After 12 years in Raleigh, NC, the International Bluegrass Music Association is moving its long-running World Of Bluegrass industry convention to the East Tennessee city of Chattanooga, where it will take over the convention center, music venues, and city parks between Sept. 16 and 20, just one week after Americanafest. Ask the IBMA, and they’ll say there are no big shifts or surprises in the structure and nature of the convention. It’s the same idea in a new town. Except there is a big new dynamic, and his name is Billy Strings.
Star Power
Since he last appeared as a performer on the event’s Wide Open Bluegrass festival stage in 2017, the guitar player and singer-songwriter blew up into a phenomenon, selling out arenas and winning three IBMA Entertainer of the Year awards and two Grammys. Strings’s demanding schedule of shows has prevented him from being in the hall for his biggest IBMA Awards. Last week though, Strings was announced as this year’s keynote artist; he’ll sit for an interview on Sept. 16, the event’s opening day, with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio host Tom Power.
Besides that, Strings is playing two shows in Chattanooga during World of Bluegrass, on Sept. 16 and 17. These are separate, ticketed events that are unaffiliated with IBMA. Still, says Executive Director Ken White, it’s a big deal to have Strings at and near this year’s proceedings.
“Billy Strings is a generational talent that has put bluegrass in the center of pop culture awareness. A rare feat,” White told WMOT in an email exchange. “Having him at our event is a ‘rising tide that lifts all boats’ opportunity to shine a light on everyone involved in our industry. It will make for an amazing celebration.”
Another starring role will be played by the legendary comic actor and writer Steve Martin. He and his banjo-playing friend Alison Brown will be co-hosting the 36th annual IBMA Awards show, held this year at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium on Thursday, Sept. 18. Martin and Brown will deliver their debut duo album Safe, Sensible And Sane mid October, and they are nominated for three awards for their 2024 collaboration on the album single “5 Days Out, 2 Days Back.”
Martin, a lifelong banjo picker who is now a touring veteran, as well as the sponsor of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, was last on the IBMA Awards stage when he and his partner band the Steep Canyon Rangers were named Entertainers of the Year in 2011 in Nashville. I happened to interview Martin and Brown recently for a feature about their upcoming album, and Martin said there’s no radical plan for their co-emcee roles. “We're just going to do a four-minute monologue and play a couple of songs,” Martin said. “But I don't have any insider dope!”
Destination Chattanooga
IBMA chose Chattanooga after an exhaustive search that took a serious look at more than 30 potential host cities. The Scenic City stood out for having a history supporting bluegrass, a convention center with nearby venues, plus affordable hotels for the annual pilgrims. “Chattanooga checked all of those boxes, and Chattanooga Tourism was excited to host us,” White says.
Chattanooga can’t claim much top-line bluegrass history, but it is the birthplace of revered guitarist and songwriter Norman Blake, and the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith. And for decades, it was the home base of legendary Tennessee fiddle player and arts patron Fletcher Bright (1931-2017), who founded the 3 Sisters Bluegrass Festival (so named in tribute to his daughters), which has been free of charge for the region every year since 2007. It will follow World of Bluegrass in its usual weekend slot of Oct. 3-4.
A number of excellent musicians make the Chattanooga area home, including multi-instrumentalists Trevor Holder and Conner Vlietstra, who are members of The Price Sisters Band and founders of the superb throwback string band the Chattanooga Dogs. Firefighter/banjo player Randy Steele has emerged as one of the city’s most active and admired songwriters and band leaders. He and his group High Cold Wind play often around the region, and Steele himself was the lone musician on the local organizing committee that worked with and advised IBMA as the organization put World of Bluegrass together.
Steele told me this week that the city has been primed for this moment by the 3 Sisters Festival and grassroots participation in the music. “Another thing that’s happened in Chattanooga that’s really really cool is for almost 30 years, we've had a Wednesday night bluegrass jam that has moved around town,” he said. “It goes to different people's houses, and it’s one of those things where if you know, you know. It's been this core group of people who have been injecting a love of bluegrass throughout the community for years and years.”
If you attend WOB, be on the lookout for special attention to newly announced Bluegrass Hall of Fame member Arnold Shultz (1886-1931), the African American fiddler and guitarist who was an early inspiration for Bill Monroe. Solo songster Dom Flemons and fiddler Earl White will sit on conference panels about Shultz and the Black string band tradition. And Shultz will be celebrated at the awards. “Black influence on string band music and bluegrass in particular is a story that hasn't been told often enough,” White noted. “Arnold Shultz's influence on Bill Monroe's music is still present in the sounds we hear today, and it is a great privilege to celebrate Arnold's induction into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.
Ramble On
Just yesterday, IBMA announced the schedule for the Bluegrass Ramble, the coveted annual showcases where buyers, agents, journalists, and record labels get to scout talent from among the music’s emerging artist pool. Held on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Ramble venues encompass the Barrelhouse Ballroom, The Comedy Catch, Gate 11 Distillery, Hi-Fi Clyde’s, Songbirds, and the Chattanooga Convention Center (CCC).
Here are a few artists that I and my Old Fashioned co-host Amy Alvey have been playing on the show and that have stirred up buzz in the business, with a focus on our Nashville talent base. A locally focused set of showcases will take place on Thursday night between 7 and 10 pm.
Nashville based Vickie Vaughn is the reigning IBMA Bass Player of the Year (two years running in fact), and she’s a valued side musician whose credits include time with High Fidelity and Della Mae. She’s also a fine singer and songwriter, and she’ll be previewing her solo debut album, which is coming in November.
The Sentimental Gentlemen are a spinoff band from Sierra Ferrell’s hot acoustic touring outfit, thus making something of a Nashville supergroup with Joshua Rilko (mandolin & vocals), Oliver Bates Craven (fiddle, guitar, vocals), and Geoff Saunders (bass, vocals), supplemented by hotshots like banjo player Kyle Tuttle, fiddler Patrick M’Gonigle, and guitarist Jacob Groopman. They’re a superb addition to the Music City bluegrass scene that we didn’t see coming!
Nashville fiddler George Jackson and Baltimore banjo player Brad Kolodner have formed one of the premiere duos in today’s old-time brigade. They’re grounded in the old vine sounds but bring just enough contemporary notions to lend them a sound all their own.
Greenwood Rye, the clever and enthusiastic band that emerged at the late and lamented Jane’s Hideaway in East Nashville, are showcasing this year, as they look to widen their touring base and (I hope) work on a followup album to their strong debut. Mason Via, recently the subject of an in-depth profile and conversation on The String, continues his run toward the top of string band country with a Ramble appearance.
From elsewhere, I’ll be keyed in on the Mountain Grass Unit, a young Alabama band that bridges traditional and jamgrass and that earned a ton of acclaim this summer at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Veteran bass player Mark Schatz has a crafty duo with multi-instrumentalist and superb singer Bryan McDowell. The Foreign Landers have been faves of mine for a couple of years, on the strength of their duo chemistry and the brilliant banjo playing of Tabitha Agnew Benedict.
The World of Bluegrass concludes with its big public-facing event, rebranded as Bluegrass Live! on Friday and Saturday in parks and plazas in downtown. The lineup includes Sierra Ferrell, The Wood Brothers, Sierra Hull, The Infamous Stringdusters, Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, Alison Brown, Sister Sadie, Jim Lauderdale & The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Missy Raines & Allegheny, Michael Cleveland & Jason Carter, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Woody Platt & The Bluegrass Gentlemen, East Nash Grass, Mountain Grass Unit, Authentic Unlimited, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Trey Hensley, Unspoken Tradition, Wyatt Ellis, Mason Via, DownRiver Collective, The Often Herd, and Kids on Bluegrass. Tickets can be purchased HERE.
