Articles

This impressive young band from Owensboro, Kentucky, home of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame and Museum, is starting to get some well-deserved attention beyond the banks of the Ohio River. Kentucky Shine’s members—JB Miller on guitar, Steven Stewart on fiddle, Ross Clark on bass and Jordan Riehm on banjo—are just as at home playing traditional bluegrass as they…

Bill Evans is one of those figures whose name is almost synonymous with the American banjo.  He’s not just an innovator (one fan described him as “the same thing to the banjo that Van Gogh was to color”); he’s also an instructor, student, author (Banjo for Dummies, among other titles) and historian of his chosen…

Although their prominence in bluegrass and roots music has receded and grown over the decades, archtop guitars (and their brethren in the mandolin family) have played a significant role in our music. Mother Maybelle Carter legendarily played a classic Gibson L-5 created by Lloyd Loar. Miscellaneous rhythm players in many early mountain, Western and folk…

In 1967, and again in 1971, Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine presented a Reader’s Poll and we have decided to bring it back in 2023.  There are a lot of categories that we might have selected to include in this poll, however, we decided to stay with tradition and use the same categories that we have used…

Releases Songs of the Sunrise Fox Photos by Molly McCormick North Carolina native Andy Thorn had traveled to Colorado for the outdoor activities since college, so when he had the opportunity to join a band there, he said, “that was a no brainer for me.” After moving there, in 2008, he had the opportunity to…

Moving Forward with a Vision to Showcase the Roots of a Truly American Genre of Music Photos by Erick Anderson When I first heard the news of the creation of Appalachian Road Show, the idea of bringing together these five musicians made perfect sense. Yet, there was also a sense of their formation being too…