The Tradition

Bluegrass has never been known as a producer’s music. The bands get famous; the producers of their albums don’t. Unlike their counterparts in such genres as rock, soul, hip-hop, or country, bluegrass record producers have mostly toiled in obscurity, their contributions known only to a few. Jim Dickson deserves better than that, deserves to be…

Featuring The Bluegrass Cardinals, Hot Rize and Arnold Shultz Whenever I have interviewed bluegrass musicians who were born and raised west of the  Mississippi River, not only do I tend to ask them about the bluegrass scene in their part of the world, I also ask them if they felt like they grew up far…

Q: I just found that Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs actually recorded “The Family Who Prays Never Shall Part.” I know this is an old Louvin Brothers song, but do you know by chance when Flatt and Scruggs recorded it? Wayne Hoffman, via email. A: The song was never commercially recorded by Flatt & Scruggs,…

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, my late 1950s interest in folk music and blues turned toward bluegrass around 1958-9. By 1960, I had been “bit by the bug,” as they say. In August of that year, the Redwood Canyon Ramblers, the local college band, gave a concert where I met their singer…

Q: I’ve been listening to recordings by Larry Sparks (Ramblin’ Guitar, Pine Tree 500) and Lee Allen (“Beer, Whiskey, and Women” and “The Old Home Place,” Jalyn 45-356), all of which feature the mandolin work of David Cox. Did he appear on any other recordings? What can you tell me about his life in music?…

The Widow of Earl’s Brother Horace, she was a Family Member for Many Decades Photos by Thomas Goldsmith Born April 15, 1925, Maida Greene arrived on this earth one year, three months, and nine days after her future brother-in-law Earl Eugene Scruggs, a notable champion of American music.  Maida knew the Scruggs family from elementary school…