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Remains To Be Scene

How does a band with a legendary status continue to live up to the mythology that inevitably grows and threatens to overshadow any new recording? The legendary Seldom Scene answer the question with their new album that positively glows with the same causal brilliance that has always been a hallmark of the group. The line…

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The Ash Grove // Photo by Philip Melnick

Remembering the Ash Grove

A Year-Round Folk Festival If Hollywood was the place to be, the place to be in Hollywood was the Ash Grove coffeehouse. Between 1958 and 1973, the Ash Grove was, arguably, the premier music venue in the country when it came to presenting folk, bluegrass, old-time country, blues and other forms of traditional American music. John…

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Left to right: Gretchen Bowder, Betsy Heron, Lindsay Lassonde, Whitney Roy. Taken at the Ossipee Valley Music Festival, South Hiram, ME 2024. Photo by Alex Steed

More Than A Tribute Band

One thing that fiddle player Betsy Heron, banjo player Gretchen Bowder, guitar player Whitney Roy and bass player Lindsay Lassonde have in common, is their love of Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerard’s music as well as a mutual respect for the women themselves. In March of 2020 when they began to enjoy casually getting together for an…

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Photo by Anna Hass for Billy Blue Records

Caroline Owens

This Young Lady is the Whole Package! If you have yet to hear music by bluegrass singer, songwriter and guitarist, Caroline Owens, you will soon…and be prepared to be impressed. Last year Caroline was signed to Billy Blue Records—first as a writer with Billy Blue Publishing and then as a recording artist. As this issue of Bluegrass…

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Remembering Buck White

Photo by Scott Simontacchi Harry Sherile “Buck” White (December 13, 1930 – January 13, 2025) was the patriarch of the popular acoustic, bluegrass-friendly group The Whites. Although known primarily for his mandolin playing and vocals, he was also an amazing piano player. White’s career as a musician got its start in the late 1940s and…

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Notes & Queries – March 2025

Q: I have been playing bluegrass music for at least five decades. The Stanley Brothers are one of my favorites to listen to and get inspiration from. It was recently brought to my attention by a friend, who was acquainted with Henry Dockery, that the wordage, “Get down boys, go back home…” is incorrect in…

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