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IssueM Articles
Bluegrass at the Lucketts Community Center
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…
Jody Hughes
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…
Jody Stecher and Kate Brislin
Deeply Traditional, Highly Original The saga of the musical careers of Jody Stecher and Kate Brislin—both individually and as a duo—spans seven decades, 20 albums, thousands of performances and more than a few twists and turns. The two started working as a duo in the 1980s, earning a legion of devoted fans, a comfortable measure…
Has Eastman Brought Affordability TO Bluegrass Guitars?
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…
Curly Seckler—Willis Spears and the Nashville: Grass A Legacy Lives On
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1990, Volume 24, Number 8 John Ray (Curly) Seckler, notable pioneer of bluegrass music was born on Christmas day, 1919, near China Grove, North Carolina. Since then he has been proclaimed by many including the late Lester Flatt as the greatest tenor singer in bluegrass music. All the Seckler…
The Future of Bluegrass Festivals—An Editorial Discussion According to Me and Sam
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1994, Volume 28, Number 7 What would you say if I told you that we both could go to one festival and on the same bill hear all these performers. Let’s see, there would be Alison Krauss, Michael Doucet, Beausoleil, the Seldom Scene, C.J. Chenier, California, the Basin Brothers,…