Articles

Robbie Fulks is a bluegrass guy who started his career in bluegrass, but then waited until his 16th project to do a full-blown bluegrass album. Listeners of his Bluegrass Vacation will likely say it was worth the wait after one spin through the player. Fulks has spent decades in the music business, best known as…

West Virginia-born Greg Blake, a remarkable singer, accomplished flat picker and long-time member of the band, Special Consensus, has been playing music nearly his entire life. But for three decades his singing and picking played second fiddle while he served as a pastor at various churches in the Midwest and West. Now that he’s retired…

Fifty Years Ago a Landmark Band was Formed and a Guitar Legend Passed Muleskinner The story of the legendary, extremely-short-lived band Muleskinner began fifty years ago when fiddler Richard Greene received a phone call from the public television station in Los Angeles. The station asked Greene to put together an all-star band of younger bluegrass musicians…

Leftover Salmon’s genius is how they take the old and reimagine it into something new.  Over their thirty-year career they have toyed with the fabric of bluegrass and roots music, stretching and pulling it into something uniquely their own, yet something that still maintains the integrity of where it was born.  Their latest album, the…

Thrift is an old-time fiddle player from North Carolina who first picked up the instrument while on a trip to British Columbia in 1974. Completely self-taught, Thrift honed his skills by listening to lots of the music and even spent time with the Greengrass Cloggers to learn more of the old-time culture.  Returning to North…

San Francisco’s Bluegrass Home In 1969, a man bought a bar in San Francisco. The man was Paul Lampert and the bar was a run-down joint called the Paragon, located at 3251 Scott Street in San Francisco’s Marina District. After a remodeling job, the bar reopened, reborn as Paul’s Saloon, with seating for slightly more…