The Tradition

April 5, 1959 It was on this date that the duo of Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs recorded one of the most iconic songs of their careers, “The Cabin on the Hill.” The 45-rpm single release has the distinction of being their longest-running chart success, remaining on Billboard magazine’s “Hot C & W Sides” for…

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1972 Will The Circle Be Unbroken Album In 1972, when I was a brand new teenager, my younger brother and I would do the goofy thing of getting my Mom vinyl music albums for Christmas that we really wanted ourselves. Why in the world would our Mom want an Eric Clapton…

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,…