Articles

At the 2025 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) conference held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the exhibition hall featured a new vendor booth—Token Picks. I love to stroll through the exhibit hall and check out the new instruments and gear that are on display at the various booths; however, every time I passed by the Token Pick…

In most of the Bluegrass world, the beginning of festival season generally happens sometime around Memorial Day. In northern Colorado, however, everyone knows that it begins over President’s Day weekend. That’s when the Midwinter Bluegrass Festival takes place. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, once again the Midwinter Bluegrass Festival takes over a hotel in…

Songs That Sing Me, Becky Buller’s first covers album, puts a spin on the concept. Rather than simply her take on familiar favorites audiences already know by heart, she has compiled a collection of songs that have meant the most to her, songs that she says “sing me into being.” Some, in fact, have been…

Twenty years after the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival won the award for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) Event of the Year in 2006, the festival is returning to the Boston area in 2026 after having been on hiatus since the COVID pandemic. This year, the Boston Bluegrass Union’s (BBU) flagship event is not only…

Let’s face it—Larry Sparks could cut an album where he sings the ingredient labels for Oreos, peanut butter, and his favorite barbecue rub, and bluegrass fans would set it on repeat and let it ride for an afternoon. And it would be good. And so Sparks, who doesn’t seem to desire to slow down, has…

From the vibrant bluegrass scene of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, comes Trish Imbrogno with five stellar tracks on a new EP. Imbrogno, trained as a classical bassist, expanded her musical world to include bluegrass and roots music and has become an in-demand, well-respected, in-the-pocket bassist playing with an array of top pickers.  Joining Trish, who plays bass…