The Artists

It has been a rough two-and-a-half years for Pam Rice. On Christmas Day of 2020, her long-time husband passed away at their house in Reidsville, North Carolina. For Pam, it meant witnessing the transition of her beloved spouse. For the rest of the world, however, that was the day that Tony Rice—simply one of the…

Vibrant Branches Sprout From Deep Roots Married partners Natalya Zoe Weinstein and John Cloyd Miller are living proof that music brings people from vastly different backgrounds and geographical regions together, and that the result can be an amazingly rich creative collaboration.  Natalya grew up in the college town of Amherst, Massachusetts, with a violinist mother and…

Photo by Craig Etchison For many musicians, releasing an album at twenty would be considered quite an achievement. At twenty, Liam Purcell of Cane Mill Road is preparing to release his fifth full-length album later this year. Now a senior at Berklee College of Music, where he studies music business and performance, Purcell continues a…

Bluegrass Unlimited first conducted a Reader’s Poll in 1967, the year after the magazine was established.  A second poll was conducted in 1971.  I asked Dick Spottswood, who was working for the magazine in those days, if he knew why the Reader’s Poll was not continued.  He replied, “In 1967 we were still trying to…

When it comes to bluegrass venues, Nashville has long been a barren desert. For years, the only full-time bluegrass venue was the revered Station Inn.  But in the past few years that has been slowly changing, due in part to a relatively new Nashville-based bluegrass band called, appropriately, East Nash Grass, as well as a…

Queen Bee of Iowa Bluegrass  Lori King, band leader of Lori King and Junction 63, has been a major force in bluegrass in Iowa for more than 20 years. She served as the executive director of the Bluegrass Music Association of Iowa for 11 years, she has produced a number of bluegrass festivals and regional package…