Three new videos of recent Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper performances have been posted to YouTube for fans to enjoy. The first video was taken during a special performance at the International Bluegrass Music Museum on April 3rd. The band performed “Big Mon” in this video to a packed house in the museum’s theater. The next 2 videos were shot the same day at the Bluegrass Returns To Its Roots festival in Owensboro, KY. One features a great vocal by Flamekeeper bassist, Marshall Wilborn singing “I’ve got The Railroad Blues”….

Canadian fiddler April Verch’s new release, Steal The Blue, is chalk full of bluegrass artists.

Her seventh CD, Steal The Blue, is the first to feature her touring band and includes several familiar names, including Tim Stafford, Steve Gulley, Craig Market, Larry Cordle, Ron Block, Melonie Cannon, and Patty Mitchell among the songwriters and harmony vocalists.

I’m a bit amazed, perhaps even overwhelmed, at the number of high-quality bluegrass CDs hitting the market these days.

I’m talking about the good stuff here, albums that truly do perk up the ears, the ones you just keep in your player because they’re so good, so polished, some so unique you just can’t stop listening.

That’s how I’m gauging my Top 5 Bluegrass CDs of 2008, selecting the ones I just can’t file away and forget. I’d venture a bet that come this time next year, some of my 2008 favorites might be filed away (but not forgotten and definitely not doomed to silence) as the avalanche of quality recorded material just keeps rolling in.

Here are my picks:

Burlington, MA — PBS stations across the country have signed on for a three-year licensing deal to broadcast Alison Krauss’s new DVD A Hundred Miles or More: Live From The Tracking Room (Rounder) beginning in December. See below for the current list of PBS stations/markets and some of the confirmed airdates and times – more to come.

Burlington, MA – On March 24, Rounder Records will release Hillbilly Goddess, the new album by stunning vocalist Alecia Nugent. In the five short years since the release of Nugent’s debut CD, she has gone from being the toast of Hickory Grove, Louisiana to one of the most celebrated bluegrass & country singers across America’s heartland.