Articles

Photo by Bud Osborne Maybe it’s something in the Pacific Northwest’s air or water, or perhaps it’s being surrounded by the grand mountain forests of Idaho and the Pacific Coast that inspires brilliant luthiery. But whatever it is, that majestic region has spawned some of the world’s finest woodsmiths, including mandolin masters Michael Heiden, Fletcher…

A mirage to most modern day music fans, the Red Slipper Lounge in Lexington, Kentucky has long been heralded for bluegrass music. Known for being the stomping ground for JD Crowe and The Kentucky Mountain Boys (and later The New South) for six nights per week from 1968 to 1975, the venue had a reputation…

Tim Stafford On his latest solo CD, Tim Stafford artfully carries the listener from the redolent smells of greasepaint, bison sweat and saddle leather inside the big top tent of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show to the gruesome and much publicized serial murders in Victorian London’s Whitechapel District (which oddly are overlapping eras) in a…

Willie Marschner Patuxent Records The wizardry of this 13-year-old fiddler and mandolin player from Fairfax, Virginia is nothing short of astounding. Granted, he’s already spent quite a few years learning his chops in the Marschner family band, along with his father Pearse (also a multi-instrumentalist) and his bass-playing mom Catherine. Even so, he’s obviously a…

Carnegie Tradition Raincoe Music DSR202002 Bluegrass music is no doubt in an era of stretching forward and sideways with musicians carving out new spaces, just like the founders in the 1940s.  However, the new album by Carnegie Tradition reaches backward to revisit those earlier days when the music was making its way with A Tribute…

By Andy Novara With the publication of his new book, Bill Monroe: Solo Transcriptions 1936-1996, Andy Novara has added a wonderful and valuable new reference book for students of Bill Monroe’s mandolin style. The mandolinist in a band called Riverbend, Novara is a skilled Monroe stylist. He clearly adores and has bonded with Monroe’s unique…