The Archives

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August 2003, Volume 38, Number 2 Ronnie Bowman wants to make one thing perfectly clear. He is not bailing from bluegrass music. The former front man for the popular and influential 1990s Lonesome River Band has made several changes in his life since the turn of the millennium clock, but…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine March 1976, Volume The Great Midwestern Bluegrass Music Hall, 118 West Washington Street, in Louisville, Kentucky, is the new home base of the Bluegrass Alliance—when they are at home. The former warehouse is only a few blocks from where the famous sternwheeler “The Belle Of Louisville” docks on the Ohio…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine October 1973, Volume 8, Number 4 “Who is Norman Blake?” “One of the best pickers in the whole country. He’s got a lot of notes here and there, and puts them together in a very unpretentious way.” Such runs the opinion of those who know him. But a recent sampling…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1989, Volume 23, Number 7 Lyman Enloe, a small, slimly built man in his 82nd year, is a nationally respected old-time fiddler and that’s what he’d rather be doing, as a rule. I notice that writers seem to bring out the nervous energy in him, as he clears his…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1988, Volume 22, Number 7 The parking lot of a shopping center in Carney, Maryland, is neither the choice site to spend a damp Saturday afternoon nor the best place to interview an emerging force in bluegrass music. It doesn’t appear to be a great venue for the sparsely…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine May 1977, Volume 11, Number 11 Northern Bluegrass — A Tangle of Roots and Contradictions The whole idea of Northern bluegrass sounds like a contradiction in terms. Bluegrass is the essence of the rural music of the traditional South. It seems impossible that Northerners, especially those from city and college…