We are honored to be playing the renowned Music City Roots show on Feb 1 with many of our good friends: Lonesome River Band, Darrell Scott, Darin & Brooke Aldridge and Chris Jones & The Night Drivers. This weekly show is produced at the Loveless Cafe Barn; first band plays at 7:00pm. Hope to see our friends and fans at this very cool event!
www.musiccityroots.com

The Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA) sponsors numerous festivals and concerts around the country (especially in the midwestern states) throughout the year. The flagship event is an annual indoor festival and awards show at the Sheraton Inn in Nashville the first weekend of February. This year David and Greg are honored to be nominated for Bass Player of the Year and Banjo Player of the Year, respectively. Dustin has been nominated for Guitar Player of the Year in past years and Rick won the midwestern SPBGMA award for Guitar Player of the Year in 2005 and 2008.

The Roots Music Report charts are compiled from radio airplay data based on number of spins for all recordings. The Top 100 Bluegrass Albums of 2011 listed "35" at #9 and "Signs" at #86. We are so pleased to be in the airplay ranks of Alison Kraus, Rhonda Vincent, the Boxcars, Joe Diffe, Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers and other fantastic bands.
Yesssss....

Greg has been hired as an adjunct professor of banjo by Columbia College in Chicago, a highly regarded arts learning institution. The college has decided to expand the string program to include banjo and may soon also include mandolin. The music department leaders are excited about adding the banjo and Greg hopes to gradually include additional bluegrass music programming in the curriculum. Go figure - 5-string banjo classes taught at an arts college on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago! 

Greg will receive the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Distinguished Achievement Award during the annual IBMA World of Bluegrass business conference on September 29. See complete details and list of all award nominees at www.ibma.org.

Nashville, Tenn….IBMA is proud to announce the nominees for the 22nd annual International Bluegrass Music Awards, scheduled for Thursday, September 29, 2011 at Nashville, Tennessee’s historic Ryman Auditorium.  Also announced at the press conference were this year’s inductees to the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame - bluegrass ambassador and leader of one of the most awarded bands in the history of IBMA, Del McCoury and pioneering bass player and guitar stylist George Shuffler – and the five recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Award: Greg Cahill, Bill Knowlton, Lilly Pavlak, Geoff Stelling and Roland White.

We had a wonderful tour throughout Europe in May. The Buhl festival was a huge event - we enjoyed playing with all the fine bands from over there in addition to our friends Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver and Valeris Smith and Liberty Pike. Our German friends Guntmar and Anja arranged for two shows, made us excellent dinners and shared their home with us. John and Rita brought the band back to Bavaria, where we stayed in their inn dating back to the 1400s (Mozart stayed in the room Dustin slept in). Our friend Dan Dorschel generously lodged and fed us in Denmark and Arne and Fleming arranged for several shows there (and helped us tremendously with planning travel). Michael and Niles were very good to us as well. Kjetil and Are were superb hosts for our shows in Norway. Didier shared local cuisine and the beautiful town of La Roche with us in France before and after our show and old friend Paolo made sure we were most comfortable at the Willisau, Switzerland festival - where we again played with many great European bands and Valerie Smith. We look forward to coming back to Europe in the next year or two to see all of the many friends we have made over the years.

The November 2010 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited features a cover story about Greg and The Special C in celebration of the 35 year anniversary of the formation of the band. We are honored and very excited to be the cover story! The band has previously appeared on the cover of BU in May 1993 and August 2005. Read the story here:
http://bluegrassmusic.com/content/2010/feature/greg-cahill-consensus-builder/

We have been notified that The Special C Signs recording is officially designated an "International Top 10" recording by The International Association of Independent Recording Artists: 
The International Association of Independent Recording Artists, IAIRA, recognizes and honors artistic achievement, technical proficiency, and overall excellence in sound recording by monitoring chart activity as published in various reporting charts from around the world. According to our research, on 08/13/2010 the above referenced release; Signs, by Special Consensus, had attained The Number 1 Position on at least one of the charts monitored and verified by IAIRA. On the basis of that research, IAIRA has qualified the aforementioned release as eligible for Certification as an International Number 1.
On behalf of the entire IAIRA staff and the Recording Arts Community at
large, please accept our most sincere Congratulations and Best Wishes for your continued success!  

The cover photo and cover story interview for the international banjo publication Banjo Newsletter features our own Greg Cahill for the August 2010 issue. Greg has been featured on the cover two other times - once in the 1980s and once in the 1990s - and we are very happy to see him have this honor again in the new millenium. He has also been a contributing interviewer for the publication for many years.