Articles

East Kentucky-born Carl Bentley grew up singing in church in and around his hometown of McDowell. At age 10, he was given a Ralph Stanley album featuring Keith Whitley by his father, who was also a musician.  That was all it took. To this day, Bentley still wears the Stanley-Whitley influence, and wears it well….

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine November 1982, Volume 17, Number 5 Norman Blake is as close to being a “star” as a musician can get in the field of old-time acoustic music. With the aid of a single-minded sense of where he wanted his music to go; and of dedicated hard work that would satisfy…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 1973, Volume 7, Number 10 Rual Yarbrough and the Dixiemen have had a long and very successful career. The group has included some of the finest musicians and undoubtly some of the nicest people in bluegrass music today. Rual Yarbrough was born Jan. 13, 1930 in Lawrence County (south…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine July 1982, Volume 17, Number 1  He is popular with the people. He will talk to them for hours.” A bluegrass festival promoter is speaking. “He has alot of friends,” comments a popular bluegrass musician. “He’s a very versatile musician. He plays more instruments than most people know about.” So…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1974, Volume 8, Number 7 David “Stringbean” Akeman was probably more loved as a total personality than anyone in show business today. He criss-crossed bluegrass and country lines for nearly four decades and, if somebody had tried to define which side of the fence he belonged on. String would…

“Details,” the opening track of Dumas’s second solo album, an uplifting and encouraging love song, jumps right out at you in a warm and welcoming manner that persists through this entire 11-song collection. Dumas, of course, is the sort of celebrated musician from whom we’d expect nothing less. The Grammy-nominated, IBMA award-winning singer and mandolin…