The musical duo Appalachain Roots is about keeping the Appalachain music and dance tradition alive. The duo performs all around the country, including schools, where they bring roots music to a younger Generation.

The duo is Ira Bernstein and Riley Baugus. Baugus was a featured player the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss album Raising Sand. He appears on the song Your Long Journey.

Read about a recent appearance.

Caroline Langston, writing in Image/Good Letters, thinks Robert Plant has an air of humility about him.

She writes in part:

The picture from the Grammys showed something even further, I think, which is that the face can reveal the results of a life lived with integrity. I don’t mean a life of virtue, necessarily. The smile on Plant’s face revealed a man that looked pretty jovial and happy: clearly, he was having a good time, something that was confirmed in the media reports I read. (You probably watched it, so please feel free to comment.)

What I saw in his open expression, though, was something you don’t often see in the faces of public figures—such as, say, Hank Paulson or Rod Blagojevich—a kind of clear-eyed self-acceptance of himself, and humility.

That’s it: the man looked humble. As though he were amazed to be standing where he stood.

That attitude was reflected in the remarks by Plant that I later read when I was continuing to mull over why that photograph had struck me so. Filled with praise for his Raising Sand partner Alison Krauss, Plant credited the album’s brilliance to the creative tension arising from the fact that he and Krauss “come from such different places on the map,” musically. He stated, roughly, that while his background with Led Zeppelin, like so many other English bands of the Sixties, had always led him to conceive of American music strictly in terms of the African-American musical experience—as in Delta blues and R+B—Krauss had introduced him to that other great strand that flows down through white Southern folk culture.

It was the statement of a keen mind betraying a willingness to learn, and wonder.

Read the entire article.

Mon. March 16 at 10pm ET on CMT
2008 CMT Awards
Rebroadcast of last year’s music awards. Robert and Alison accept their award and do a short backstage interview.

Don Jacobson, in Chicago’s Beachwood Reporter, blogs about why Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ big Grammy wins meant so much to him. He writes in part:

So, what have the Zep-man and the Bluegrass Babe really wrought by dominating the 2009 Grammys? Well, first of all, it has raised Robert Plant in my estimation even more, if such a thing is possible. He kicks ass for two reasons - number one, he’s got excellent taste in music. Anyone smart enough to realize the heir to hard, blues-based rock is modern Americana is damn cool in my book.

Read the article

Barry Mazor, at NoDepression.com, takes a look at “Americana” and what it means.

Mazor begins:

Charlie Louvin, Robert Plant, Glen Campbell, Joan Baez…who among these artists is Americana? And why (or why not)?

For anybody who still tries to maintain that musical genre styles are set in stone and have their own set of compatible, identifiable players – kind of like Mount Rushmore, but allegedly more natural – things must seem to be getting kind of loose out there. Robert Plant, Joan Baez, Glen Campbell and Charlie Louvin, despite their very different career starting places, are all being presented as Americana acts. Darius Rucker and Jewel are country. Taylor Swift and Alison Krauss are topping the pop album charts.

Read the article.

FYI: No Depression is an informative website on matters of roots, Americana, alt country and all forms of American music. It’s worth a bookmark.

From Buddy and Julie Miller’s record company, New West Records:

Following his show in Baltimore last Thursday evening, Buddy Miller was not feeling well. After consulting doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital, tests revealed some heart blockage. It was determined that surgery was needed right away. He is now resting and recovering and expected to be released from hospital shortly. Buddy and his family would like to thank all for their well wishes and prayers.

Scotsman.com has an article about Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia, known worldwide as Amadou and Mariam. Hailing from Mali, the duo has five albums out, one of which, Diamanche a Bamako is the bestselling album to come out of Africa with a half million copies sold in Europe alone.

According to writer Chitra Ramaswamy, Amadou and Mariam lists playing with Robert Plant in Switzerland a high point.

Read the Article

The Poughkeepsie Journal is reporting that Buddy Miller suffered a heart attack. He was taken ill on Friday. According to the Tennesseean, Miller underwent triple-bypass surgery at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. They report the surgery was successful and Miller will be recovering there for several weeks.

Buddy and his wife Julie Miller have a new album “Written in Chalk” due out on March 3. The album contains a guest vocal by Robert Plant. Buddy Miller is currently on tour with Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin and Shawn Colvin. He was a member of the Raising Sand tour with Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and T-Bone Burnett.

The Coachella festival will take place April 17 to April 19, 2009 and Tinariwen will be appearing on Saturday, April 18.

You can also catch Tinariwen elsewhere around California and New Mexico in April 2009:
April 16: San Francisco Jazz Festival, San Francisco, CA
April 17: Rio Theater, Santa Cruz, CA
April 19: Santa Fe Brewing Company, Santa Fe, NM
April 21: KTAO Solar Center, Taos, NM

Kerry Doole, in Tandem Online magazine, writes about Nashville-based guitarist, singer/songwriter and producer Colin Linden. From the article:

When Tandem reached [Linden] recently, he’d just been in the studio working on the second album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, the superstar duo who triumphed at the recent Grammys. “It was nice to get a chance to do that, and to work with my friend T-Bone Burnett again,” says Linden.