Articles

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August 1995, Volume 30, Number 2 There were a couple of directions we could have gone with this album,” says singer/songwriter Kathy Kallick of her current release, “Matters Of The Heart,” on Sugar Hill Records. “We could have done cover tunes, or we could have done a mixture [of covers…

The Widow of Earl’s Brother Horace, she was a Family Member for Many Decades Photos by Thomas Goldsmith Born April 15, 1925, Maida Greene arrived on this earth one year, three months, and nine days after her future brother-in-law Earl Eugene Scruggs, a notable champion of American music.  Maida knew the Scruggs family from elementary school…

A Look Back at Early Urban Bluegrass (Or, The Short But Lively Career of the Lonesome River Boys)  The Lonesome River Boys (not to be confused with the more modern Lonesome River Band) was a bluegrass group from the Northern Virginia/Washington DC area that was popular in the early and middle 1960s. Although largely unknown…

The story of the rise of The SteelDrivers is an impressive one. What famously started as a one-off bluegrass jam in a living room in Nashville turned into 20 years of great music and accolades at the highest levels of the music world. I distinctly remember the first time I heard about The SteelDrivers 18…

The Turnpike Troubadours are possibly the most famous band that many people have never heard of. That’s a shame.\ They’re not exactly bluegrass, although they’ve covered John Hartford. They’re not exactly country, but they’ve covered Alabama. They’re not really folk, but they have covered John Prine. And while all those covers are strong fresh takes,…

Graham Sharp is no stranger to bluegrass fans. For nearly a quarter century, he shared vocal duties with co-founder Woody Platt in one of the most successful groups of this century, the Steep Canyon Rangers. When Platt announced his departure, the band regrouped, added another distinctive voice in Aaron Burdett, and kept going. Sharp’s distinctive…