Articles

Jimmy Cox Defines Quality And Craftsmanship Photos By Jamie Alexander 1,100 miles and 60 years perfecting a craft. From Wolf Creek, Kentucky to Topsham, Maine, banjo maker and innovator Jimmy Cox left his boyhood home in the bluegrass state for a life in the northeast, carrying with him a love of bluegrass music and the…

Gibson Master Luthier Photos By Jake’s Visuals The Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe, is legendarily linked to a Gibson F-5 mandolin. Its label was signed on July 9, 1923 by Acoustic Engineer Lloyd Loar. Loar implemented violin F-holes and raised fingerboards, and he introduced long maple necks to the fretted-instrument world. He took the existing,…

Pushing The Boundaries Of Bluegrass Photos By Scott Simontacchi A modern day pioneer consistently pushing the boundaries of bluegrass, Lindsay Lou‘s music is truly ahead of the times, but she isn’t the first in her family to push the limits. Lou’s “radical grandmother,” Nancy Timbrook, a hard-working mother of eight was working as a school…

Powerful Original Bluegrass Music Photos By Jason Myers For most of her life, eight-time IBMA award winner Becky Buller has been in a band, but she has been sidelined since mid-March when the pandemic forced the cancellation of shows.  “It’s been just awful,” the fiddler/vocalist said from her Manchester, TN home. “Things you probably wouldn’t…

Photo By Ben Bateson Tim Stafford was named IBMA Songwriter of the Year in 2014 and 2017, tapped for co-writing the IBMA Song of the year in 2008, and in 2020 has been again nominated for Song of the Year as co-writer (with Steve Gulley) of “Both Ends of the Train.” As guitarist for Blue…

A number of today’s top bluegrass guitar players are playing guitars that have been built by the crew at Preston Thompson Guitars in Sisters, Oregon.  The Master Luthier who started this company, Preston Thompson, sadly passed away in April of 2019.  Although Preston is no longer with us, the luthiers who worked with him are continuing his legacy building…