The Tradition

Detroit’s  Miracle Mandolinist The muzzle of the .38 Special revolver looked as big as the mouth of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. Six shots rang out and four bullets struck him right in the gut. Forty years later, Nolan Faulkner remembered that cold Michigan night – “Lucky for me, he was a bad shot!”  Faulkner’s near-death experience…

The Teenager Who Filled In for Earl Imagine that you are a high school kid who has learned how to play the banjo.  It is the mid-1950s and Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys are one of the hottest, tightest bluegrass bands in the country. You learned how to play the banjo because…

Notes In response to the July “Notes & Queries” piece on West Virginia fiddler Woody Simmons, we received the following note from UK-subscriber Frank Weston: “I have just received your July issue where Gary Reid replies to a question on Woody Simmons. He might like to know that just two weeks ago a short clip…

Notes “In response to Mary Gibson’s question about the Webster Brothers in the May issue of Bluegrass Unlimited, I was just listening to them the other day on an album called Classic Country Duets (Old Timey 126). It’s a nice album with 17 songs that had long been unavailable and includes ‘Road of Broken Hearts’…

All Photos Courtesy of Three On A String Those who are old enough, and lucky enough, to have walked on a weekend night down several deep steps into the Lowenbrau Haus in Birmingham, circa 1972, walked into an enchanted grotto full of music, laughter, thick ropes of smoke and a band called Three on a String….

Queries Q: Terry McManus from Maine asked: “With Tony Rice gone, what will become of #58957? Will it be retired, which would be sad, or will someone else pick it up? My (unasked for) opinion – Wyatt Rice, Josh Williams, or Mark O’Connor.” A: #58957 refers to the serial number of Tony Rice’s 1935 Martin…