Articles

Classic Fiddler From the Early Days of Bluegrass I have recently been listening to some of my older bluegrass albums and kept hearing wonderful fiddle breaks and backup, particularly on the Emerson and Waldron albums. I knew that the fiddler was Bill Poffenberger but I didn’t know much about him. I remember meeting him at a…

Around jam session circles and festival campfires the conversation sometimes turns to bluegrass “conversion” stories. Among the baby boomer generation unless a bluegrass fan grew up in a family that played music at home, chances are good that the first time he or she heard the music was either Flatt & Scruggs on The Beverly…

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…

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…

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…