The 2009 Folk Alliance Conference starts tomorrow at 11 a.m.  If you’ve never attended the conference, which will be held at the Downtown Marriott Hotel, it’s well worth the $250 per day (or $750 for all 5 days) admission — hundreds of musicians, including John Sebastian, Rodney Crowell, Kathy Mattea, Charlie Louvin, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Albert Lee, Lucy Wainwright Roche, and Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, are scheduled to play. 

Go here to read CA writer Bob Mehr’s interview with performer/keynote speaker Roger McGuinn — pictured above with his 1960s-era group the Byrds. And go here to read my interview with 17-year old Pennsylvanian Brittany Ann Tranbaugh, who will be traveling more than 1,000 miles to appear at the event.  

While this is an international conference, with musicians from all over the world networking and performing, there’s plenty of Memphis in the mix, including: 

1. Screenings of the Memphis jug band documentary Chasin’ Gus’ Ghost, slated for tomorrow at 3 p.m. and Thursday at 2 p.m. 

2. An open mic set hosted by the Memphis Songwriters Association.

3. The Kids Show, on Thursday at 11:30 a.m., with Memphis host Darin Hillis and a performance from Valerie June and Jason Freeman.

4. An interview with legendary musician — and former Memphian — Charlie Louvin on Thursday afternoon.   

5. An interview with onetime Elvis sideman, guitarist James Burton, on Friday afternoon. 

Also: panel discussions with the likes of new Memphis Music Commission head Johnnie Walker; Memphis International record label owners David Less and Bob Merlis; producers Jim Dickinson,  Jeff Powell, and Scott Bomar; Oxford attorney Tom Freeland,  and performances from Valencia Robinson, Nancy Apple, Valerie June, Jimmy Davis, Blair Combest, Jed Zimmerman, Deering and Down, Holly Cole, Caleb Sweazy, William Lee Ellis, Cory Branan, Susan Marshall, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Dan Montgomery, Andy Cohen, and more. 

In conjunction with the conference, The Folk Alliance will also present a number of concerts and events that will be open to the public at various venues around town.

The Center for Southern Folklore will host a free performance by Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart with special guests Act of Congress and Deering & Down on Feb. 20. On Feb. 21, the Center will welcome The Ebony Hillbillies along with Valerie June and Andy Cohen. Both shows start at 8 p.m. 

The Hi-Tone Café offers a pair of shows starting with a Feb. 20 bill featuring the Duhks, Hoots and Hellmouth and 2 Mule Plow. The following evening, Small Faces legend Ian McLagan brings his Bump Band in for a concert. The bill will also include a performance by Jack Oblivian & the Tearjerkers. 

On Feb. 21 at 3 p.m., Ardent Studios will host a creativity workshop featuring banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck and drummer Amir “?uestlove” Thompson of hip-hop band The Roots. The event is free. For more information, call 725-0855.

Last week, several of Memphis’ finest garage rockers loaded up their van and headed for points west — Portland, Oregon, to be exact, where they performed at the Slabtown Bender.

According to this article, published in the Portland Mercury daily newspaper, the festival marked the 3rd anniversary of Slabtown, a local bar, and featured more than 36 bands, including a reunion from NW rockers Mudhoney.

Portland musician Matto Howe told Mecury reporter Ned Lannamann that the festival was modeled on Memphis’ own Gonerfest. Said Howe: “I went two years ago and had a fantastic time, and saw a lot of great bands, so at the pre-planning meetings for last year’s Bender, we kind of used the Gonerfest template as far as program design, general structure, and such.”

Lannamann described Bobo as “a man shrouded in mystery, often quite literally.”

“His recent Christmas show in Memphis is already the stuff of legend, complete with costumes, props, outrageous sets, and a script that was apparently dictated to Bobo by Martians. Bobo’s plainspoken songs are entirely more down to earth, and his everyman croon is equal parts Ray Davies, Beck, and Leonard Cohen.”

I just got an email from the folks behind the SXSW 2009 Music and Media Conference (which is slated for Austin, Texas on March 18-22), announcing the first round of scheduled performers. On the list: Memphis’ own Al Kapone, the Bar-Kays, Free Sol, and 8Ball & MJG, pictured above.

Mark your calendars for April 29th and 30th, when the Ponderosa Stomp hits New Orleans’ House of Blues.

The roster of performers for next year represent a wide swath of Memphis music: Sun rockabilly stars Carl Mann, Alton Lott, Jack Earls, and Johnny Powers; Elvis sideman James Burton; American Studio songwriters Dan Penn and Bobby Emmons; the Hi Rhythm Section; and the Bo-Keys are all slated to perform.

Also: Wanda Jackson, Roddy Jackson, Dale Hawkins, Howard Tate, Otis Clay, The Remains, Question Mark And The Mysterians, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Bobby Patterson, Wiley And The Checkmates, Lil Buck Senegal And The Top Cats Featuring Stanley “Buckwheat Zydeco” Dural, Dennis Coffey, Robert Parker, Jivin Gene, Ray Sharpe, Long John Hunter, Texas Johnny Brown, Little Joe Washington, James Blood Ulmer Trio, L.C. Ulmer, Little Willie Littlefield, Lil Greenwood, Jerry McCain, Kenny And The Kasuals, Classie Ballou, Deke Dickerson And The Eccofonics, Roy Loney And Cyril Jordan Of The Flamin Groovies Backed By The A-Bones, and, of course, the man behind the song “Ponderosa Stomp, Excello blues genius Lazy Lester.

Tickets go on sale next month. Go here for details.

Meanwhile, the line-up for JazzFest, which bookends the Stomp, has also been announced. Memphis-born Aretha Franklin and Booker T. Jones (performing with the Drive-By Truckers!) are slated to perform. Go here for the full list.

Spectacular news: The 21st annual International Folk Alliance Conference is already slated for the downtown Marriott February 18-22, and 2009 is gonna be a doozy! The organization has already tapped Byrds legend Roger McGuinn (front and center in the granny glasses, above) as the keynote speaker, and Charlie Louvin and John Sebastian are gonna be in town, too. Showcase artists scheduled to attend include NC bluegrass group Chatham County Line, Nashville-based cowpunk-turned-kid-friendly musician “Farmer” Jason Ringenberg, former Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan and the Bump Band, Susan Cowsill, and Lucy Wainwright Roche. Oh, and a New Jersey-based singer named Amy Speace who fronts a band called the Tearjerkers.

At the end of October, Clarksdale blues guitarist Super Chikan and Memphis harp master Billy Gibson braved 60 mph winds, temps in the minus degrees (Fahrenheit & Celsius) and very little daylight to perform at the 2008 Dark Season Blues festival, which marked the beginning of winter in Spitzbergen, Norway. Here, they’re pictured not far from the site where the Global Crop Diversity Trust administers the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, an Arctic safe capable of storing millions of crop seeds as a safeguard against natural and human disasters.

While in Norway, Super Chikan spent 2 and a half days recording 13 songs with the Norwegian band Spoonful Of Blues for an album due in spring 2009. Last week, Chikan got a chance to warm up at the South Florida International Blues Festival; on New Year’s Eve, he’ll be performing at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale.

While we’re talking about singer/songwriters (see Kate Campbell, below), I wanted to mention that earlier this month, Memphian Kim Richardson won the singer/songwriter contest at the Ozark Folk Festival in Eureka Springs, AR. She netted a cash prize and a performance slot at next year’s festival with a performance that included 2 songs which were co-written with William Lee Ellis and Mary Unobsky. Her next Memphis performance is slated for Otherlands on Saturday, Dec 6 at 8PM, when Richardson will headline the Ho-Ho-Ho Show with Susan Marshall and Reba Russell. Her second CD, True North, which features Ellis, Paul Taylor, Rick Steff, and Amy LaVere, is out now.

Tonight: Slave to Metal Music Festival at the New Daisy with Sacrum, Dark Embrace, Kreaper, Painbreak, Sekluded, Acts of the Undead, Coffins in Transit, Alive Out of Habit, Indigent, and Defiant. Also: Ben Nichols and the Revival Tour at the Hi-Tone; Ryan Peel at Otherlands; Toni Green (pictured) at Blues City Cafe.

Saturday: Carrie Rodriguez is at the Hi-Tone early, and Twin Pilot are playing late; Papa Top’s West Coast Turnaround at Murphy’s; the Bridges at Young Ave Deli; Mark Allen at Java Cabana; Blind Mississippi Morris and Brad Webb at the Center for Southern Folklore; Jack Oblivan and the Tennessee Tearjerkers and the fabulous Haunted Hearts at the Buccaneer Lounge; the Warble at Otherlands; and the O.V. Wright tribute with Otis Clay and the Hi Rhythm Section at Ground Zero.

Sunday: The Eagles at FedEx Forum; Chris Chew (early) at the Hi-Tone, and Giant Bear and Dan Montgomery late.

Musicians — be sure to go down to the Music Resource Center next Wednesday between 8AM and 9PM to get half-price band registration for the 2009 International Folk Alliance Conference, slated for the downtown Marriot Feb. 18-22.

or, if you wanna relive the festivities: Go here for plenty of links to music from the likes of the King Louie One Man Band, the Touch Me Nots, the Perfect Fits, Eric and the Happy Thoughts, Sector Zero, the Barbaras and more, recorded live at Gonerfest V by Kyle Johnson and Robin Pack of Rocket Science Audio.