The Archives

Hazel Dickens—Only A Woman Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1982, Volume 16, Number 8 Author’s Note: I had been a fan of Hazel Dickens, her singing, her songs, and her seeming politics for a decade before I actually met her in late 1978 when she came to a concert by my band (true-to-form supporting…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine July 1974, Volume 9, Number 1 In some far-flung corners of the world a controversy rages over who was the world’s first chromatic banjo player, but in Nashville, Bobby Thompson—one of those in the dead center of the controversy—pays little heed to it. He’s too busy as Nashville’s top studio…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine May 1975, Volume 9, Number 11 When bluegrass music was in the developmental stage some thirty years ago only five instruments were associated with the music. Those were the ones that appeared in the famous Bill Monroe band of that period—guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle and bass. Somewhere along the line…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine November, 1988  Volume 23, Number 5 On February 15, 1987, Blaine Sprouse, who has been hailed as one of bluegrass music’s finest fiddlers, made his last stage appearance as a member of the Osborne Brothers band, an event that brought to a close one of the many phases of a…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine July 1993, Volume 28, Number 1 When Glen Duncan shares his views on the music industry, he speaks as a musician who has come full circle in the business that makes Nashville tick: music. As a child, he wanted nothing more than to become one of the “magic” musicians who…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February, 1974—Volume 8, Number 8 “Right now, where would you get bluegrass records? Would you buy them in a rock store, or would you buy them in a country music store?” asks Tony Rice of J.D. Crowe and the New South. “Both.” “Right!” he continues. “You just don’t find bluegrass…