Articles
IssueM Articles
Techpicks
In the increasingly crowded arena of custom and boutique flatpicks, we’ve seen an interesting trend develop. One on side, we find makers who’ve discovered that certain existing industrial materials developed for wildly different purposes than plucking the string of a guitar or mandolin can be fashioned into world-class plectra. The second track we see is…
What I Know Now
Steve Bruce is a local pastor in LaFollette, Tennessee, who is also a banjo player and songwriter. On this project of his original material, Bruce is accompanied by his son Andrew Bruce (guitar, bass, resonator guitar), and guests Ron Stewart (mandolin, fiddle), and Glen Duncan (fiddle). This is an all-instrumental project with Bruce’s excellent banjo…
Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History
Kristina Gaddy, a Baltimore-based writer and fiddler, has written exactly the book the banjo world needs right now. She explores questions that many among us, including myself, have been asking since the turbulent summer of 2020, including, “Why was it that an instrument constantly described as ‘Black’ and ‘African’ came to be thought of as…
Tennessee Moon
Mark Whitt makes no bones about his love for playing and promoting traditional bluegrass music. One need to look no further for the evidence of this Kentuckian’s desire to preserve the old time sound than his third album, Tennessee Moon. Whitt went into the vault to cover tunes from Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe and Carter…
Hazelnut
Charmaine Slaven and Charlie Beck met while exploring and promoting the old-time music and dance scene in the local Seattle, Washington Area. They continued in the manner for a few years and eventually resettled in the Brasstown, North Carolina area, and, along with daughter Hazel, they immersed themselves in the historic musical legacy of the…
Mike Munford and the Soulful Machine
“I had no natural inclination towards music, beyond being drawn to the instrument through this one song that brought me in,” explains banjo picker Mike Munford, the 2013 IBMA “Banjo Player of the Year,” about his discovery of the instrument that would change his life. That one song was the Flatt & Scruggs’ classic, “Foggy…