About the cd, from the NYT article:

"Now Mr. Martin is once again in the musician's role as he releases an album called "The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo." The record (which is being sold exclusively on Amazon.com, until April 26, when it also will be released elsewhere) is a token of his affection for bluegrass, with appearances by performers like Vince Gill and Dolly Parton. But it is also an opportunity to show off one of his less celebrated, least commercial skills, and to reimmerse himself in a musical genre he never fully gave up."

"But starting in 2001 he began a banjo resurgence. That year Earl Scruggs, the bluegrass pioneer, asked him to play on a recording of the song "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" for the album "Earl Scruggs and Friends." In 2007 he contributed an original composition, "The Crow," to the Tony Trischka album "Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular."

That track, on which Mr. Martin and Mr. Trischka performed together, became Mr. Martin's first hit single since 1978's "King Tut." "It made the bluegrass charts," Mr. Martin said. "I don't know how much that means. It might have sold two."

Newly invigorated, Mr. Martin recorded more of his original banjo songs on an iPod, and gave them to Mr. McEuen, who added fuller arrangements by computer. Using those tracks as their blueprints, the two produced much of the "Crow" album in a frenzied week at a studio in Englewood, N.J., with excursions to Nashville to record with Ms. Parton and Mr. Gill (who sing a duet called "Pretty Flowers"), and to Dublin to record with the folk singer Mary Black."

That "Mr. McEuen" is John McEuen, of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band fame, a childhood friend of Steve's.

~ Becky in Tucson