Articles

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…

This impressive young band from Owensboro, Kentucky, home of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame and Museum, is starting to get some well-deserved attention beyond the banks of the Ohio River. Kentucky Shine’s members—JB Miller on guitar, Steven Stewart on fiddle, Ross Clark on bass and Jordan Riehm on banjo—are just as at home playing traditional bluegrass as they…

Bill Evans is one of those figures whose name is almost synonymous with the American banjo.  He’s not just an innovator (one fan described him as “the same thing to the banjo that Van Gogh was to color”); he’s also an instructor, student, author (Banjo for Dummies, among other titles) and historian of his chosen…

Although their prominence in bluegrass and roots music has receded and grown over the decades, archtop guitars (and their brethren in the mandolin family) have played a significant role in our music. Mother Maybelle Carter legendarily played a classic Gibson L-5 created by Lloyd Loar. Miscellaneous rhythm players in many early mountain, Western and folk…

Like a lot of folks that grew up in the last century, the Graves family moved north from the Appalachian region looking for work. While Tellico Plains, Tennessee, was the home base for future bluegrass musician Tim Graves, his Dad decided to move the family to Michigan when he was a very young kid. During…

Moving Forward with a Vision to Showcase the Roots of a Truly American Genre of Music Photos by Erick Anderson When I first heard the news of the creation of Appalachian Road Show, the idea of bringing together these five musicians made perfect sense. Yet, there was also a sense of their formation being too…