Articles

Who is the big man in the white shirt, black slacks and two-tone shoes, crowned with a homburg hat? And is he really a pioneer and living legend of the bluegrass banjo? The answers are: Roger Sprung, and yes, yes indeed. Roger was a central figure in the Folk Music Revival of the 1950s and…

Taking Us Back to 1971 For those in the bluegrass community who have been unable to attend live festivals since February  because of COVID-19, a trip back to Carlton Haney’s Blue Grass Park in Camp Springs, North Carolina on Labor Day weekend, 1971, might be just the ticket.  The remastered, boxed set version of the…

Photos By Jamie Alexander So says the song that Bill Monroe wrote about his fiddle playing Uncle Pendleton Vandiver, brother to his mother, Malissa.  Speaking of his Uncle Pen in a 1966 radio interview, Monroe said, “He played for a lot of square dances in Kentucky….There wasn’t many musicians around and back in the early…

I first met the double-genius, Dr. Benjamin “Tex” Logan, in the mid ’60’s. My long-time friend and guitar player, Bernie Coveney, and I had recently discovered bluegrass music (in New Jersey of all places!) as we searched for a radio station in the car and ended up on WWVA and the Wheeling, WV Saturday Night…

Bluegrass Builders Photos By Kristen Ellis Photographer Not only is Kentucky home to legendary bluegrass musicians like Rosine’s Bill Monroe, Lexington’s J.D. Crowe and Cordell’s Ricky Skaggs, but many lavish luthiers as well, whether it be Russell Springs’ Frank Neat, who’s built custom banjos for the likes of Earl Scruggs to the aforementioned Crowe and…

NOTES In the September 2020 column, there was a discussion of legendary fiddler John Ashby of Warrenton, Va., and the Ashby clan of Fauquier County. One member of the clan is J. Ashby Rollins, a singer and mandolin picker who worked with Charlie Smith’s Potomac Valley Boys. This writer saw the band a number of…