Welcome to the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards Pre-Show, produced and presented by BGS in partnership with IBMA and highlighting this year’s Best New Artist nominees!
The half-hour-long special is hosted by Sean & Sara Watkins (winners of the Emerging Artist award as part of Nickel Creek in 2000) and features performances from all five 2020 Best New Artist nominees: Appalachian Road Show, Carolina Blue, High Fidelity, Mile Twelve, and Merle Monroe.
Watch the show right here, on Thursday, October 1 at 7:30pm ET / 4:30 pm PT! Special thanks to BGS sponsor Preston Thompson Guitars for their support of the IBMA Awards Pre-Show.
Immediately following the premiere of the Awards Pre-Show, navigate to IBMA’s conference platform, Swapcard, or IBMA’s YouTube channel or Facebook page for the broadcast of the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards.
Freddy & Francine have taken a surprisingly soulful turn for their newest album, I Am Afraid to Die! While their songwriting may be tied to their perception that we’re approaching the end of the world, the duo’s Lee Ferris and Bianca Caruso are looking back with some retro R&B vibes. But don’t get bummed out by such thoughts of doom. As the band states on their website, “The obligation we feel as artists is to respond authentically to what we observe. On this record we aimed for a joyful celebration of the flaws in our humanity while facing the erosion of our collective spirit and looming extinction. We filter our anger, fear, and frustrations through our music and transmute it into joy!”
In a year of unexpected twists and turns, the musical shift is an interesting detour from the folk-pop arrangements that brought the Nashville couple a national following. In this performance video filmed at Ear Trumpet Labs in Portland, Oregon, Freddy & Francine are using a Louise microphone on vocals, an Edwina on the guitar amp, and a stereo pair of Delphinas as room mics. Enjoy their back-to-basics rendition of “By No Means,” which is (perhaps fittingly) the final track on I Am Afraid to Die!
In an effort to support the visual and musical arts, especially during a time when we can’t visit museums or concert venues, The Autry Museum of the American West is presenting a music video series featuring intimate, acoustic performances by some of L.A.’s best musical artists, all filmed live on location. This installment features Gaby Moreno, a gifted Guatemala native whose music placements range from Disney’s Elena of Avalor to Netflix’s original series, Orange Is the New Black. She also released an acclaimed project, ¡Spangled!, with Van Dyke Parks. (Read the BGS interview.)
The Autry Presents: The Best of Los Angeles, produced by Gia Hughes and filmed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Austin Straub, offers 20+ minute sets by Los Angeles-based artists Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, Gaby Moreno, Aubrie Sellers and soul artist Chris Pierce. The musicians perform alongside artwork and objects on display at The Autry including Bridges by James Doolin, War Music II by Mateo Romero, and a Concord Mail Stage Coach made by Lewis Downing.
Tyler Childers realizes that the message of his surprise new album, Long Violent History, might be misconstrued without putting the release into context. In this video, he explains his rationale behind the project and reveals that he’s been sober for six months. One hundred percent of net proceeds from the album will support underserved communities in the Appalachian region through the Hickman Holler Appalachian Relief Fund.
BGS is proud to announce Shout & Shine Episode 2! Guitarist and songwriter Sunny War is our latest guest for the livestream iteration of Shout & Shine, which comprises short-form, intimate video performances by underrepresented and marginalized artists in Americana, folk, and bluegrass.
Please support Sunny War directly, via venmo: @sunnywar and visit her website for more information and music.
Shout & Shine is presented by Preston Thompson Guitars and will be streamed live right here on September 16 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET.
In an effort to support the visual and musical arts, especially during a time when we can’t visit museums or concert venues, The Autry Museum of the American West is presenting a music video series featuring intimate, acoustic performances by some of L.A.’s best musical artists, all filmed live on location. The Autry will be unveiling a new performance every two weeks. This installment features Aubrie Sellers, who blends country music and garage rock on original songs from her 2020 album, Far From Home. That project also offers a superb rendering of “My Love Will Not Change,” which is part of this set from The Autry, too. She’s joined here by Ethan Ballinger on electric guitar.
The Autry Presents: The Best of Los Angeles, produced by Gia Hughes and filmed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Austin Straub, will feature 20+ minute sets by Los Angeles-based artists Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, Gaby Moreno, Aubrie Sellers and soul artist Chris Pierce throughout its run. The musicians will perform alongside artwork and objects on display at The Autry including Bridges by James Doolin, War Music II by Mateo Romero, and a Concord Mail Stage Coach made by Lewis Downing.
On our fourth and final episode of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour, our online Americana-meets-comedy-meets-Ed-Helms variety show from this spring, singer/songwriter and banjoist Valerie June paid tribute to our theme (drinking songs for a happy hour, go figure!) and the King of Bluegrass himself, Jimmy Martin, with a simple, down-to-earth performance of “Drink Up and Go Home.”
Maybe you’re familiar with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman’s rendition, or any of the ample covers that have been offered up by string bands from across the genre map. But, for our WSHH purposes, Valerie June’s version — complete with an incoming thunderstorm and delicious ambient background vocals supplied by insect and bird song — has its own particular charm. For those in the know, that charm is quite easily traceable to June’s ethereal, cosmic approach to poetry through folk music. Her personal touches to this country classic demonstrate both her own and the tune’s broad appeal — without overthinking it.
We hope you’ll enjoy this Whiskey Sour Happy Hour rerun of “Drink Up and Go Home.”
In an effort to support the visual and musical arts, especially during a time when we can’t visit museums or concert venues, The Autry Museum of the American West is presenting a music video series featuring intimate, acoustic performances by some of L.A.’s best musical artists, all filmed live on location. The Autry will be unveiling a new performance every two weeks. This installment features independent soul artist Chris Pierce, whose powerful songs have been placed on This Is Us, True Blood, and many other TV and film projects.
The Autry Presents: The Best of Los Angeles, produced by Gia Hughes and filmed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Austin Straub, will feature 20+ minute sets by Los Angeles-based artists Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, Gaby Moreno, Aubrie Sellers and Chris Pierce throughout its run. The musicians will perform alongside artwork and objects on display at The Autry including Bridges by James Doolin, War Music II by Mateo Romero, and a Concord Mail Stage Coach made by Lewis Downing.
You know that feeling you get when somebody leaves — but says they’ll be back? Then you’ll have a deeper understanding of this rare track from The War and Treaty, written by Michael Trotter, with his wife and bandmate Tanya Blount-Trotter at his side to drive those powerful emotions home.
The mesmerizing duo recorded this performance video at the Ear Trumpet Labs workshop while on tour in Portland, Oregon. They’re using the Delphina model on vocals, an Edwina on the guitar amp, and a stereo pair of Delphinas as room mics. And if this performance moves you, then just count the days until September 25 when The War and Treaty release their second album, Hearts Town.
On our first episode of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour, mother-daughter duo Aubrie Sellers and Lee Ann Womack delivered a message we oh-so desperately needed to hear. Only a month into nationwide stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were all missing live music — with no visible light at the end of the music-less tunnel — and craving human connection as we fell into the new normal of isolation and social distancing.
This first night of performances from multiple BGS Friends and Neighbors, such as Yola, Watkins Family Hour, Billy Strings, and many more, reminded us of the power of both music and community. And while the depths of social isolation, not to mention the world’s seemingly constant negative news, may seem like the perfect breeding ground for pessimism and hopelessness, Sellers and Womack remind us that there is a sunny side — we just need to look for it.
So let us greet, with a song of hope, each day. We can get started by watching Sellers and Womack, with guitarist Ethan Ballinger, serenade Whiskey Sour Happy Hour listeners with their version of the Carter Family classic, “Keep on the Sunny Side.”
