Articles

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1969, Volume 3, Number 8 The fiddle has always had an important part in bluegrass music but no one has given this instrument a more prominent place in his band than Bill Monroe. This featuring of the fiddle goes right back to Bill’s first band. When the Monroe Brothers…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine March 1968, Volume 2, Number 9 April 1968, Volume 2, Number 10 May 1968, Volume 2, Number 11 R.K.S.: This is August 9, 1967 – This is Dick Spottswood, I’m sitting here in my Takoma Park apartment. With me is Andrew Townend from England, Gail Swinburne my neighbor from Takoma…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine September 1978, Volume 13, Number 3 “Precious memories, how they linger, How they ever flood my soul. In the stillness of the midnight, precious sacred scenes unfold.” J.B. Wright That song both opens and closes Marty Stuart’s “With A Little Help From My Friends” album. It is an appropriate number…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 1985, Volume 19, Number 10 In any conversation about the great musicians in the formative years of bluegrass music one name always comes up, Rudy Lyle. Rudy played the banjo on many of the classic Bill Monroe recordings including “Rawhide,” “On & On,” “Sugar Coated Love,” and probably his…

I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages Cold chills. That’s what I get when I hear the eerie voice of Ralph Stanley. You can say that I’ve been a true-blue Stanley Brothers nut since I first heard them in 1962. Just thumbing through my collection of LPs, I count 58 Stanley Brothers or Ralph Stanley…

Peter Rowan, Norman Blake and Paul “Moon” Mullins When the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) announces its list of new Hall of Fame inductees every year ahead of the annual Awards Show in Raleigh, North Carolina, the names always garner attention, discussion and respect. In the year of 2022, the Hall of Fame inductee class…