Roy Acuff's Band Member Charlie Collins Passes Away

A county music instrumentalist icon has passed away. Legendary fiddler, guitarist and mandolinist Charlie Collins passed away on Thursday night.

According to family and friends, 78-year-old Collins suffered a stroke on Sunday and passed away late Thursday night. While many may not instantly recognize his name, Collins was a Nashville fixture for decades. He played guitar in Roy Acuff's band, The Smoky Mountain Boys, for more than 25 years. After leaving the Boys he joined with band-mate Bashful Brother Oswald and played around Nashville. The two became some of the most popular performers at The Grand Ole Opry.

After Brother Oswald's death in October 2002, Collins continued to perform as part of the Grand Ole Opry Square Dance Band. In fact Charlie Collins graced the Opry stage every weekend including the last Saturday before his death.

TNS Video History- Jack Ingram and Miranda Lambert- "Desperation"

New Music Video From Eli Young Band- "Even If It Breaks Your Heart"

New Music Video From Pam Tillis & Kris Thomas- "Two Kings"

Country music superstar Pam Tillis and rising R&B sensation Kris Thomas have come together to record a tribute to “Two Kings,” civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the King of Rock n Roll Elvis Presley. The tribute song seamlessly blends the sounds of soul, country, pop and gospel. Appropriately releasing between the 77^th birthday of the late Elvis Presley (this past Sunday, January 8) and Martin Luther King Day (Monday, January 16), you can watch “Two Kings” below.

New Music Video From Craig Morgan- "This Ole Boy"

New Music Video From Marc Broussard- "Only Everything"

Hear It Here- New Music From Rascal Flatts- "Banjo"

Rascal Flatts will release their new CD in April, and they’ve chosen the song “Banjo” as the lead single off of the new project.

Jay explains the song is, “a sentiment about getting away from it all, getting away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and sort of breaking out and finding a spot way out in the country and drivin’ and drivin’ and drivin’ until you go so far you start to hear a banjo.”

Joe Don feels like the song taps into a bit of a different sound for the band but he loves it and he thinks the fans will too because “it’s got that raw countriness to it that’s just so fun.”

Shooter Jennings Releases New Single- Announces New Album Release For March

The only son of country legends Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, Shooter Jennings literally spent his childhood on a tour bus. Born Waylon Albright Jennings, Shooter was playing drums by the time he was five years old and had already begun taking piano lessons, only to break them off and follow his own path to an understanding of the instrument. He discovered guitar at 14 and rock & roll- particularly Southern rock- and the gap between that and country has been closing in on each other ever since. 

Jennings has just released a brand new single to radio and i-Tunes called the "The Deed and The Dollar."His new album Family Man will be released March 13, 2012 on eOne Records.

Johnny Bravo's i-Tunes review of the single says: 

"Shooter takes his music back to the basics so to say with this new tune. While I enjoyed his last album it was quite different from the Shooter music we've all come to know and love. This harkens back to the type of country song you would find on the first two albums and in a lot of ways goes back to a sound more like his dads good ole music but with a definite sound of his own at the same time."

An Interview With Bluegrass Artist Donna Ulisse At Engine 145

Country music fans remember Donna Ulisse from her time on Atlantic Records when she released a critically acclaimed traditional country album Trouble at the Door with 3 singles and two videos and appeared on “Hee Haw, “NBC’s Hot Country Nights”, “Nashville Now” and “Crook and Chase”. Bluegrass fans have been getting to know Donna over the past few years through her own brand of bluegrass; mostly self-written. Her 2007 CD When I Look Back featured the song ”I’m Calling Heaven Down” which won the Top Bluegrass Song in the 2009 Just Plain Folks Awards. The title track from her 2009 release Walk This Mountain Down was in the Bluegrass Unlimited charts for six months and in June 2009 she was the #1 artist on Sirius XM Satellite radio’s Bluegrass Junction and her song “I Lied” was #1 five different times during the same year. As a writer she has recently had songs recorded by Claire Lynch, Darin & Brooke Aldridge and also co-wrote the title cut to Louise Mosrie’s “Home” which was the #1 Folk album in the nation in January 2010. Ulisse released her third bluegrass CD Holy Waters in April of 2010. Some people would call it a bluegrass gospel album, others label it as more spiritual. She refers to it as her own “soul journey”.

2011 proved to be the busiest year every for Ulisse as she and her band The Poor Mountain Boys took their music to an international audience for the first time with a tour of Russia at the invitation of the U.S. Embassy to play four bluegrass festivals. She also released her fourth bluegrass CD, "An Easy Climb" in June 2011 which has spent the second half of the year climbing all of the bluegrass music charts.

I had an opportunity to interview the delightful Ms. Ulisse for Engine 145 and talk about her journey in bluegrass for Engine 145.  Check out a snippet below and and then read the entire interview HERE.

We did four different venues. The first show we did, there was a horrible tragic boating or fishing accident the same day where a whole bunch of people died. In Russia, they would normally cancel the performance and everyone in the country would mourn. But because they brought us all the way over there, they let us perform our show. When I did the song “Who Will Sing For Me?,” I dedicated it to those that had lost their lives. And that was a real standout moment. They were just precious. They were so moved that we would recognize their disaster. They talked about it afterwards for a long time. But all of them had standout moments. And because they don’t have anything else to give you, they’re taking their jewelry off and giving it to you as a thank-you for moving them so much. They’re giving me jewelry and I’m turning around and giving away all my jewelry. (Laughter)

TNS Video History- Holly Williams- "Three Days In Bed"