Articles

Part 1: Jim Lunsford: Growing music from the mountains and beyond At a Charlotte, North Carolina, studio in April 1954, 26-year-old Jimmy Lunsford cranked up wild fiddle solos on “Dixie Breakdown,” a tune he’d written with banjo innovator Don Reno. Lunsford’s presence on Don Reno & Red Smiley releases was just one of the creative…

There’s more to harmony than simply playing the right notes. Some musicians have that special something, hard to name but impossible to overlook. Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland’s latest project Carter and Cleveland—their first collaboration of its kind—is Exhibit A.The friendship between the two fiddlers began back in their teens. When Cleveland was about thirteen,…

The Newest Punch Brother For many reasons, bluegrass music is a unique genre amongst the various forms of music performed and recorded in the United States.  One reason is that a relatively high percentage of the fans of the music also play the music.  At any given bluegrass festival, the main reason many of the attendees…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 1995, Volume 29, Number 10 J.D. Crowe has been described as a “musician’s musician” and indeed the subtlety of his playing and his clever innovations are the type of things frequently best appreciated by other musicians. Yet Crowe’s popularity has been far from limited to pickers. The enthusiastic response…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine March 1977, Volume 11, Number 9 Although Jimmie Skinner has not been a bluegrass artist until recently, his contributions to the music have nonetheless been considerable. His unique style of country singing appeals to both bluegrass lovers and traditionalists. Many of Jimmie’s song compositions have found their way into the…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine May 1997, Volume 31, Number 11 “There are three types of history for our music,” said the old man. “There’s mullet history—that’s the kind you tell to people from Minnesota who don’t know what a banjo is. Then there’s book history—that’s where you divide up the music into a different…