The Tradition

Inventor—Entrepreneur—Musician—Songwriter—Community Servant—Mentor—Conservationist—Humanitarian Wayne Jerrolds grew up in a small farming community known as Burnt Church in the southern part of rural Hardin County, Tennessee (about 115 miles east of Memphis).  Savannah, Tennessee is the nearest town to this community.  When he was a young boy, Wayne and his brothers worked in the fields.  They cut…

Queries  Q: Do you know much (or anything) about the Armstrong Twins?  I recently heard a track on a radio program from an old LP. I know that Floyd died in 1994; I have made many attempts to discover when Lloyd died. I met Lloyd at IBMA Louisville in 1997 and we had a long…

Old Dominion Barn Dance  Multi-instrumentalist Matt Levine recently shared this photo of the Old Dominion Barn Dance that he won on eBay. He noted, “I actually got it pretty cheap. I usually don’t get photos on eBay, but I couldn’t pass that up.” From the looks of the various people in the shot, program attendees…

One day in 1953, Earl Scruggs answered a knock at the door of his suburban Nashville house. Standing there was a sixteen-year-old kid with a banjo and a grin as wide as the Mississippi River. It was Doug Dillard, and he wanted to know if Scruggs would sell him a set of “Scruggs tuners,” a…

Fifty Years Ago a Landmark Band was Formed and a Guitar Legend Passed Muleskinner The story of the legendary, extremely-short-lived band Muleskinner began fifty years ago when fiddler Richard Greene received a phone call from the public television station in Los Angeles. The station asked Greene to put together an all-star band of younger bluegrass musicians…

San Francisco’s Bluegrass Home In 1969, a man bought a bar in San Francisco. The man was Paul Lampert and the bar was a run-down joint called the Paragon, located at 3251 Scott Street in San Francisco’s Marina District. After a remodeling job, the bar reopened, reborn as Paul’s Saloon, with seating for slightly more…