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Just one more year. That mantra still runs through the mind of Special Consensus co-founder Greg Cahill. The banjoist and band leader who started the long-running bluegrass group wanted to play music for a living, but for many years, he had more bills to pay in one hand than dollar bills brought in from the…

Sis Draper, one of the most beloved bluegrass song characters in recent years, has returned to tell us a little more about her life and music through a concept album co-written by Shawn Camp and Guy Clark, The Ghost of Sis Draper, released September 12 on the Truly Handmade Records label.  Sis Draper was a…

Now Touring with Molly Tuttle Molly Tuttle showed up at the ROMP Festival in June of 2025 with a new band (it was their fifth performance).  The configuration of the band she traveled with during the previous few years, Golden Highway, included acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and upright bass.  Her new band was a…

The Bay Ramblers were a San Fransisco Bay Area bluegrass band that performed for a couple of years in the mid-1980s at venues like Paul’s Saloon and the Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival.  Some of the shows at those two venues were recorded live, and Sandy Rothman, who was the banjo player in the band, has…

In my opinion, John Reischman does everything that relates to playing the mandolin extremely well.  His tone, timing, dynamics, phrasing…you name it, he does it at the level of mastery.  A few other things that he can do extremely well—which proves to me that he is not only a phenomenal mandolin player, but also an…

The best. Proclaiming someone as the best this or that is a highly subjective and contentious undertaking, almost certain to create heated debate. So, to hedge the bet a bit: if twenty-five-year-old Trevor Holder is not the best banjo player on the scene right now, he’s in the top two or three. And if he’s…