The Tradition
Notes & Queries – October 2023
Queries Q: I was reading John Hartley Fox’s article ‘Muleskinner & Clarence White’ in the June 2023 Bluegrass Unlimited and noticed what I think are (slight) errors. I grew up in LA and had been to the Ash Grove many times to see the likes of The Kentucky Colonels and Bill Monroe with Billy Keith…
The Johnson Mountain Boys
All who love to explore bluegrass music’s history in depth are aware (or arguably should be!) of the longstanding and ever-growing series of books devoted to “Music in American Life,” published by the University of Illinois Press since 1972. As a whole, the catalog of books explores all forms of American vernacular music, documenting not…
The Reno Family
40 Years Late…and Right On Time This is a noteworthy year in the history of bluegrass music because it is the year that we lost the last of our first-generation heroes. While a few of those bluegrass trailblazers, like the most recent to leave us—Bobby Osborne and Jesse McReynolds—lived past their 90th birthday, there were…
Your 2023 IBMA Hall of Fame Inductees
Wilma Lee Cooper, Sam Bush and David Grisman Interviews with Todd Phillips, Zeb Snyder and Old Newspaper Clippings Bring Their Stories to Life Sam Bush Just a couple of years ago, in 2020, Sam Bush was first inducted into the IBMA Hall of Fame as a member of the New Grass Revival. On September 28,…
“Bluegrass Spectaculars” at the Ice House
Bluegrass Hall of Fame member Carlton Haney has received (and deserved) much acclaim for his production of a bluegrass festival in 1965 at Cantrell’s Horse Farm in Fincastle, Virginia, universally hailed as the first multi-day bluegrass festival and the model for all that followed. The only problem with this much-repeated narrative is that “Bluegrass Spectaculars,”…
The Songwriting of Ola Belle Reed
“High on a mountain, wind blowing free Thinking about the days that used to be High on a mountain, standing all alone Wondering where the years of my life have flown” 1 These iconic lyrics by Ola Belle Reed are a right of passage for any bluegrass singer or band. “I’ve endured, I’ve endured, How…