Articles

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1978,  Volume 12, Number 7 The hills of North Carolina have been alive with the sound of music for hundreds of years. Some of the greatest musicians have their roots in these hills, with two of those being banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitarist Doc Watson. Ironically, I recently…

Reprinted From Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine November 1970, Volume 5, Number 5 It became very obvious after spending hours talking with Doc and compiling page upon page of notes, that the hardest part of this article would be to construct a satisfactory introduction; an introduction which would serve as a solid foundation upon which to build…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine September 1982, Volume 17, Number 3 The Washington D.C. area is full of veteran bluegrass musicians who learned to play in the ’50s, when both they and the music were young. Over the years, most of them migrated to the nation’s “bluegrass capital” from Appalachia. Guitarist and singer Leon Morris,…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine December 1972, Volume 7, Number 5 The Dopera Brothers’ resophonic guitar probably has reached its greatest success in the capable hands of Josh Graves, who brought the acoustic slide guitar to Carnegie Hall for the first time when the Flatt and Scruggs organization played there in the early 1960s and…

The bluegrass arena has no shortage of brilliant fiddlers and Michael Cleveland is front and center among them.  This fiddling phenomenon has won no fewer than 12 IBMA “Fiddle Player of the Year” Awards as well as six annual IBMA “Instrumental Performer of the Year” Awards.   Along the way, he’s also picked up a…

West Virginia native Greg Blake has the kind of earnest and persuasive voice that you could listen to all day. It’s a voice capable of conveying nuanced layers of intimacy and empathy.   When you listen to Blake, you might feel as if he’s sitting in your living room relating some of these intensely emotional…