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.

Here’s what I love about Inside Sounds‘ new release, The Instrumental Memphis Music Sampler Vol. 2: It’s one of those all-encompassing CDs that sounds perfect in heavy rotation, with sounds that run the gamut of a full century, from the W.C. Handy Preservation Band’s rendition of “The Memphis Blues,” circa 1909, to Shelby Bryant’s space age “Plunk.” That’s him, pictured above.

Nope, Jake Rabinbach is not in jail.

He’s performing for free at Shangri-la Records tonight, beginning at 6 p.m.

Then at 10 p.m., AllMemphisMusic.com will air Rabinbach’s new album, Brooklyn Hustle/Memphis Muscle, which was released on Ardent at the end of 2008, along with interview segments with Jake and drummer Greg Faison.

You can listen again tomorrow at 10 a.m.

Tonight: Down in Clarksdale, Miss., the Oxford American magazine celebrates the release of its 10th annual music issue by hosting one heckuva throwdown with Dale “Suzie Q” Hawkins, R.L. Boyce, and Wiley and the Checkmates. It’s all happening at the original Ground Zero Blues Club in downtown Clarksdale. Admission is $15, and showtime is 7 p.m. Go here for more info.

Closer to home: First, kick off the week with a free show from Jump Back Jake at Shangri-la Records. The Ardent recording artist will begin performing at 6 p.m. Later: The New Mary Jane and Vending Machine at the Buccaneer Lounge; Westbound at the Hi-Tone Cafe; Soul Enforcers at the Full Moon Club; One Hour Thursday, Facecast, Chocking On Clarity, Third Gear Pinned, and Searching 4 A Signal at the New Daisy; Preston Shannon at Ground Zero; NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” host Neal Conan, hosting “A Universe of Dreams,” at GPAC; and DJ Steve Ann at Dish.

Saturday: Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, performed by Opera Memphis, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Orpheum Theatre. Also: Rap showcase at Club Unbreakables with 40Kel, JDogg & T-Won, and more; gospel artist Marvin Sapp at the Cannon Center; Sore Eyes head up a bevy of bands, including Goodbye Monroe and A Study in Scarlet for their CD release party at the New Daisy; Charlie Mars at the Hi-Tone.

Sunday: The Mersey-minded Jeffrey and the Pacemakers play a free show at the Buccaneer, beginning at 5 p.m. Later: New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus and Welsh indie rockers Los Campesinos! are at the Hi-Tone, and FreeWorld play Blues City Cafe.

Opera Memphis takes on Scott Joplin’s seldom-staged 1910 opera, Treemonisha — which is set in rural Arkansas — this weekend. Go here for Christopher Blank’s preview.

After tomorrow’s performance, the fabulous Carolina Chocolate Drops, a young black string band, will take the Orpheum stage. Go here for CA freelancer Mark Jordan’s interview with the group’s co-founder, Dom Flemons.

One foot in the future, one foot in the past — as Opera Memphis director Michael Ching noted to Blank, “Given that [Treemonisha is] about a neglected African- American composer, I think there’s no better time to do something nontraditional than inauguration week.”

We have a new president!

My favorite part of the inauguration? Hearing a girl born on Lucy Street, right here in Soulsville, U.S.A., sing “America the Beautiful.”

Runner-up: Listening to the performance by Yo-Yo Ma, a French-born, Chinese cellist who, when he performed in Memphis with IRIS, made sure to visit local juke joint Wild Bill’s!

CNN showed a lot of footage of Memphians watching inauguration coverage, too.

Songs from Train Train Train, the new CD from the Memphis Trio — which features pianist Tim Plunk, a 13-year veteran of Silky O’Sullivan’s on Beale Street, and local guitar great (and one-time member of the Gentrys) Stephen Fowler — will be featured on AllMemphisMusic.com tonight at 10 p.m. and tomorrow at 10 a.m. Be sure to tune in online!

Tonight: Kick off the weekend with a free performance from Good Luck Dark Star at Shangri-la Records at 6 p.m. Afterwards, have dinner with Bobby Rush at the Center for Southern Folklore. Later, head to the Hi-Tone Cafe for some fabulous local power pop, served up by the Everyday Parade and Van Duren. Also: Free Sol and Haymaker Project are at Quetzal, Will Graves is at Cafe Soul, and Shortwave Dahlia is at the Full Moon Club.

Saturday:Get up early and take the kids to the “Peanut Butter and Jam Session” at GPAC, with Wild Willy and the Memphis Jam Band. Shows are at 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. My pick of the night is a triple bill — J.D. Reager and the Cold-Blooded Three, plus Billy Worley and the Candy Company and Dragoon — at Nocturnal. There’s also Pavement Band and Tyler Keith at the Hi-Tone; the Elvis Birthday Pops Concert at the Cannon Center; the Grascals at the Lucy Opry at BPACC (go here for Mark Jordan’s profile in this week’s CA); Facedive, Painbreak, Dark Embrace, and more at the New Daisy; a Mozart concert at St. Benedict; a performance of the Eroica Ensemble at First Congregational Church in Midtown; Reba Russell at Neil’s; a MAMA concert with Dan Montgomery at Otherlands; and Duke Hex and the Firm Foundation Riddim Squad at the P+H Cafe.

Sunday:Chris Chew’s last free Sunday afternoon show starts at the Hi-Tone at 4 p.m., and later, blues guitarist Scott Holt plays at the East Memphis Huey’s.

Sometimes, I take living in the South for granted.

Then I wake up to the sound of Center for Southern Folklore director Judy Peiser talking about bluesman Bobby Rush on WKNO 91.1FM, which happened yesterday.

Or, like this morning, I’ll turn on the TV for a quick minute (one of the perks of working from home), and catch Mr. Rush himself on WREG’s Live at Nine.

With the indomitable Bobby Rush cracking jokes, singing about small-town scandals, and coming on strong to the ladies, I know I couldn’t be anywhere else on the planet.

All week long, Peiser and Rush have been busy promoting tonight’s fundraiser for the CFSF, which includes dinner, beer and wine, and a performance for $75.

I’ve seen Rush perform on a flatbed trailer at the Pops Staples Festival in tiny Drew, Mississippi, and I’ve seen him play for hundreds at chitlin’ circuit clubs like Larry’s down in Nesbit.

A few years ago, I watched him sweat in front of a full house at London’s Barbican Arts Centre, dispatching Lo, his dancer, and picking up a guitar to pick the chords for “Good Morning, Little School Girl.”

And in 2008, Rush took his act to Iraq, where he performed for appreciative G.I.s who were hungry for music from home.

Go to the concert tonight. It’s a rare chance to catch Mississippi’s most entertaining entertainer in an intimate room, and you’ll be supporting a great cause to boot. Call 525-FOLK or go here for more info.

If it weren’t so serious, this would be like the plot of Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe…

In late December, a few weeks after guitarist Corey Osborne was killed in a 1-car crash, DJ Squeeky was injured in a car wreck.

On New Year’s Day, singer Ruby Wilson suffered a mild stroke.

And on Tuesday, Elvis co-hort — and former “Talent Party” host — George Klein got banged up when his car hydroplaned on this way to Tunica.

Be careful out there, folks. The world can be a dangerous place.