Articles

Photos by Ricky Davis Smack dab between Murphy and Manteo, where Carolina clay colors the soil and the landscape can’t quite make up its mind whether to be rolling or flat, is an idyllic patch of ground where the world passes by in Jim Reevesque fashion. When the stream of traditional bands start arriving leading…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine September 1982, Volume 17, Number 3 It is one of the great ironies of bluegrass music that one of its most consistently popular acts has also been consistently stepping outside the bluegrass mainstream. Throughout their career Jim and Jesse have stretched the definition of this music, have experimented with arrangements…