Articles

This is Charlie Treat’s first foray into bluegrass, and with its austere, hard-charging guitar-banjo-bass-fiddle arrangements, it’s definitely very on-the-edge, and very compelling. As he explains in the accompanying press material, Treat has been steeped in traditional sounds since he was a kid growing up on a farm in New England, though along the way he’s…

ToneSlabs is the biggest advance in flatpack technology since the launch of BlueChip picks 14 years ago. That’s a bold statement, to be sure, and we don’t make it lightly.      For months, Bluegrass Unlimited has been testing a variety of ToneSlabs picks in various shapes and thicknesses in the field at Winfield and…

The Challenges of Running and Starting a Bluegrass Festival After over thirty years of attending bluegrass festivals, more than once we have heard the saying, “Friends don’t let friends start bluegrass festivals.” While it is meant playfully, we wondered if there is some truth in it and decided to look at the complexity of starting…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine September 1984, Volume 19, Number 3 You’re as important in country music today as Roy Acuff was ten years ago.” Hank Williams was summing up his appreciation for Rose Maddox after a two hour conversation with her in a deserted Los Angeles night club. A few weeks later they were…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine June 2012, Volume 46, Number 12 We knew Earl Scruggs couldn’t live forever, even though we hoped he would. When the end inevitably came, we all felt a shift in our center of gravity, a hole in our hearts where Earl and his music have always dwelled. We remember where…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1971, Volume 5, Number 8 This week we provide two perspectives on the documentary film about Earl Scruggs, with his family and friends, that aired on PBS in 1971.  One review was printed in our February 1971 issue and the other (as a response to the first) was printed…