Articles

Geoff Stelling Bids Farewell to Banjo Making After 48 Years It may seem an odd thing to say in an age when the options for professional-quality banjos are plentiful, but there once was a time when they didn’t extend much beyond Gibsons.  But by the mid-70s, when Geoff Stelling was thinking about starting his own business…

Photo by Justin Camerer Although the bass is not the most glamorous of bluegrass instruments, it is certainly just as important as every other instrument in the band.  It is the glue that holds the band together and without glue, you only have disparate pieces.  About twenty years ago I was producing an instruction video…

Celebrating 15 Years of Bringing Western North Carolina Bluegrass to the World Photo By Caty Smith When it comes to the top tier of bands that have found success in this uniquely-American music genre we call bluegrass, the story of the rise of Balsam Range is tale of good things coming from an impromptu house jam,…

Color His Songs Red, White, And Blue And Emerald Green “Around 1990, [Rebel Records owner] Dave Freeman asked if I had any songs I’d like to send to Larry Sparks,” Ferguson recalls. “I sent ten songs. One day I received a letter from Larry Sparks. He said he liked about eight of those songs, and…

Solitary Diamond Photo by Scott Simontacchi Solitary Diamond, the title of Laura Orshaw’s debut album, resonates on a number of levels. The words themselves come from a couple of songs from the project, but they refer to a concept, too. The songs on Solitary Diamond, she says, tell stories from different vantage points of those…

First of Four Parts Part One Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine May 1991, Volume 25, Number 11 Once upon a time, in a land far from the birthplace of bluegrass music, lived a group of young college students who became the first bluegrass band in the San Francisco Bay area. It was the late ’50s….