Articles

Hatfield Delivers the Real McCoy It’s an age-old conundrum for anyone trying to learn a new instrument.  You first buy a cheap banjo, guitar or mandolin to see if you even enjoy playing it. The further you progress, and the more time you put in, the more your instrument’s shortcomings become apparent. Pretty soon you’re ready…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1986, Volume 20, Number 8 East Tennessee, the late 1950s, a boy just entering adolescence chops a borrowed mandolin, hoping to find the same licks he heard Bill Monroe play on the Opry the Saturday night before. The boy summons up the courage to wrap the mandolin in a…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine November 1980, Volume 15, Number 5 “I’ve always been a pusher,” allows Doyle Lawson matter-of-factly. “If I’m doin’ good, I want to do better. I’ve never been as good as I want to be—as good as I can be. I hope I never get as good as I want to…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1987,  Volume 21, Number 8  It was some band. I can still remember my amazement hearing the Kentucky Colonels for the first time, wondering how any five individuals could play music with such speed, drive, and excitement, song after song. There was an unbridled — almost wild-eyed — enthusiasm…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April, 1969, Volume 3, Number 10  One of the most significant of the urban bluegrass groups of the 60s were the Kentucky Colonels or the Country Boys. They were known under both names. Though the groups disbanded in 1965, their music is still talked about today. Their home base was…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine July 1975, Volume 10, Number 1 The grassy pasture land an hour’s drive above Augusta, Georgia, had turned into a field of wet grass and mud due to the heavy rains which had drenched the bluegrass music fans several hours earlier. Finally, the heavy rain had subsided to a mild…