Articles
IssueM Articles
The Bluegrass Jamboree
This month’s cover story artist, Lorraine Jordan, loves to shine the spotlight on other people in her life including the radio announcers who play her music. Two of those broadcast professionals are David Pugh and Doug Whitley from The Bluegrass Jamboree internet radio. David hosts Mountain Bluegrass Sundays 9:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m. ET, and Doug is…
I Never Knew
John Cadley is a talented singer-songwriter who presents this new project of his original tunes. Cadley, who sings all lead vocals, is joined by his wife Cathy Cadley on vocals, and by Clay Hess (guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, banjo, bass, vocals), Tim Crouch (fiddle), Roger Williams (resonator guitar), Dave Morrison (steel guitar), and Josh Shilling…
Highways and Heartaches—How Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart, and the Children of The New South Saved the Soul of Country Music
Hachette Books, 2023 Most avid bluegrass music fans are familiar with the similar trajectories of the careers of Ricky Skaggs and Marty Stuart. Both Skaggs and Stuart started performing at a young age with first generation bluegrass legends—Skaggs with Ralph Stanley, Stuart with Lester Flatt. They then both entered the journeyman phase of their careers…
Uncommon Sky
It would be hard to over-state what an impressive outing Rick Faris’s sophomore album is. Faris, IBMA’s 2022 “New Artist of the Year,” who spent 11 years as the guitarist/mandolin player/singer with the band Special Consensus, has all the right tools in his tool kit. The Wichita, Kansas-based artist, who grew up in a family…
Roger Sprung
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1969, Volume 3, Number7 Roger Sprung is 38 years old, tall dark and handsome. He is reminiscent of a Gregory Peck type in appearance. Shy soft spoken and friendly. When I met him in 1950, he had already learned all of the banjo styles that were popular. Frailing, Scruggs…
Good Ol’ Persons
Photos by Gene Tortora Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine October 1984, Volume 19, Number 4 “I’m sorry, but when it comes to singing bluegrass, most women just can’t cut it.” “Women bluegrass musicians are such wimpy players.” “If God had intended women to play bluegrass, He would have created “Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass…