A lot has happened since our last post. Our “new” bass player, Buckwheat Green has settled in and has already written a couple of new songs we’re featuring on our shows, both of which will probably be on our next recording. Speaking of recording, we’ve been talking to several record labels and, after releasing all of our prior recordings independently, we expect to make an announcement in the near future about our next recording. We’ve enjoyed another visit to IBMA and SPBGMA, and we’ve been working toward our goal of traveling more this year, with shows in WV, OH, VA, NC, and TN already on the books and visits to MD, GA, and KY likely to be confirmed any day now. Check our schedule and make plans to visit with us somewhere this year.

Beginning at IBMA, we’ve added several endorsements, including Blue Chip Picks, Peterson Strobe Tuners, and Schecter Guitars. Buckwheat is now the proud owner of a new bass guitar courtesy of Schecter Guitars, and we expect to have some photos of him playing it posted to the website in the near future.

Another big development since our last post is Jim joining the staff of Bluegrass Today as a staff correspondent, writing about news and events in the world of bluegrass, as well as reviewing new recordings, concerts, and other items of interest. Bluegrass is the pre-eminent online source for bluegrass news and Jim is thankful to have this opportunity. Buckwheat is also a frequent guest contributor for the site.

Jim was awarded a $1000 scholarship to attend Pete (Dr. Banjo) Wernick’s advanced banjo camp in Boulder Colorado in January. Accompanied by Valerie, they had a great time and made many new friends. An extra bonus, Jim wrote two new songs on the plane ride west, which they expect to debut on stage in the near future. Thankful for a mild winter, we’re looking forward to hitting the road and hope to see you soon.

A lot has happened in the past couple months (I know I need to start posting more often): We added a son-in-law to our family at a beautiful wedding, and had a great time at the reception playing music with our group, supplemented with Steve Thomas on fiddle, Rick Loyd on drums, and Ray Barr on electric guitar. As you might gather, we mixed in a little country with our bluegrass for those that wanted to dance. We’ve played great shows at the Pinch Reunion, the Johnny Staats bluegrass festival in Parkersburg, the Sorghum Festival in South Point, OH, and our annual central WV weekend tour from the Braxton County Jamboree, Jerry Run theater in Webster Co., and Tamarack at Beckley. Highlight weekends included our trip to Roanoke to play at Fiddlefest, followed the next day by a trip to the Buffalo Bluegrass Festival in Beverly, OH, and of course our first Gabefest, where we hosted Lost & Found, the Darrell Webb Band, Monroeville, and a lot of other great groups.

Sadly, our Gabefest was the farewell performance of our bass player, Joe Vance, Jr., with the group. As our schedule, and the traveling, has increased, Joe has concluded that between maintaining his full-time supervisory position with Bayer chemical plant and commitments to his church (where he is an assistant pastor) and family (he has a child still in school), he can not continue as a member of our group. We have enjoyed and appreciated Joe’s contributions to the group and are proud of his contributions to the growth of our music, including his involvement in our last recording, and wish him all the best in the future.

While we are sorry to see Joe depart, we are excited about the future with our newest member, John “Buckwheat” Green. Buckwheat is a great singer, songwriter and musician, whose impressive resume includes having been a member of the Lonesome River Band with Dan Tymnski, Tim Austin, and Dale Perry. Many of his songs have been recorded, including The Old Man In The Shanty, recorded by the Lonesome River Band and more recently by the Chapmans, and two others recorded by the Lonesome River Band — It Won’t Be Like Cheatin’ and If I Could Only Have Your Love. We would probably not be looking to record a new CD quite this soon, but with Buckwheat’s vocals and songwriting contributions, a new recording will probably be in the works sooner rather than later.

We had a big trip to Nashville for IBMA with a lot of exciting news to report but I’ll close for now and give out all the scoop in our next post. Come out and see us at the Bob Evans Farm Festival if you can. More LATER.

Sorry I’ve been so long in updating, but the spring and early summer has flown! We’ve had great shows at the Orange Blossom Trail Music Hall in Lost Creek, WV, the Vandalia Gathering and Festivall in Charleston, and the Lincoln County Bluegrass & Gospel Festival at the Mud River Dam in Lincoln County, as well as a July 4th weekend show with Lou Reid at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds. Most recently we performed for a great audience at the Putnam County Fair, where a Channel 13 news crew filmed some footage of the band to use in a story that’s going to air on the 6 O’clock news on July 25. If you’re home (or have a dvr/Tivo) catch that. However, the biggest event in our lives at the moment is the impending wedding of our daughter Amy Elizabeth to Chad Taylor (yes, she’ll Amy ELIZABETH TAYLOR) on August 6. Between wedding plans, buying a mobile home for them to live in while they finish college (they’re both seniors), painting it, moving furniture in, learning some love songs for the reception (we’re playing, accompanied by our band and a couple friends on drums and electric guitar to add some variety and dance music), our lives are pretty hectic. Sandwiched in the middle of this (before the wedding) we have trips to Roanoke for Fiddlefest, where we’ll be performing with Paul Williams, Sierra Hull, and a lot of other great groups, and a festival in Ohio. Immediately after the wedding we have shows at the Pinch Reunion and Johnny Staats’ bluegrass festival in Parkersburg, before hosting our first-ever “Gabefest”.

On the subject of Gabefest, Valerie and I have assembled a lineup of outstanding professional groups (Lost & Found, Darrell Webb Band, Monroeville) and the best regional groups, and are taking a big financial risk in trying to promote this music. Please help us by attending and telling your friends. Advance tickets are only $25.00 for the whole weekend (less than most festivals charge for a single day) and camping is free. Tickets can be purchased online at our “Store” or can be purchased in the Charleston-Huntington area at Pied Piper Music, Fret ‘n Fiddle, Route 60 Music, and Musician’s Paradise. If you can’t come, buy a ticket and give to a musician friend as a gift. All of the regional groups are playing multiple days and will be staying overnight, so there should be lots of jamming after the stage show ends.

We had a great trip to Nashville for SPBGMA (Society for the Preservation of BlueGrass Music in America)’s convention. We met a lot of folks at our Exhibition Booth and hosted a great jam session each night in our Suite (our daughter Amy, who flew in for the weekend from WVU, counted 23 folks at one time in our room) when the crowd thinned down and we got to talk with some of the folks who crowded in, it turned out that we were playing for promoters from Canada, New York, and North Carolina, in addition to several radio DJs. We are seeing the results of our effort and the airplay we’re getting for our new CD and we already have bookings in WV, KY, OH, VA, and NC with possible trips to FLA, MO, and ALA in discussions. Two big events for us are the 13th Annual Lincoln County Bluegrass & Gospel Festival, held at the Mud River Dam (hence the shortened “Dam Festival”) and the innaugural GABEFEST 2011.

The Dam Festival is sponsored by the Lincoln County Commission and is free to the public. This year’s lineup is complete and features Blue Highway, Grasstowne, Don Rigsby, Jim & Valerie Gabehart, Johnny Staats and others. Saturday is all bluegrass and Sunday features all gospel, including the Tribute Quartet from Nashville, as well as the best local and regional gospel groups (click on the image of the flyer for more info).

Remember when you used to be able to go and enjoy an entire weekend bluegrass festival for a twenty dollar bill (about 25 years ago)? Well you can again at the innaugural GABEFEST 2011. Our goal with this event is to include local talent playing multiple days camping and jamming, and make it affordable for everyone. It will be held September 9-11, 2011 at the Lincoln County Memorial Fairgrounds, near Hamlin, West Virginia on WV State Route 3. Camping (no hookups) is free and ADVANCE tickets (until July 1) are only $20.00. Tickets will be available online and at several retail outlets, as well as by mail. The lineup features Lost & Found, The Darrell Webb Band, Monroeville, The Travelers (Norman Wright & Kevin Church), and others including your hosts, Jim & Valerie Gabehart. Stay tuned for more details.

Thanks to our new CD “It’s My Turn”, exhibiting and showcasing at IBMA, requests for our CD from radio stations all over the world, and the ability to introduce ourselves through the internet (as Pappy O’Daniels said in Oh Brother, “We’re mass communicating”), we’re making contacts and new friends at an unbelievable pace. Our bookings are ahead of last year at this time, and we have upcoming trips to Nashville, Florida, Ohio, and others in the works. It’s unbelievable how Facebook has become a part of everyday life, and a necessity for a group like ours trying to get noticed. Six months ago I had no idea about it and now hundreds of people “Like” our music, a number which we are trying to increase (if you’re on Facebook, go to our group page (www.facebook.com/JimandValerieGabehart) and suggest us to your friends.

Hopefully, if you’re reading this post, you’ve entered the website through our splash page and taken advantage of the free song download. If you haven’t gotten a copy of our new CD, go to the Store and make your online purchase and we’ll get it right out to you. If you have a copy, recommend it to your friends. We also have T-shirts available featuring a great design, which we should have available online in the Store in the near future.

If you’re a Bluegrass Unlimited subscriber, hopefully you noticed our advertisement in the January issue, opposite the Festival Guide. We had to take out a second mortgage (just kidding, only slightly), but with more than 20,000 subscribers, our full-page color ad should get some attention. For you non-subscribers, check out this lay-out by Price Portraits (great work as always).

Look for an announcement soon with the final lineup for this year’s Lincoln County Bluegrass & Gospel Festival (June 4-5), but I can confirm this year’s event (which is FREE) will include Blue Highway & Grasstowne. More to come in the near future.

WOW! So much has happened in the past month, where to begin. Thanks to everyone who came out to our CD Release parties, we had a great time. After playing the CD release parties Friday and Saturday nights, and a church appointment with Steadfast Sunday night, in a mad dash to get on the road to Nashville for IBMA Monday morning, I neglected to latch the trailer and somewhere between home and fifteen miles down the road (when Valerie noticed the door wasn’t latched), we lost an early 70′s model Martin D-35 guitar that we’d owned since 1980 (when I bought it and gave it to Valerie while we were engaged). Short story happy ending-our homeowners insurance covered the loss and we found a better guitar (although not OUR guitar). Lessons learned-take care, but don’t get attached to material possessions.

We had a great time at IBMA-met tons of people, jammed, performed for industry folks in a showcase, gave away over 100 copies of It’s My Turn to promoters, radio broadcasters; spoke with J.D.Crowe, Carl Jackson, Jimmy Gaudreau, Adam Steffey, Alan Bibey, Tony Rice, and on and on — it was great. Also, I was hired as a correspondent at IBMA for the Bluegrass Blog and wrote a daily column detailing our experiences. All of this activity is fun, but it’s designed to get us a little attention in the bluegrass world so when we call places trying to get booked, they might be familiar at least with our name if not our music.

We’ve added some dates to our calendar, so check out the schedule and come see us sometime. If you haven’t gotten your copy of It’s My Turn, it’s available on Amazon, Napster, and of course here on in our Store.