The Museum's 365/24/7 internet radio station, RBI (Radio Bluegrass International) provides listeners with a satisfying, educational bluegrass experience while functioning as a worldwide electronic extension of the museum.
The recently-launched station's program content will increasingly include live and pre-recorded performances, interviews, multi-lingual bluegrass programs from around the world, talk radio, new releases, unsigned band releases, “Roots & Branches” programs, record reviews, festival announcements, and bluegrass news. The station plans to soon feature an interactive, news-based website which will include vignette versions of the museum’s Video Oral History Project, film documentaries of first generation artists and industry leaders, listener forums, celebrity web-cam workshops, surveys, contests, classified ads, festival listings, and a links directory.
As visitors to this web station, you can now purchase merchandise and music from the museum’s expanded online gift shop and be directed via hyperlink to retail areas such as Amazon.com, where you can purchase some of the music you hear on RBI.
The station is located within the walls of the museum, streams from this website, and will soon be broadcast from exterior speakers outside the museum. Plans for RBI include a working studio exhibit called “Bluegrass Radio: Past, Present and Future” allowing you to observe programming as it is produced from vintage broadcast equipment. Among the sponsors of this exhibit is WSM AM-650.
RBI will be free until later in 2007, when a subscription fee of $4.00 per month will be required to listen to an uninterrupted stream. As a bluegrass museum member, you will receive a free one-year subscription as part of your annual membership.
Hundreds of songs have already been loaded into the play list, including tracks from bluegrass bands in the US, Japan, Canada, Ireland, Russia, The Netherlands, Italy, France and the Czech Republic. Guitar stylist Dan Crary is producing a series for RBI featuring his collection of vinyl. Archived episodes of “Banks of the Ohio,” hosted by Fred Bartenstein and currently heard on www.bluegrasscountry.org, will be featured on RBI, along with archived shows from Canadian DJ George McKnight (Uptown Bluegrass) and others. RBI station ID’s have already been recorded in Chinese, Gaelic, Nigerian, Ebu, Spanish and Czech.
Be sure to visit RBI while you are on this site, and check back regularly for new additions and more bluegrass music!
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