Articles

Many bluegrass fans trace their introduction to the music to films such as O Brother! Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain, or to Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken? recording project. For Norwegian band Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra, their first taste of bluegrass came just as they had formed a band. Ten years…

Photo by Joe Zauner Maggie’s Journal, based on “true life” stories (as Bill Monroe would say) from Valerie Smith’s great-grandmother, was released January 5, 2026. The 30-track double album is a testament to the survival and incredible resilience of an ordinary American woman from Missouri in the post-Civil War era. It’s also one of the…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August 2003, Volume 38, Number 2 Ronnie Bowman wants to make one thing perfectly clear. He is not bailing from bluegrass music. The former front man for the popular and influential 1990s Lonesome River Band has made several changes in his life since the turn of the millennium clock, but…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine March 1976, Volume The Great Midwestern Bluegrass Music Hall, 118 West Washington Street, in Louisville, Kentucky, is the new home base of the Bluegrass Alliance—when they are at home. The former warehouse is only a few blocks from where the famous sternwheeler “The Belle Of Louisville” docks on the Ohio…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine October 1973, Volume 8, Number 4 “Who is Norman Blake?” “One of the best pickers in the whole country. He’s got a lot of notes here and there, and puts them together in a very unpretentious way.” Such runs the opinion of those who know him. But a recent sampling…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1989, Volume 23, Number 7 Lyman Enloe, a small, slimly built man in his 82nd year, is a nationally respected old-time fiddler and that’s what he’d rather be doing, as a rule. I notice that writers seem to bring out the nervous energy in him, as he clears his…