Articles

If you take an ailing bass fiddle into Bob Beerman’s shop for repairs, you feel as if you are entering an operating room. The instrument is gently laid upon a table in the back room then one employee examines the patient while another hovers with a clipboard jotting down its diagnosis. Beerman is the veteran…

Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers were clearly taking a shot that there’s still a place for a good old fashioned, traditional bluegrass album. They hit the bullseye. In a time when bluegrass is growing and experimenting and crossing over into other genres, this group of consummate professionals has stuck with what they know best…

Ben Eldridge was the banjo player for the iconic Washington, D.C. area band the Seldom Scene for 45 years.  During that period of time he proved himself to be one of the most innovative and unique banjo players in the history of bluegrass music.  The Seldom Scene drew from a very wide range of musical…

Photo by Aaron Clark Photography Some family musical partnerships are marked as much by personal conflict as by blood harmony. This is not the case with The Petersens, a family bluegrass band that has become a favorite in Branson, Missouri. With four siblings as the core of the band, anchored by their parents, both musicians,…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine March 1982, Volume 16, Number 9 They call him “The Old Man of the Mountains.” At the spry age of forty-two, that makes Raymond Fairchild a rather youthful “old man.” No matter. The mountains can age you before your time and Raymond has lived far enough back in the Smoky…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine June 1984, Volume 18, Number 12 Good as Gold and fine as diamonds, worth its weight in waiting for …” The sounds that ring through the capacity-filled hall are familiar to the cheering fans. The sounds have been produced, recorded, and enjoyed for over 26 years. There have been several…