Articles

In June, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum unveiled a new exhibition highlighting the history of the bluegrass festival. The culmination of a collaborative effort with the Appalachian Fiddle & Bluegrass Association (AFBA), the exhibition explores the roots and evolution of bluegrass festivals. The idea for this project stems from an offer to…

Fifty Years and Counting Photos courtesy of Jeff Ludin, Lucketts Community Center For many bluegrass fans living outside of the Northern Virginia/Metro DC environs, the Lucketts, Virginia, Community Center and its long-running series of bluegrass music concerts is known as the location for the much-heralded farewell concert by the Johnson Mountain Boys. The 1988 event…

Louisa Branscomb and Dale Ann Bradley A song can create an out-of-body experience, not only for listeners upon hearing it but also for songwriters as they write. This according to renowned songwriter, psychologist, and performing artist Louisa Branscomb, PhD, who had such an experience while strolling the hills of her famous (and now former) Woodsong Farm….

Online Lessons for Guitar and Banjo While researching an article that I wrote about Allen Shelton in the December 2023 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited, I ran across a YouTube lesson on Allen Shelton “ideas” by Jody Hughes. I was not familiar with Jody, but he mentioned in the video that Allen Shelton was his “largest…

Photos by Bud Osborne Eastman Music Company, over the last decade or so, has quietly but unmistakably risen to the challenge of building guitars that can satisfy discerning bluegrass players, while retaining the affordability that is the hallmark of APAC (Asia-Pacific) instrument manufacturing.        Case in point is the well-crafted and luxuriously appointed…

Bands Blurring the Lines of Bluegrass The idea of the grand voyager can invoke many images in your mind. It invokes the idea of travel, exploration, discovery and a journey. For Baltimore’s Dirty Grass Players it holds all those meanings and more. “Grand Voyager” is a track from their first album, Beneath the Woodpile. The track is…