The Tradition

Queries Q: The title track to the Gillis Brothers and their Hard-Driving Bluegrass Band’s second CD, “Ice Cold Stone” (Hay Holler HHH-CD-302, 1992), is somewhat of a mystery. Larry and John Gillis learned the song at a jam session and label owner Kerry Hay, who helped arrange it for the album, was unable to trace…

On Sept 9, 2022 the bluegrass and mandolin worlds lost a true icon. I would dare say most modern mandolin players have been influenced by Herschel even if it was unknowingly so. He made a name for himself in his early years with the The Boys From Shiloh and The Dixie Gentlemen, along with three…

Notes More Mockingbird Walt Crider, the historian for the Seven Mountains Bluegrass Association, wrote: “As a follow up to the ‘Listen to the Mockingbird’ song story (October “Notes & Queries”), I was visiting the Gettysburg National Civil War Museum when I heard ‘Listen to the Mockingbird’ coming from one of the displays. It was about…

A giant of music, in 1945 and for all time Earl Eugene Scruggs was born Jan. 6, 1924 in Flint Hill, North Carolina, in farm country in the Piedmont region. Early in his life there, he came up with a new, rolling, sometimes blazing-fast banjo style that has kept his name out front through the…

Queries Q: “In the early 1990s, I was a young man living in Richmond, Indiana, near the Ohio state line. Bluegrass music was nowhere on my radar until, by accident, I stumbled on the Oak Street Ramble broadcast on WMUB. The host, Jan McLaughlin, did an excellent job discussing the history and performers while introducing…

I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages Cold chills. That’s what I get when I hear the eerie voice of Ralph Stanley. You can say that I’ve been a true-blue Stanley Brothers nut since I first heard them in 1962. Just thumbing through my collection of LPs, I count 58 Stanley Brothers or Ralph Stanley…