Kitty Wells Passes Away; New Videos from Ray Wylie Hubbard and Nick 13; Album Releases

• The legendary Kitty Wells passed away yesterday at the age of 92. These lengthy obituaries from the Washington Post, New York Times, Tennessean, MusicRow, NPR, and CMT.com are all worth reading.

• Bassist Bob Babbitt, who played on classics like Gladys Knight & The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” and appeared on albums by Frank Sinatra, Elton John, George Clinton, and Carlene Carter, to name just a few, also passed away on Monday.

• Don Williams was hospitalized last Thursday in Rhinelander, Wisconsin before a concert. He is back at home and recovering from what was diagnosed as a perforated ulcer. (via Sugar Hill Records’ Facebook page)

• In happier news, looks like those rumors floating around last year were true: Robert Plant and Patty Griffin eloped.

• CM Wilcox posted another edition of Quotable Country.

• Due out September 21: a new Merle Haggard Bear Family box set. The collection will include “111 tracks spanning from 1976 to 1981, covering eight LPs plus the ‘lost’ album later sold to CBS. Four unissued songs, including the recently discovered original recording of ‘Troubadour.’ Three songs never on album, including ‘The Bull and the Beaver,’ his #8 country duet with Leona Williams.”

• Out September 24: Mumford and Sons’ Babel.

• Preview Dierks Bentley’s version of Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes” (to air on an upcoming episode of Weeds) here.

• On August 25, The Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library will present the one-day symposium The Banjo: Southern Roots, American Branches. The event will have a number of lectures and panels before ending with a concert featuring performances from Tony Trischka, Riley Baugus, and Dom Flemons.

• This photo gallery on CNN.com features vintage shots of Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Jones, Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Paycheck, Merle Haggard, and more.

• Wade Hayes talks with Country Weekly about his battle with colon cancer.

• PopMatters’ Jedd Boudoin on the Carolina Chocolate Drops: Perhaps the formation and apparent rising popularity of Carolina Chocolate Drops will not just encourage a generation of African Americans to embrace the string band tradition but will encourage more explorations of regional American music and ethnic variations within those regions. Beyond that, perhaps it will also raise further questions about the lack of major African American artists in country music and why country it seems more apt to refer to contemporary country as the music of suburban––not rural––America. Music naturally evolves to match changing tastes and climates and there are ebbs and flows of interest in styles and genres brought on by a series of circumstances. The minstrel songs Carolina Chocolate Drops learned very early on no doubt fell from favor as questions and attitudes about race evolved; but hearing those songs reclaimed as they have been in the short years that Carolina Chocolate Drops have been recording is an important reminder of the unpredictability of the past.

• The Bluegrass Underground’s fall season includes performances by Ralph Stanley, Peter Rowan, and more.

• Folk-pop duo The Milk Carton Kids played an NPR Tiny Desk Concert.

• Sleepy Man Banjo Boys will release their next album, The Farthest Horizon, on September 25.

• Check out the new video for Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “South of the River.”

• Patty Griffin’s “Making Pies” is the American Songwriter Lyric of the Week.

• There is a free Trampled By Turtles EP available for download on NoiseTrade.

• Nick 13 has a new video for “Carry My Body Down.”

• Craig Morgan will appear on TNT show Rizzoli & Isles tonight. (via press release)

• This week’s album releases:

Teea Goans – That’s Just Me

Old Crow Medicine Show – Carry Me Back

Billy Joe Shaver – Live at Billy Bob’s Texas

Jimbo Mathus – Blue Light (EP)

David Nail – 1979 (EP)

The Karl Shiflett & Big Country Show – Take Me Back

Dave Harding – You Came Through

Jon Dee Graham – Garage Sale

Balsam Range – Papertown

The Farm Inc. – The Farm Inc.

Various Artists – Even More Songs of Route 66: From Here to There