The Archives

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine June 1976, Volume 10, Number 12 One chilly afternoon last November I drove the sixty-or-so miles from my home in central Ohio to The Country Palace, a tavern on the southeast edge of Columbus, to talk with Ralph Stanley, who was booked there for the weekend. I had been asked…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine July, 1970.   Volume 5, Number 1 (This article was compiled from an interview with Charles Bailey in Wilmington, Delaware and a letter written by Danny Bailey, Knoxville, Tennessee.) If you should ever sit down and compose a list of musicians undeserving of neglect, Charles and Danny Bailey could not…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1967, Volume 1, Number 8 “You know, the best music that bluegrass musicians ever played or recorded seems to have been when they were starvin’ to death.” This comment was made to me by my good friend the late Don Owens of WAKL/WAVA, in Arlington, Virginia once while we…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine November 1986, Volume 21, Number 5 In bluegrass, those who have given their lives to the music often become casualties of the music, forgotten and buried when they fall from the top, while the crowds turn to some sharp, hot new group. Often the casualties of the music are those…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine September 1971, Volume 6, Number 3 This history of the musical careers of the Osborne Brothers is based primarily upon interviews with Bob Osborne (Bean Blossom, Indiana, September 26, 1965) and with Bob and Sonny Osborne and Benny Birchfield (Columbus, Ohio, March 18, 1967). Most of the discographical data was…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine   June, 1971 — Volume 5, Number 12 Red Smiley Red has been in semi-retirement for almost three years now and is working at a few of the major festivals and shows this past year. However, he is working now with Don Reno, his old partner and Bill Harrell, who has…