Articles

Begins in the Heart of Appalachia Wherever you put your chair at Blue Highway Fest, you can see the mountains surrounding the small town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, where their first-ever bluegrass festival took place in early October of 2022. The view is not only scenic, it reminds you at all times of the…

The Challenges of Running and Starting a Bluegrass Festival After over thirty years of attending bluegrass festivals, more than once we have heard the saying, “Friends don’t let friends start bluegrass festivals.” While it is meant playfully, we wondered if there is some truth in it and decided to look at the complexity of starting…

ToneSlabs is the biggest advance in flatpack technology since the launch of BlueChip picks 14 years ago. That’s a bold statement, to be sure, and we don’t make it lightly.      For months, Bluegrass Unlimited has been testing a variety of ToneSlabs picks in various shapes and thicknesses in the field at Winfield and…

This is Charlie Treat’s first foray into bluegrass, and with its austere, hard-charging guitar-banjo-bass-fiddle arrangements, it’s definitely very on-the-edge, and very compelling. As he explains in the accompanying press material, Treat has been steeped in traditional sounds since he was a kid growing up on a farm in New England, though along the way he’s…

Sessions, Volume 1 Formed over 16 years ago, this Chicago-based foursome have become true Bluegrass Ambassadors, having toured 25 countries, both on their own efforts and also as cultural representatives working with the US State Department. Tours include the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, and others, where the band offers concerts, workshops, and teachings…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine September 1984, Volume 19, Number 3 You’re as important in country music today as Roy Acuff was ten years ago.” Hank Williams was summing up his appreciation for Rose Maddox after a two hour conversation with her in a deserted Los Angeles night club. A few weeks later they were…