Down On The Corner

By Paul Moffett

• The spring and summer festivals are beginning to fire up: here is the most recent news about four of them:

• Ricky Skaggs has been added as the headliner to the Bluegrass Stage at HullabaLOU. Bluegrass, country, country, bluegrass, whatever. Bluegrass saved his career after his country music days were over, bypassed by the rockers, so that's where he belongs.

• The Forecastle Festival and Nederlander Entertainment will have unveiled the initial lineup to the 2010 event at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, March 31. After that, which price for a three-day pass will increase to $150, with single-day passes at $60.

The 9th annual festival will take place July 9–11 in Belvedere Park in downtown Louisville with over 75 bands and electronic artists, regional art installations, the Sustainable Living Roadshow, outdoor extreme sports park, panels, speakers, films, and more.

• The organizer of Abbey Road On The River found the corporate sponsor he needed: it's now the WHAS-11 Abbey Road On The River festival and it's scheduled for May 27-31 on the Belvedere in downtown Louisville. 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Terry Sylvester of The Hollies will headline, along with performances from over 50 bands on eight stages. Returning acts include Canada's Hal Bruce and All You Need is Love, Chicago's Britbeat, Moscow, Russia's Alyona, Puerto Rico's The Jukebox, Athens, Georgia's Abbey Road LIVE, Norway's Norwegian Beatles, and Sweden's The Repeatles. The festival will also expand to include a new five day show in Washington D.C. over Labor Day Weekend, an increasingly common tactic for successful festivals, such as the Forecastle Fest.

• Josh Garrett and the Bottomline will be the headliner for the "Booty-Shakin' Blues Festival" (2010 version), co-sponsored by MERF and the Kentuckiana Blues Society, at New Albany's Riverfront Amphitheatre on June 26. The festival, which will be party of New Albany's Summer Concert Series, will feature a number of area bands. Festival hours will be 2p.m until 11 p.m., with music running from 3 p.m until 11 p.m. The complete lineup will be announced later, but the Jimmy Davis Band and Marilyn Kington and 2-Loose have already been confirmed. Tickets will be $10 / $2 for 6 and under. More information as it becomes available.

• Things we learn from reading the C-J: some stories only appear in the deadtree edition. In this case, the story, written by Andrew Adler, reports that the Louisville Orchestra has recovered the master tapes from the LO's "First Edition" series, which established the LO as a significant orchestra on a national and, indeed, international, level. The tapes are now at the University of Louisville School of Music. It's an interesting story: apparently, the recordings were stashed in a producer's apartment for years. Puts me in mind of Marvin Maxwell's rescue of the Allen-Martin library of masters.

• Robert Lawson, Kentucky Music Hall of Fame Executive Director along with Connie Hunt, event ceremony executive producer, announced [that] Keith Whitley, Patty Loveless, Steve Wariner, John Michael Montgomery, The Goins Brothers, Molly O'Day and Larnelle Harris as the newest inductees into the prestigious Kentucky Music Hall of Fame.

"This year's inductees include some of the most recognizable music artists in the world," says Lawson of the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame. "The ceremony taking place in April 2011 will feature performances by this year's class as well as some of this state's greatest music achievers."

The 2011 Induction Ceremony will be held in the Lexington Center Bluegrass Ballroom in Lexington, Kentucky on April 7, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are on sale now at the Hall of Fame. For more information about the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame & Museum call 1-877-356-3263 or visit www.KYMusicHallofFame.com

• If you are a musician but not a regular reader of Eddy Metal's News From the Pit column, take a look at this issue. Eddy had an 'experience' with Gorilla Productions, an Ohio-based producer of "Battle of the Bands" that has drawn the ire of musicians all over the country. He wasn't happy about it.

CODAS

Haysley, Charles A. "Shorty", 75, died in Louisville on March 7. He was a steel guitar player.