The Sound

Louisa Branscomb Marks 36 Years of Songwriting retreats March 2025 marked the 36th consecutive year of songwriting workshops, usually twice a year, hosted by veteran songwriter Louisa Branscomb. Louisa founded Woodsong Farm Songwriting Retreats in 1989, at her farm in Georgia, and continued to hold 2 to 4 retreats a year for the next 30…

Photos by Chelsea LaFond It’s an excellent time for bluegrass LP seekers and collectors. And the folks at Heady Wax Fiends, with help from Real Gone Music, have certainly sweetened the pot by bringing classic bluegrass LPs back on premium vinyl.       Their rerelease of Manzanita by the Tony Rice Unit sparked our initial…

Sound Guy And So Much More Elijah Doty is a 23-year-old Illinois boy who is “living the dream” according to his Facebook intro. He loves God, country and bluegrass music, horses, and emergency management. In the bluegrass community, he is primarily known as a sound technician and multi-instrumentalist. However, Doty also serves his community as a…

In many places in the U.S., at most small universities, depending on the location, a full-fledged bluegrass program can be hard to sustain. But, that is exactly what has happened at Colorado College, located near Colorado Springs, Colorado.  A private university founded in 1874; Colorado College was created when the so-called “Wild West” period was…

Steve Cooley is a veteran of the Louisville, Kentucky, bluegrass scene that has played with many of the greats of the genre over his extended music career. He was lucky enough to be around back in the days when Sam Bush was on the Louisville scene when J.D. Crowe still played the hotel bars in…

New Single Resurrects a Lost Classic Bluegrass Song By Richard Hefner  The great 1970s Song “Million Lonely Days” by the Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys Becomes New Again The IBMA Award-winning duo of Kenny and Amanda Smith are no strangers to West Virginia. Amanda is a Mountain State native who was raised near Parkersburg. The husband…