluegrass duo Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent features a broad spectrum of traditional bluegrass, country, and gospel sounds, unified by the duo’s breath-taking vocal strength and harmony as well as their virtuosic musicianship. While not related by blood, Dailey & Vincent invite favorable comparisons to the best in brother duo singing – the Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers and Jim and Jesse.

On their national debut album of all original material, The SteelDrivers’ back-country high lonesome collides with Delta soul and is one of the most refreshing sounds to emerge from Nashville in a long time. Highly regarded behind the scenes as songsmiths and session players with innumerable hits, cuts and licks to their credit, this batch of seasoned pros has performed to sold out crowds from their inception almost two years ago.

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The good folks at Lotos Nile let us know about this “behind the scenes” video filmed with Blue Highway during the recording of their latest Rounder release “Through The Window of a Train.” The clip includes interviews with band members, audio samples from the new album and features commentaries by Sam Bush, Ricky Skaggs and Jeremy Garrett of the Infamous Stringdusters.

The video was produced by Craig Havighurst of String Theory Media.

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Blue Highway “Through the Window of a Train” (Rounder)

Blue Highway is no stranger to the bluegrass scene. Having released 7 previous albums throughout the group’s lengthy and celebrated career, “Through the Window of a Train” marks the band’s fourth on the Rounder label.

The cover art for the album, predominantly white, with a black and white image across the center third, is in stark contrast to the contents. ” ‘Window of a Train” is a veritable rainbow of musical colors and canvasses. From the dark and sad subject matter of “Homeless Man,” the fiery delivery on the instrumental “The North Cove” to the reflective “Life of a Travelin’ Man,” a telling narrative of the blur of life on the road, Blue Highway paints a masterpiece on “Through the Window of a Train.”

Blue Highway recorded the project at Maggard Sound in Big Stoney Gap, Va., far away from the “music factory mind-set” of big city studio confines, in an effort to gain an “off the cuff” and spontaneous approach that shines through on the final product. While this approach isn’t for the faint of heart, a less seasoned outfit could easily burn through a recording budget or two unsuccessfully trying to capture the essence Blue Highway captures on “Through the Window of a Train.” After a listen or two, it’s no wonder Blue Highway’s members are such in-demand session players.

The CD features 12 cuts that members of the celebrated group wrote or co-wrote. The songwriting on ” ‘Window of a Train” is the foundation and strength of the project. Yeah, the musicianship the group displays is tops, but it’s songs of this caliber that will mark Blue Highway as one of the great Bluegrass groups in the annals of bluegrass history.

A warning is in order: If you get a copy of this great CD, make sure and break the news easy to the rest of CDs in your collection. They won’t be seeing the light of a laser for a while.

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