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On The Road with Tony Rice

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 2006.  Volume 40, Number 10 For several years, Tim Stafford (songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist for Blue Highway) has been working on the authorized biography of flatpicking guitar pioneer Tony Rice, collecting interviews with dozens of Tony’s peers and friends in the bluegrass community. In 2003, journalist Caroline Wright asked…

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Tony Rice

His First Love, The Guitar: Tony Rice

October 2002, Volume 37, Number 4 A lot of people were heartbroken when Tony Rice stopped singing. But he was not one of them. “I don’t worry about it as much as people think,” he says offhandedly. “The guitar was always the main thing for me. I spent four years with David Grisman where I…

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Tony Rice

Tony Rice: A Distinct Talent

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August 1989. Volume 24, Number 2 Perhaps no other single artist in this decade has had the impact on the broad genre of contemporary acoustic music than Tony Rice—the consummate folk musician whose stylistic command has gained him diverse groups of admirers as well as imitators all over the landscape….

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Video Review

Ned Luberecki’s True Fire Banjo Lessons

Bluegrass Bajo for Beginners Bluegrass Bajo Jam Survival Guide 30 Bluegrass Banjo Licks You Must Know Bluegrass Banjo Backup Banjo Lessons Taken as a whole, Ned Luberecki’s four True Fire video courses cover the bread and butter of beginning and intermediate bluegrass banjo playing in a way that’s fun, engaging and approachable. What makes these…

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Album Cover

Distance and Time

Becky Buller Dark Shadow Recording DSR202002 It’s exhausting reviewing a Becky Buller album — a writer has to lug out a thesaurus to keep all the superlatives straight. Buller, the only performer to win IBMA vocalist and instrumentalist awards in the same year (2016) is at it again with her latest release, Distance and Time….

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Book Cover

Hillbilly Maidens, Okies, and Cowgirls: Women’s Country Music, 1930-1960

By Stephanie Vander Wel University of Illinois Press The years 1930 to 1960 saw remarkable changes in country music from Jimmie Rodgers, The Carter Family, Chet Atkins and Patsy Cline appeared on the scene.  New musical styles—bluegrass, honky-tonk, Western swing—and new media such as radio, TV, and LPs emerged. Stephanie Vander Wel of the University…

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