Articles

Willie Carlisle is a troubadour following in the footsteps of folks like Woody Gutherie, John Prine, Rambling Jack Elliot and Utah Phillips. On his latest release he teams up Grammy-nominated musician and producer Darrell Scott for a well-crafted album full of songs about love and redemption. Carlisle explores what it means to be human as…

The story of Tony Trischka’s Earl Scruggs tribute album sounds like the makings of a song itself.  During the pandemic, the banjo virtuoso received a package in the mail that contained a thumb drive. This wasn’t one with old photos or spreadsheets — it was recordings of Scruggs and John Hartford jamming, mostly made at…

Dan Levenson’s name will be well known to anyone who is familiar with old-time music, especially banjo and fiddle players. He is a performer, recording artist and educator. He has published instructional books, produced videos, written magazine articles and taught many workshops. If you are familiar with any of this previous work, you will know…

A Bluegrass Journey On March 28, 2024, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum opens its largest and most interactive temporary exhibition to date—Jerry Garcia:  A Bluegrass Journey.  The exhibition traces the bluegrass career of Jerry Garcia, a music icon known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead.  Born out of the counterculture…

The Doctor Is In To say that there are a lot of people providing guitar instruction on YouTube is an understatement…there are thousands…maybe tens of thousands.  Refine your search to bluegrass and fiddle tunes and the numbers drop, but there are still hundreds.  Refine the search again to look for someone who has taught bluegrass…

We all have days when we could use a good-humored song with a classic feel. If that’s you today, I recommend “End of the End of the World,” written by Adam Wright, which fits that bill with playful perfection. As the title suggests, it takes a run-of-the-mill phrase, end of the world, and gives it…