Articles

A Bluegrass Adventure This is a story about how a two groups of young people learning to play bluegrass music connected across 2,003 miles to share 13 banjos, 4 mandolins, 6 guitars, and 20 fiddles. In September 2024, immediately after the IBMA Business Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, the world was just beginning to hear…

At the end of the title track that opens her debut solo album Travel On, Vickie Vaughn calls, “My turn!” She may simply be taking the last break, but she effectively announces her time has come for bigger adventures too. Vaughn, named IBMA Bass Player of the Year for three consecutive years, still holds down…

Lathemtown is the name of the north Georgia rural community where artist Kurt Lee Wheeler was born and raised. It is where Wheeler taught himself the guitar and began making his own music as he grew. In the 80s, he joined the Air Force and expanded his musical influences. He took some time off from…

Twenty-five years passed between the first time I saw Bill Monroe play and the day I covered his funeral. In the interim, I had many chances to hear him perform, to meet and interview him, and to study his music. After I became a journalist, I also wrote many articles about Monroe, as well as…

“Cowboy Fiddler” Eck Robertson (1887-1975) was a Texas-style fiddle player who is known to most fiddlers and many country and bluegrass music fans, partly because he was the first country artist to make a commercial recording.  On June 30th, 1922, Robertson and Henry Gilliland played two tunes for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New…

Amy Gallatin (vocals, banjo, guitar) and Roger Williams (vocals, resonator guitar, guitars, bass) are two New England-based musicians who have been performing together for a number of years. “From The Heart” is the second incarnation of their Homespun recordings that continue to feature the pair in their duet presentations of the material, many of which…