The Artists

“I had no natural inclination towards music, beyond being drawn to the instrument through this one song that brought me in,”  explains banjo picker Mike Munford, the 2013 IBMA “Banjo Player of the Year,” about his discovery of the instrument that would change his life.  That one song was the Flatt & Scruggs’ classic, “Foggy…

Proud to Continue the Two-Century Tradition of Black Banjo Players When Bill Monroe was a young man, he befriended, played with and even did gigs with the Black guitarist Arnold Shultz. Shultz’s influence on Monroe is clear and obvious, and yet there is sadly no recording of the legendary guitarist. IBMA Hall of Famer Doc…

String Driven Adventures Those well-known words written by poet Robert Frost from “The Road Not Taken” could have been written with the group Hawktail in mind.  Listening to their music you quickly realize without question they chose the road less traveled.  Hawktail is a musical quartet that has been called a supergroup, and after you…

Stillhouse Junkies recently returned from a European tour—just a couple of years later than they had planned. Back in early March of 2020, they played a big release party for Calamity, the album they recorded in Austin in November 2019. They planned to leave for England in March 2020, with tickets bought, shows booked, and…

A Conversation with Darol Anger & Mike Fiorito After seeing him perform at the 2022 Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, I had the good fortune to chat with contemporary string music innovator and fiddler extraordinaire, Darol Anger, in July 2022. Anger has played with Republic of Strings, the Turtle Island String Quartet, the David Grisman Quintet, Montreux,…

Life at 70 Means Honoring a Mentor and Friend From the Past Photo by Shelly Swanger When you reach your 70th birthday, as Sam Bush did in April of 2022, many of your best memories happened ‘half a century ago.’ About 50 years ago, Sam Bush was experiencing those heady times of the early 1970s, with…