Articles

Eddie Lightner is a Baltimore, Maryland, native who became enamored with the mandolin after hearing and watching players like Ronnie McCoury and Chris Thile. He became good enough to spend time playing with the Baltimore Mandolin Orchestra. He also performed around the East Coast with the FolkenPhunk band. On this project, Lightner (mandolin, vocal) is…

Armed with a clear, invigorating tenor voice and a boatload of talent, Larry Stephenson shoots for the stars with Cast a Lonesome Shadow. Modeled in the form of traditional bluegrass, this record is packed with twists and turns. Stephenson isn’t afraid to incorporate  blues, folk and ragtime, thus making his own stamp on the genre…

Most people know Lizzy Long as the multi-instrumentalist, multi-talented singer, songwriter and sidekick of Little Roy Lewis. Like her “Pap,” as she calls him, she is a ball of creative energy and spends part of her limited free time making fiddles.  In her woodworking shop, the Lincolnton, Georgia native labors to take pieces of solid…

Students attending Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) in Richmond, Kentucky can consider themselves extremely fortunate if they have any interest in learning to play bluegrass music.  Although the university does not have a bluegrass music degree program, they do offer a Bluegrass Ensemble course and the person who teaches that course is multi-instrumentalist and singer Pam…

Tennessean Becky Buller is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. She has won awards for Fiddle Player and Female Vocalist, and her songs have won Grammy awards for groups like The Travelin’ McCourys, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Molly Tuttle. Her songs have also been recorded by such as Ricky Skaggs, Doyle Lawson and Rhonda Vincent. …

The past academic year has been marked by top-shelf performance experiences for members of Belmont University Bluegrass Ensemble. On April 9, the group made their debut on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, an ultimate musician’s bucket list item. Ryan Joseph, director of the ensemble and coordinator of strings at the university, has played…