Articles

IssueM Articles

The Del McCoury Band on stage at the Earl Scruggs Music Festival, 2025. // Photo by Dale Cahill

The Earl Scruggs Music Festival

IBMA’s 2025 Event of the Year Winners Written By Dale and Darcy Cahill Being lifelong lovers of bluegrass and thirty-year veterans of attending bluegrass festivals in New England: Grey Fox, Thomas Point, Podunk, and many others, we have never attended a festival in the southern states. When we saw the Earl Scruggs Music Festival lineup…

Read More »

The Evolution of Jamgrass

On June 22, 1989, at the Roma in Telluride, Colorado, during the annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, the seeds of what would become the modern jamgrass scene were first planted.  On stage was Vince Herman’s Cajun jug band, the Salmon Heads.  Joining them were a couple of friends from the Left Hand String Band, Drew Emmitt…

Read More »

Beyond What I Can See

Remedy Tree is a Florida group founded in 2015 by Gabriel and Abigail Acevedo. Gabriel plays guitar, fiddle, and sings lead vocals, while Abigail plays bass and also sings lead vocals. After a while playing as a duo, they decided to add banjo and mandolin and move to a more bluegrass and Americana sound. They…

Read More »

Jan Johansson with Bobby Hicks at Lorraine’s Coffee House in 2018. // Photo by Wilson Herlong

Jan Johansson

Follow Your Dreams Photos Courtesy of Jan Johansson Jan (pronounced “Yahn”) Johansson is a man who has defied all odds. A true connoisseur of bluegrass, he is a player, teacher, historian, collector, and much more. What makes him truly amazing is that he achieved all this by overcoming huge obstacles along the way: being born and…

Read More »

The Henderson School instructors (left to right) Josh Reese, Spencer Strickland, Marty Howard. // Photo by Spencer Strickland

The Gerald Anderson Luthierie

The name Wayne C. Henderson is synonymous with the finest guitar construction in the world. Henderson has received many accolades over the years, and having a school of arts named after him is only befitting for a man of his caliber. The Wayne C. Henderson School of Appalachian Arts (The Henderson), in Marion, Virginia, is…

Read More »

article and photo By Chuck Dunlop

A Guitar Lesson with Adam Granger

In early August, I accompanied my wife to Minneapolis, where she was planning to attend a family reunion. I remembered that Adam Granger lived in the area, so I decided to try to book a guitar lesson from him. Although I have been a flatpicker for many years, I have never been satisfied with my…

Read More »