Bluegrass Briefing - August 2026

Welcome to this month’s Bluegrass Briefing, a monthly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass.

Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode.

News and announcements - church street news 

• Bluegrass Album Band reissue
• Blue Waters Bluegrass
• Dawg at 80 videos

Releases (The Grass is New)

• Lindsay Lou - Bluegrass Women
• Mike Marshall Sings Bluegrass
• Ken and Brad Kolodner - Hand’s Cove
• New Acoustic Collective - Double Course

Scroll on Buddy

• Telluride documentary

Other bits

• Full list of interviews
• Collings Guitars

Happy picking.

Matt

Transcript

Matt 0:27

Hi, this is Matt, and you're listening to Pluggrass Jammelong the podcast for anyone and everyone who loves Plugrass. Hey everybody, welcome back to Bluegrass Jamalong. This is your Bluegrass briefing for August 2026. The year has flown by. A couple of recent bits on the podcast. The most recent bit, uh Brittany Hass. I put out an interview that I'd done a couple of years ago with Brittany just after she joined Punch Brothers, um, just to celebrate their new record and more on that in a moment. Uh, but I put that out again with a sort of new intro. Just if you didn't hear it, go and have a listen because it's a lovely chance to hear her reflect on what it's like joining the band and then to be able to listen to the new record a couple of years later and kind of hear how some of that came together. And yeah, it was a really fun one. I really enjoyed that. Um and before that, I put out a couple of interviews um around the sort of craft recordings reissue of the Boom Creek record. I spoke to Jerry Douglas um about that, about that time in Boom Creek with Ricky and kind of that journey for them, which was a fascinating sort of moment in time. Um and also spoke to Scott Billington, who was with Rounder Records at the time and helped kind of produce the reissue of the record which came out CD, vinyl, and digital recently. So they were really interesting conversations. Um go and check those out if you haven't heard them. Coming up next on the podcast, um next week, Lindsay Lou has a new record out uh in a couple of days. It's coming out on the 14th, um, called Bluegrass Women, and it's a fantastic collection of songs written by women, performed by women. Um just such a glorious sounding record. Uh do go and check that one out. But I've got an interview with her on that coming out next week. And the week after I had a really uh interesting chat with um audio engineer Sean Sullivan about his time working at John Prime's studio, but you know, his time since working at the Tractor Shed and just how he got into recording and what his approach is and how he kind of just you know approaches a recording session and so many just fascinating insights, really cool conversation as well. So keep an eye out for that as well. Um that's what we've got coming up. There's some really interesting stuff planned for later in the year as well, and I'll tell you more about that in due course. Lots of lots of good stuff going on for the rest of this year. Um, but yeah, let's get the summit out of the way first, and I'll tell you some more about that. So let's crack on and talk about the news and announcements this month in the section we call Church Street News. Uh, first thing going back to talking about craft recordings, reissuing stuff. Um, the first Bluegrass album band record uh is being reissued as an LP and a digital download. Um, a lot of that stuff's hard to find now. You can't get the vinyl for you know sensible money. The CDs are pretty hard to find, particularly over here in the UK anyway. Um, and that is such seminal stuff, so it'd be exciting to have a physical copy of that again. Um I'll stick a link in the show notes where you can go and pre-order it. I think there's also a preview of one of the tracks you can listen to there as well. But that's exciting. They're doing such great work. I do bang on a little bit about um craft recordings if you think they sponsor the podcast, but I'm just a big fan of what they're doing. They're putting out a lot of wonderful string band and roots music, and also jazz and other things as well that sort of sit a bit beyond the boundaries of this podcast, but they're doing some fantastic work, and this is just another wonderful re-release. So I'm very much looking forward to that. First bluegrass album band uh record coming back out. Um I'll tell you about that in the grass is new when it is out, but for now you can go and pre-order and check that out. Um, other news Blue Waters Bluegrass Festival, August 7th to the 9th. Um, on the shores of Medical Lake, Washington, it's a family-friendly festival. Kids under 12 go free. They've got Chris Jones and then night drivers, they've got Vicky Vaughan, um, tall puppy string band, damn tall buildings, really cool lineup. Um, blue watersbluegrass.org, but I'll stick a link in the show notes, go and check that out if you're looking for a festival to go to in August. Um, another wonderful thing that we chatted about on the podcast a while ago when I had David Grisman and Mike Marshall and Darrell Anger talking about the early days of the Grisman Quintet. They talked about the sort of dog at 80 celebration that had just happened. Um, and they have now released that as a pair of videos. It's 29 songs featuring 29 musicians over three hours of music. Um, you can buy them as two separate sets, but um, they feature Billy Strings, Sam Grisman, um, David Grisman, obviously, Todd Phillips is on there, uh, Mike Marshall, Darren Lunger, Ronnie McCauray, Sam Bush, lots and lots of people. Um, and if you buy both sets, you also get a free 60-minute bonus video that Gillian Grisman's put together, a kind of retrospective of um David's career, which is I'd watched a little bit of that earlier, and that's fascinating. I can't wait to get back to that. Um, and that's all available on the Acoustic Discs website. I'll stick a link in the show notes you can go and find it, but that's a that's a fantastic thing as well. Um, so lots of cool news there. Um, we're going to move on to the next section, which is the grass is new, and that's the new releases. And the main point of excitement with new releases in my house is the new Punch Brothers album is finally with us. Uh it's all instrumental. Um and we've seen lots of chat about that. A lot of people are kind of saying, Oh, I wish there were some vocals on it. A lot of people are celebrating the fact that we've got an all-instrumental punch album for the first time. Um, I love it, it's fantastic. Uh, I there's such uh depth of everything on that record, like as an exploration of the American string band as a thing, like Punch Brothers do it like nobody else, and this is a record full of just like it's full of extraordinary textures as much as anything else, and sometimes it's sparse, sometimes it's overwhelming. Mostly it's somewhere in between, but it's just it's an extraordinary lesson. Um like and it's not the kind of record I'm gonna stick on any day in any mood. I need to be in the right headspace for it, but when I am, it is just fantastic. I would urge you all to kind of listen to that. Um as I said, uh it's not out yet as I record this, but it will be out in a couple of days. So Lindsay Lou's Bluegrass Women um is out on the 14th. Um, on that are guests like Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, Ivor Donovan, Sarah Jerose, um, Laurie Lewis is on there, Alison Brown, loads of people. It's a great record. Do check it out. Um, and do also check out the interview next week. Um, who else? Big friend of this podcast, Mike Marshall's been on several times now. Mike's got a new album out called Mike Marshall Sings Bluegrass. Um, he sings, plays all the instruments on it, and he just saw I've been looking at his Bandcamp page and it says on there, says, No matter how many styles I've explored on my musical journey, this music has always been the core of my musical being and close to my heart. Um and it's just an album of Mike doing like straight down the line, classic bluegrass. Um haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm very much looking forward to that. I mean, Mike is somebody who very much has explored a lot on his musical journey. So really cool to have something that sort of takes him back to his roots, and I'm looking forward to listening to that. Um there's a new record from Kent and Brad Collodner called Hands Cove. I will stick a link where you can go and check that out as well. Uh Brad was on the podcast recently, um, looking forward to listening to that one. Jason Kaiser, if you remember when I did the Church Street Blue stuff, Jason came on to chat about Tony Rice. He studied with Wyatt, a big fan of kind of spacegrass and new acoustic music, and he has a band called New Acoustic Collective. Um, and they've got a new album out called Double Course on uh Ad Hairopa Records. So go and check that one out as well. I'll stick a link to the band camp for that. Um yeah, fascinating records. Jason sent me a copy a while ago. I listened to that, really, really enjoying it. Um and a single called I Am Bluegrass from Bob Miller, which he wrote with um his wife Ginger and with Joe Mullins. Um it features Jesse Brock, Michael Cleveland, Gina Britt, and Vicky Vaughan as the band. But then the vocals are kind of spoken and sung by like a list of who's who are bluegrass, really. Um Larry Caudle, Del McCaury, Ricky Skaggs, Doyle Lawson, Christy Cox, Sam Bush, Ronnie Bowman, Dale Ann Bradley, I mean just a list of wonderful, wonderful people. Um and it's in support of IBMA and the IBM Trust Fund, so go and check that one out as well. Um, lots there. So quick recap we've got the Punch Brothers record. Um Lindsay Lou's Bluegrass Women, Mike Marshall sings Bluegrass, Ken and Brad Collodner's new album Hands Cove, um Jason Kaiser's New Acoustic Collectives, Double Course, and Bob Miller's I Am Bluegrass. Lots of great music in there, lots of stuff to fill your ears with. Go and check it all out. Um, somewhere on the internet, that I think you might have missed and might be interested in if you did. Um, and there's a movie called Rings of Time coming out, which is directed by Sasha Palladino. It's a documentary about Telluride Bluegrass Festival featuring interviews with many, many, many of the people who make that special and make it what it is. Um, it's not out yet, it's on its way, but there is a website where you can go and find out a bit of info about it, and you can like sign up for updates and stuff. So I'll stick a link in the show notes and go and do that. But that is an interesting thing. I'll keep my eyes uh peeled for uh a release date for that, and I'll let you know when you can see it. I'm excited to see that. Um, and then maybe I'll be able to get hold of somebody to chat about when it comes out as well. That'll be a lot of fun. I think it'll be really interesting projects to talk about. But yeah, Rings of Time, Telluride documentary on its way this year. Um, and finally, what has been in my ears this week? The punch record has been in my ears this week, um, and in my brain, and out my ears the other side, and swirling around the universe. It's a yeah, glorious thing. But I've also been listening to Lindsay Lou's uh Bluegrass Women, which is just a beautiful record, full of just wonderful vocal harmony and just some of the absolute kind of some of my favourite musicians, really. Um it's a wonderful listen, so do go and check that one out as well. Uh, that is it for this month. Back next month for another briefing, back next week with Lindsay Lou's interview, um, the week after Sean Sullivan, and then I will update you on some of the really cool stuff I've got coming up through September and October. But that is it for now. Have a great week and happy picking!