With its box office set to open a week later than usual on December 10, Planet Bluegrass dribbled out a few interesting names for its 2009 lineups over Thanksgiving. The headline is an anniversary for Jerry Douglas—his 25th Telluride Bluegrass Festival—and right in time for a strong season by his new band with Luke Bula and Guthrie Trapp. Also named for the 36th TBF: Emmylou Harris, Railroad Earth and The Steeldrivers.

RockyGrass will once more have Del McCoury on the Lyons stage. Two hot traditional bluegrass bands will appear: Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass and Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper. In August, the 19th Folks Festival will feature Brett Dennen and Dougie MacLean.

More lineup announcements for all three festivals will be released before December 10.

Online lotteries for in-demand tickets for Planet Bluegrass 2009 events will open next month, the promoter announced in an email letter. With the online system, patrons can submit requests for the right to purchase passes during a specified period, and then be notified later if they won the lottery.

The system is designed to prevent a mad telephone rush for popular tickets, and assure that everyone gets a fair chance to score the passes. Dates for the lotteries are as follows:

• Town Park camping for Telluride Bluegrass: November 10-18

• RockyGrass Academy: November 10-18.

• Onsite camping for RockyGrass: November 24-December 7.

All other festival tickets go on sale Wednesday, December 10.

Pete Wernick, a fixture in the Colorado bluegrass community, has challenged Craig Ferguson of Planet Bluegrass to substitute the word "newgrass" for "bluegrass" in the name of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, which held its 33rd annual event last month.

In a interview with Steve Sikes-Nova on Live365.com Internet radio, Wernick said his proposal would serve two purposes: to correct for the common misperception that the music played at TBF is all bluegrass, and to give recognition to the unique role the festival played in the development of newgrass and jamgrass musical styles.

"Telluride has been a catalyst for the development of newgrass, an outpost for the creative forces that made it happen. Telluride didn't redefine bluegrass, but really created newgrass," said Wernick, the former member of the progressive bluegrass band Hot Rize and past president of the International Bluegrass Music Assoc. who is also well-known as Dr. Banjo.

"Every year that goes by, people are getting miseducated on what the word 'bluegrass' means. And that actually hurts--you have people who are confused, some who get mad. Words mean certain things, and if you change too many of them, you should rename it rather than change the meaning of the word," he said.

Wernick, whose new band is called Flexigrass, added that it is common usage for attendees and townies to refer to the festival by the shorthand name "Bluegrass," further corrupting the definition of the musical genre.

Wernick said that he has made his suggestion directly to Ferguson. "He thinks I am teasing him, but I am actually dead serious. Changing the name would properly honor Sam Bush and the New Grass Revival, who played the festival every year of their existence," he said.

Wernick's comments came in the course of a 90-minute interview on Sikes-Nova's program, which streamed Friday night on the Newgrass, Prog and More channel on Live365.com. In an email, Sikes-Nova said the program will be repeated at other future dates. Check the schedule for details.

In the interview, Wernick also discusses his new band Flexigrass and his jam-camp and banjo camp educatonal programs.

Festival Preview has asked Planet Bluegrass for a response to Wernick's challenge. I'll post it later if a reply is forthcoming.

With the help of a Prine-head, who corrected some of my entries.

Spanish Pipedream
Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore
Six O'Clock News
Storm Windows
Souvenires
Grandpa Was a Carpenter
Fish and Whistle
The Glory of True Love
I'm Takin' a Walk
Angel From Montgomery
Long Monday
Sam Stone
Bear Creek Blues
She Is My Everything
Some People Ain't Human
Lake Marie

Commentary later. Barenaked Ladies are on now. I may not be posting again until I'm home Tuesday.

BNL is talking about playing acoustic, not Pete Seeger with an axe, but Bob Seeger backstage trying to plug us back in. Packed up to enjoy the last half of BNL, and signing off from Telluride.

I'm in the press tent waiting for an interview with Peter Rowan, but Del McCoury is ripping it up on stage. He's already done some favorites: Body and Soul, Nashville Cats. He opened with the Shawn Camp song, Traveling Teardrop Blues.

Each band member gets one solo turn (Ronnie wished Del a happy fathers day). Right now it is new bassist Alan Bartram on his solo vocal.

Backing up, highlights from Rowan and Rice:

The Vassar Clements song with great jamming and audience participation on the chorus. I saw this song performed for the first time six weeks ago at the Old Settlers Festivfal, where Rowan wrote it as a contribution to the Vassar Clements tribute. It was the perfect fit here, invoking another great hero from Telluride's history while giving the band a round of solo shots.

Great jamming throughout but especially on a Tony Rice medley.

Okay, I'm back having missed most of the Del set. I got a Peter Rowan interview and then needed to eat something. I've been hearing about the dumplings all weekend, and now I can vouch for Sisters Dumplings' combo platter, my pick for the best original food at the fest. Munching on those crispy Thai wontons while listening to Del doing 1952 Black Vincent Lightning will a personal memorable moment. The song, by Richard Thompson, is a favorite here as at most other places I've seen Del do it.

Linda Tillery's Cultural Heritage Choir, from my hometown of Oakland CA, is onstage now in a jazzy gospel set, appropriate for Sunday morning. Following on Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings amazing set last night, there's a nice blues-R&B mini trend in the Telluride program, and it seems to work well with this open-minded audience. The little-known Dap Kings certainly opened some eyes last night.

I caught most of the Mike Marshall-Edgar Meyer set earlier today. A virtuoistic tour through jazz, classical, choro, fiddle tunes filtered through "the harmonic specturm between the bass and mandolin," as Marshall described it. The titles for the original compositions seemed to follow a theme: Green Slime, Flight of the Fly, and something about frogs. There was a great jazzy piece with crowd participation yelling out the title, "Bananas."

Like many of the artists here, Marshall paid tribute to the festival and his long association. "We love playing here. There isn't a hipper music audience in the world," he said.

Tillery is introducing a Alfred Brumley song. Mike Marshall is on stage. She says nice to have some hometown support--Marshall is also from Oakland. Then they fly into "I'll Fly Away."

It's late in the set, Sam hard into The River Take Me, and I'm in the pit and can see the screen for a change, but my fingers are freezing. Brain dump on earlier moments: Julie Miller song, his New Orleans-inspired I Want to Do Right, then the Randy Newman Have Pity on the Workingman, a fun instrumental Bananas,

The band includes Scott Vestal banjo and Byron House bass. The guitar player is new this year and this is his first Telluride. I didn't catch drummer's name, but Sam made a big deal about him.

He just explained his medical emergency on Thursday. Chest pains. Was rushed to Mercy Hospital. "There's nothing like riding in an ambulance listening to KOTO and hearing Bonnie Raitt calling you to the stage," he said. Everlything checked out fine. Thanks to the emergency crew and to the hospital nurses and docs. Two of the nurses are here tonight.

Back in the Good Old Days, second John Hartford song, remembers all the greats who aren't with us anymore. Long list with Charles Sawtelle and most recently Vassar Clements. A lot of good people done passed and gone. Fiddle solo is spacey, to show jam banders he knows how? There was a jammy number early in the set too.

Now a jazz fusion thing with Sam bowing very fast. He tahnks his road manager and sound man, and special thanks to Planet Bluegrass. Huge applause. No other festival like it, he says.

Dog drinking water in 7/4 time. Ozzie the dog. Pastor Mustard leads a parade of people around stage, while band rips into high-energy rock 'n roll. All the stops are out on his electric mando.

Chris Brown and drums of renown, steven mogen on guitars. waiting now for encore.

Peter Rowan comes out, Drew Emmitt, Yonder Mountain, pretty crowded on stage. Lots of friends but not lot of time. Just do one tune. Pedro. we met in 64 at the ryman, he was playing with mr. bill monroe. waht its all about--we're going to jam

roll in my sweet babys arms. lay around the shack. drew first, peter sings another verse, Jeff is next. adam from yonder, then vestal, electric guitar from emmitt band, house on bass, then three way mando madness with sam, drew and jeff, great encore.

Green Sky Bluegrass

Shawn Camp

Sarah Jarosz with Tim O'Brien

Jeff Austin and Ben Kaufmann of Yonder Mountain

Missy Higgins

The wave of talent from down under continues with singer-songwriter Missy Higgins, who is finishing a strong set on the main stage. One pleasant surprise was to see The Waifs' guitarist Josh Cunningham supporting Higgins' strong voice and keyboards. A quick check online confirms that Cunningham has been playing with Higgins all the past year, while Vicki and Donna Simpson both had maternity leaves.

By the way, the Waifs will be back from hiatus with a quick North American tour in August, including Planet Bluegrass' Folks Festival in Lyons.