Articles

Photo by Sandlin Gaither A resident of Asheville, North Carolina, Sav Sankaran is an upright bass player and vocalist with the bluegrass band Unspoken Tradition.  Previously, he toured with the Dixie Bee-Liners, Kristy Cox and other North Carolina bands.  He is a first-generation American of Indian descent who points to Bob Paisley & Southern Grass…

Photo by Arnold Flenor Mackenzie Bell is a 15-year-old fiddle player who was born in Guatemala, adopted at the age of seven months, and has grown up just 10 miles from Bill Monroe’s hometown of Rosine, Kentucky.  When she was 7-years-old she heard a friend play the fiddle and thought that this was something that…

Photo by Daniel Coston For nearly half a century, fiddling ace Mike Hartgrove of the Lonesome River Band has been traveling highways across America playing bluegrass and country music.  “Mike is a road pro,” says Lonesome River Band leader Sammy Shelor. “The guy has been on the road since he was 17 years old, about…

Photo by Eleanor Wilkie Matt Flinner was touring nationally in a bluegrass band as a pre-teen.  Around 1980, Ted Shupe of Ogden, Utah formed a band of 10-year-olds around his fiddle-playing son, Ryan (now with Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband) and they called themselves the Pee Wee Pickers.   The band’s talent earned them spots…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited MagazineJanuary 1971, Volume 5, Number 7 “I’ve always wanted to do what we are doing now,” says Lester Flatt about his new approach to his music. The band currently features Buck “Uncle Josh” Graves, Jack Tullock and Paul Warren, plus two former Blue Grass Boys in the person of Roland White…

Reprinted From Bluegrass Unlimited MagazineApril 1983—Volume 17, Number 10 The Larry Sparks story begins September 25, 1947, in Lebanon, Ohio, just across the Kentucky line. Larry is the youngest of nine children of Eva and Charlie Sparks; all the children played guitar at least a little, and his grandfather Lewison Dose Russell was an old-time…