Articles
IssueM Articles
The Tradition Carries On
Porter Church And Kevin Church Father And Son Porter Church left a grand legacy of musicianship and performance in the Washington, DC area. An extensive biography of him written by Fred Geiger appeared in the January, 1986 edition of Bluegrass Unlimited. Here are some of the highlights of his life and career and the story…
Billy Strings
Presides Over One of the Most Important Two-Week Spans in Bluegrass History The rise of Billy Strings has been an amazing thing to watch. While playing a combination of open-minded, progressive roots music next to straight-ahead bluegrass, he has garnered a following that boggles the mind. Several years ago, Strings began to sell out the…
Liam Purcell and Cane Mill Road
Photo by Craig Etchison For many musicians, releasing an album at twenty would be considered quite an achievement. At twenty, Liam Purcell of Cane Mill Road is preparing to release his fifth full-length album later this year. Now a senior at Berklee College of Music, where he studies music business and performance, Purcell continues a…
Banjo Whisperer
The phrase suggests a mystical or wizardly sort, surrounded by banjos and the tools used to bring them closer to the ideal. Marc Horowitz is THE Banjo Whisperer. While researching this story about Marc, everyone I approached (banjo players, designers, builders, and musical contemporaries) quickly responded with effusive praise. Marc’s daughter Leah Horowitz (an accomplished…
Christopher Henry Surprises His Mom, Murphy Henry, With Album of All-Stars Playing Her Songs
At a recent concert, after her sound check, bluegrass veteran Murphy Henry heard music over the house speakers that stopped her in her tracks. Bewildered, she was hearing one of her original songs being sung by the Queen of Bluegrass Rhonda Vincent. Running through her mental bluegrass database, there was no notion found anywhere in…
A Tribute To Flatt & Scruggs
Not much time passes before there’s a fresh musical salute to one or another of bluegrass’s founding figures. These tributes not only strengthen and reaffirm bluegrass’s crucial links to its past, they also seem to provide a subtle moral compass in terms of reinforcing the music’s integrity with each new generation of musicians. Along those…