The Tradition

Q: Today on Bluegrass Jamboree, I heard the Stanley Brothers’ OLD version “put your head on my shoulder.” It sounded like Ralph was doing some “Stringbean 2-finger” picking, and it was “crude” in a way, but still great. Was this 1946 or ‘47? Nothing much on the “net” on this. I still get goose bumps…

A Treasure of Southern West Virginia I live three doors down from Duffy, and on quiet mornings when I walk the dog past his house, I often hear him playing the sweetest banjo music. It drifts through the porch boards and out into the street, unhurried and warm, the kind of sound that makes you slow your…

Q: I love seeing the old black & white archival photos of bluegrass from the days of old. In the early 1980s, while living in Los Angeles, I met and befriended Marshall Freedland, and we shared our love of bluegrass music and artists. He told me he had a wealth of photos that he took,…

The name T Bone Burnett may not be familiar to the general public, nor even to a sizable number of music fans, but he has had a remarkably influential presence in the country, blues, bluegrass, and rock music worlds for almost six decades. Born in 1948 in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in Fort Worth,…

Twenty-five years passed between the first time I saw Bill Monroe play and the day I covered his funeral. In the interim, I had many chances to hear him perform, to meet and interview him, and to study his music. After I became a journalist, I also wrote many articles about Monroe, as well as…

In the Mail: Bill Monroe Photo Revisited The 1944 photo of Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, George D. Hay, and Uncle Dave Macon (as featured in the November 2025 “Notes & Queries”) elicited several responses. Eddie Page from Florida State University wrote that he had “just received my current issue of Bluegrass Unlimited…