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Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine September 1975, Volume 10, Number 3 The mandolin became a part of bluegrass at basically the same moment as Bill Monroe which is to say, in the beginning. Other bands which took on elements of bluegrass also began to include innovative mandolin pickers. Among them was a young North Carolinian…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April, 1988, Volume 22, Number 10 1988 marks an important milestone in the career of Larry Sparks. This year, Larry celebrates his 25th anniversary as a professional musician. For someone who is barely 40 years old (he just turned so on September 25), this seems to be an impressive accomplishment….

When the album kicks off with a tune entitled “Case of the Mundes,” you know the music is headed into an exploration and celebration of modern banjo sounds and when the other pickers include Sierra Hull, Bryan Sutton, Mike Bub, Justin Moses, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, you know the music is going to fly.  Just when…

Twenty years after the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival won the award for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) Event of the Year in 2006, the festival is returning to the Boston area in 2026 after having been on hiatus since the COVID pandemic. This year, the Boston Bluegrass Union’s (BBU) flagship event is not only…

In the Mail: Bill Monroe Photo Revisited The 1944 photo of Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, George D. Hay, and Uncle Dave Macon (as featured in the November 2025 “Notes & Queries”) elicited several responses. Eddie Page from Florida State University wrote that he had “just received my current issue of Bluegrass Unlimited…

Finds Success and Fills a Niche By all measures, the Blue Ox Music Festival is a young musical gathering. Now going into its 12th year, the festival will return once again on June 25-27, at the Pines Music Park in beautiful Eau Claire, Wisconsin, located between Chippewa Falls and Osseo. The gathering is more proof…