The Artists

“You can’t talk about women in country music, vocal styles, rhythm guitar styles . . . without also talking about Wilma Lee Cooper.” – Alice Gerrard in SING OUT! Aug 24, 1977 For more than 30 years, Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper were among our nation’s premier country and bluegrass acts. Wilma Lee and Stoney…

Grammy Winner Stretches Multiple Genres Photo by Kaitlyn Raitz For most musicians, it’s pretty easy to classify what genre they fit into—essential, really, to success—but good luck locking Sarah Jarosz into any kind of category. The singer-songwriter isn’t exactly anything, but is a little bit of a lot of things and maybe that’s the secret formula…

Photo by Robert Nix After becoming an empty nester, Steve Wilson left upstate New York for the beautiful foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in South Carolina. He expected to keep his fishing line wet in Lake Hartwell a good deal of the time and pick banjo with the local bands on the weekend. Instead,…

Photos By Beth Flick When pickers meet at festivals, good things often happen. After jamming together at Michigan’s Charlotte Bluegrass Festival, Eric Langejans and Todd Kirchner formed the contemporary bluegrass outfit Full Cord in 2008. “We wanted to have fun playing something unique and interesting,” says Kirchner. “Eric came up with the name when he…

Photo By Stephen Schauer John Reischman lives up in the woods. No, John’s home isn’t a log cabin high in British Columbia’s densely wooded Coast Range. The woods that nurture him and sing new melodies in his inner ear are the stately firs, hemlocks and huge lodgepole pines lining the regal British Columbian hiking trails…

Photos By Caty Smith If you’ve spent time around bluegrass festival jam sessions you may recall hearing someone in the jam who is as good as anyone that you’ve ever heard play and wonder, “Wow, who is this?”  There are many such local and regional bluegrass pickers and singers who are extremely talented but have…