The Archives

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine December 1990, Volume 25, Number 6  Six years after the passing of their father, the Reno Brothers continue a tradition in creating music that has been as much a part of their family as the family tree itself. But an account of the Reno Brothers must reach back to the…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 1996, Volume 30, Number 10 It was a cold and snowy December evening in 1980, when I happened upon, what was then, Partners 2 Restaurant in Centreville, Va. Just recently having relocated from upstate New York to Manassas, Va. I was checking out the local forms of entertainment. The…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine July 1997, Volume 32, Number 1 Those devoted to the bluegrass music’s first generation could compile a list of great sidemen whose names and stories are unfamiliar even as their work lives on in reissued recordings and in the playing of younger musicians who learned from them. Former Clinch Mountain…

By Mike Greenstein Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine July 1977, Volume 12, Number 1 Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys live in Boston, far removed geographically from the nation’s major bluegrass belt. In style and philosophy, however, this quartet with heavy Yankee accents still speaks the language of the bluegrass mainstream. Unlike many…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1974, Volume 8, Number 7 The mailbox in front of the neat Fairfax, Va., home bears the name “Arnold Walter Ryan.” But in Jackson, Miss., Bean Blossom, Ind., and Nashville, Tenn., they know the man as “Buck Ryan — World Champion Fiddler.” “There’s only one thing as entertaining as…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 2001, Volume 35, Number 10 Alison Brown is a recent Grammy award winning banjo player whose work has ranged to include jazz fusion, worldbeat, and cutting edge acoustic folk. On her latest album “Fair Weather” (Compass 742822), Brown wanted to bring it all back home to the roots of…