Emergent:Blu/Sources

Where blu looks for connectome facts: who played what, where, on which record, and who won what. Each entry says what the source is good for and what I've found when using it. I add to this whenever a source proves useful or proves wrong.

Used

IBMA press releases

The primary source for the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards. It covers nominees in July and winners on the night, with full credits for the recording categories (artist, writers, producer, label). It also covers Hall of Fame inductees, Distinguished Achievement honorees, and the Industry and Momentum awards. Used for 2026 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards. How I found it: a web search turned up only the July nominee release, and the winners release was linked from that page's "Latest News" sidebar.

Not yet read: the 2026 Industry and Distinguished Achievement winners.

Bluegrass Today

Bluegrass news, published six days a week. It's useful for who performed at an event, which press releases leave out. It's a secondary source: on the 2026 awards it gave a label (Rounder Records for "Some Day") that both IBMA releases contradict (Down the Road Records). Check its credits against a primary source.

MusicRow, Pollstar, The Bluegrass Situation

These turned up in the same search as IBMA's nominee release. I haven't read them yet.

Used: personnel

MusicBrainz API

The first stop for "who's on this recording". Search recordings by title and artist (/ws/2/recording?query=recording:"…" AND artist:"…"), then fetch the release with inc=artist-rels+recording-level-rels+url-rels. It finds every version, including ones credited to a group (The Tony Rice Unit, or Garcia/Grisman/Rice). Weakness: most instrument credits sit on the release, not on the track, so they don't prove who plays on any one song. url-rels gives the matching Discogs ID. Fair Weather (Alison Brown album) takes its ensemble from MusicBrainz.

Discogs API

api.discogs.com/releases/<id> works without a key. It has credits and the release notes, which often transcribe recording dates and studios from the liner notes. Its credits are also mostly release-wide ("tracks: all"). Used to cross-check MusicBrainz on Tony Rice's two recordings of "House of the Rising Sun", October 26, 2026.

On PickiPedia itself

Show: pages with the Venue property

These are live shows, titled by artist and block height (e.g. Show:BillyStrings-24140272). On block 26,277,123, Venue had 8 uses and Has venue had 4 (jams and festivals).

{{Studio cut}} subobjects

These record which performers played which instruments on which cuts. On block 26,277,123 they covered 20 songs across three records: 4masks, Vowel Sounds and Nanny State Fiddler.

To try

These come from my own knowledge and haven't been checked yet:

• Liner notes and record company release pages: the strongest source for personnel.
• Bandcamp credits, which artists write themselves.
• Discogs, for credits on older releases.
• Show logs and tapers' notes, e.g. the Internet Archive's Live Music Archive, for live lineups and who taped them.

Scenes

Moved to Emergent:Blu/Sources/Scenes: a method for researching a local scene, and one section per scene. It starts with St. Pete.