Coming attractions

Regular readers may have noted that each of Festival Preview's genre pages is driven by news coming from regular sources, which we receive via the magic of RSS, a web standard for content syndication. On the roots page, one of our mainstay feeds is The Bluegrass Blog, which provides timely coverage of pretty much all things bluegrass.

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting TBB's two principles, John Lawless and Brance Gillihan. They are trying something new for the World of Bluegrass week, with guest bloggers contributing items to a new section of their site. Later this week, I hope to sit down with Brance for a deeper discussion of the state of the genre. I've also lined up a chat with Dan Hays, executive director of IBMA.

The music gets underway tonight after a dinner keynote by master dobroist Jerry Douglas. Tonight's official showcases are Sweet Sunny South, Above The Town, The Lovell Sisters, Alan Munde Gazette, Carolina Sunshine and Bradley Walker. Following that the after-hours showcases start with lots of big names--Jim Lauderdale, Laurie Lewis, Kieran Kane and Kevin Welch, Casey Driessen, The Grasclas, and many more.

I expect to be enjoying the music too much to get any further posting done today. I'll be back in the morning for a first night overview.