Articles

For many of us with a fascination with both the tonalities and the designs of vintage instruments, a visit to a place like Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, with its collection of guitar rarities, is like to a visit to the Louvre in Paris or the Boston Institute of Fine Arts. In a virtual sense, this…

Asheville, North Carolina is located deep in the heart of bluegrass country.  There has been a long tradition of bluegrass music in that area and many of the heroes of bluegrass music have called, or still call, Asheville home.  However, the guy who is responsible for teaching bluegrass at the college level in Asheville started…

Over the past 15 years or so, the guitar industry has embraced a controversial, even divisive, new trend: relicing new guitars to make them sound, appear and feel like they’ve been played for decades. Some people love this, and companies like Pre War Guitar Co. have carved a strong niche in this area. Others, however,…

Dodi Kallick, Kathy’s mother, was a prominent folk singer in Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s. Playing guitar and dulcimer to accompany her singing, she was among the handful of performers and enthusiasts who established Chicago as a folk music mecca at the time. She was an early instructor at the Old Town School of…

Photo by Irene Young Maybe there really was something in the water in San Francisco back in the day. “The City,” as it’s called throughout northern California, is different from other American cities in countless ways: historically, culturally, politically, demographically and on and on. The poet Dylan Thomas once wrote, “You wouldn’t think that such…

Photo by Melanie Lunden Montz is a fascinating character. He lives off the grid, four miles up a mostly gravel road on Cradoc Hill, which is approximately 30 miles southwest of Hobart, Tasmania. His one-room house with a loft is solar powered, and he uses a rocket stove for heat when needed. Montz is a…