Travers Chandler and Avery County welcome several new band members this month. Tom Isaacs on banjo and second fiddle, John Bryan on guitar, and Blake Johnson on bass will join Merl Johnson on fiddle and Travers Chandler on lead vocals and mandolin for a June tour that includes dates at the Borderline Folk Club Concert in New City, N.Y. on June 3; the Kluane Mountain Bluegrass Festival in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, on June 8-10; the Blistered Fingers Bluegrass Festival in Litchfield, Maine on June 14-16, and the Tidewater Bluegrass Association Concert in Suffolk, Va. on June 23. The band is also excited to launch a new YouTube channel, with new videos to share. Visit www.averycountyband.com for details and their full schedule. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver had the honor of kicking off NASCAR Weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C., with a performance of the National Anthem in front of 165,000 fans. The band Steel String Session announced in May that it has changed its name to Playing On The Planet, “just a better fit for how we like to live OUR lives and approach our relationships,” according to the press release. Members spent much of the month at Ben Surratt's TheRecRoomStudio recording their new album, which will go to Nickel City Music for mixing and mastering this month. Also in May, Lisa Jacobi, who handles fiddle, mandolin, guitar and vocal chores for the band, was appointed chair of the IBMA Education Committee, a group that determines the slate of topics, presenters and speakers at the annual World of Bluegrass convention, which will take place during the last week of September in Nashville. "I'm working with an amazing six-person team and though we have a monumental task ahead of us, with the guidance and creativity of IBMA Interim director Nancy Cardwell, we will have one of the best WOBs to date," says Jacobi. The Roys, who hosted 650 AM WSM Radio's Guest Artist Series last month, will return for a second Guest Artist Series appearance on Tuesday, June 26. The show, unique to radio, gives the guest artists a chance to play some of their own hits, along with some of their all-time favorite tracks by other entertainers. Fans can listen to both shows online at 650 AM WSM and can catch up with Lee and Elaine on www.theroysonline.com .
High lead and tenor vocalist Larry Stephenson released his first album with Compass Records, What Really Matters, last month. Larry and his band will take the show on the road this summer for a long tour that includes Strawberry Park Bluegrass Festival, Bean Blossom, Music in the Mountains, and Mineral Bluegrass Festival. Click here to see their schedule. This summer, banjo master Tony Trischka will lead the band in New York City for Steve Martin’s five-song bluegrass soundtrack for the New York Public Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” in Central Park. The show’s director, Daniel Sullivan, decided to set the action in the rural American South around 1840, and asked Martin to compose five bluegrass songs to accompany the Bard’s lyrics. Martin persuaded progressive bluegrass master Tony Trischka to lead a small band onstage that includes banjo, fiddle, bass guitar and a guitar. Interestingly, Steve Martin is presently putting together an album with singersongwriter Edie Brickell. He wrote 13 banjo tunes, emailed them to her, and she has emailed him back with lyrics. Brickell (with her New Bohemians) is best known for 1988's Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars, which went #4 on the US Albums Chart. Congratulations to Rob and Lisa McCoury, and the entire McCoury clan, on the arrival of Vassar Edwin Carroll McCoury, born May 29 at 8:06 a.m. Baby Vassar joins Rob and Lisa's other children: young Monroe, who sang "Jambalaya" onstage at DelFest with her granddaddy this past weekend, and little Del, his granddaddy's namesake. This is the seventh grandchild for Del and Miss Jean. Welcome, Baby Vassar, from your friends at IBMA.