Articles

This article provides an insight into Larry Prentis Rice and his mandolin, and contains anecdotal recollections about him from friends, family, and bandmates. As the oldest of the four Rice Brothers, and born into a musical family, Larry Rice wrote, played, recorded and produced memorable music. Born on April, 24, 1949 in Danville, Virginia, he…

On Sept 9, 2022 the bluegrass and mandolin worlds lost a true icon. I would dare say most modern mandolin players have been influenced by Herschel even if it was unknowingly so. He made a name for himself in his early years with the The Boys From Shiloh and The Dixie Gentlemen, along with three…

A Half Century of Great Music For fifty iterations since 1972, the legendary Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, has crowned national and international champions in instruments as diverse as hammered dulcimer and fingerstyle guitar, banjo and autoharp, and of course the event’s crown jewel, the National Flatpicking Guitar Championships. But the real champion is…

Begins in the Heart of Appalachia Wherever you put your chair at Blue Highway Fest, you can see the mountains surrounding the small town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, where their first-ever bluegrass festival took place in early October of 2022. The view is not only scenic, it reminds you at all times of the…

The Challenges of Running and Starting a Bluegrass Festival After over thirty years of attending bluegrass festivals, more than once we have heard the saying, “Friends don’t let friends start bluegrass festivals.” While it is meant playfully, we wondered if there is some truth in it and decided to look at the complexity of starting…

This is Charlie Treat’s first foray into bluegrass, and with its austere, hard-charging guitar-banjo-bass-fiddle arrangements, it’s definitely very on-the-edge, and very compelling. As he explains in the accompanying press material, Treat has been steeped in traditional sounds since he was a kid growing up on a farm in New England, though along the way he’s…