The Archives

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine December 2015, Volume 50, Number 6 IBMA Hall Of Famer Jesse McReynolds certainly has nothing to prove after devoting 68 years to bluegrass music. He easily could have decided to retire from the business and rested on his accomplishments as one half of the famous bluegrass duo Jim & Jesse….

Re-printed from Bluegrass Unlimited MagazineAugust 1975, Volume 10, Number 2 The festival crowd, hot and sweaty, musters up some more energy and gives the departing group a good hand like the MC implores them to do. And as the audience consults their programs, a wave of excitement spreads through the crowd. The MC is building…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited MagazineMarch, 1969, Volume 3, Number 9 I was a witness to the Osborne Brothers recent debut in my area with all electric instruments. Sonny had a super secret pickup inside his banjo that no one was allowed to see. To make certain of this, he actually had his resonator attached with…

Re-printed from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine June, 1983,   Volume 17, Number 12 Back in 1971, Bluegrass Unlimited conducted a poll asking readers to list their favorites among pickers of standard bluegrass instruments plus lead, and tenor vocalists. Significantly, when the results were announced that December, all but one who placed in the top ten in…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 2006.  Volume 40, Number 10 For several years, Tim Stafford (songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist for Blue Highway) has been working on the authorized biography of flatpicking guitar pioneer Tony Rice, collecting interviews with dozens of Tony’s peers and friends in the bluegrass community. In 2003, journalist Caroline Wright asked…

October 2002, Volume 37, Number 4 A lot of people were heartbroken when Tony Rice stopped singing. But he was not one of them. “I don’t worry about it as much as people think,” he says offhandedly. “The guitar was always the main thing for me. I spent four years with David Grisman where I…