Articles

Annie Staninec resides in Portland, Oregon, and began playing fiddle at a very young age. She has been a music teacher and performer and has toured a number of countries. She plays everything from bluegrass to rock and has played with such as David Grisman, Darol Anger and Rod Stewart. She is now a member…

[Editor’s Note:  In our January, 2024 issue we ran an article about the new Earl Scruggs exhibit at the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, North Carolina.  Part of that exhibit includes information from a 17,000 word document that Earl had written about his life.  In our previous article, we included a few excerpts from that…

Pours his Heart Out on Stage “This is the boss of the family; she’s 17,” Dave Adkins explains as he introduces Lila Jean, one of his many canine friends. The Pikeville, Kentucky, singer/songwriter is definitely a huge animal lover. He can’t turn away those adorable pooch and cat faces and often fosters and adopts four-legged…

50 YEARS OF BANJO You might call Mike Scott of Gallatin, Tennessee, a golden boy. Always smiling, always picking, the banjoist is celebrating 50 years of performance. This is his golden anniversary in the music business. “Fans can look forward to more songs, recordings and perhaps a book,” Scott relayed. A busy man, he definitely…

Bands Blurring the Lines of Bluegrass “I tell people we are the tradition of bluegrass, the attitude of punk rock and the culture of hip hop,” explains Kenny Feinstein (singer, multi-instrumentalist) of Water Tower.  That declaration perfectly sums up the unconventional musical personality of Water Tower, a Los Angeles-based string-band that is keeping old-timey, traditional…

The 86-year-old didn’t play music as a child, but picked it up a little later in life. In 1959, after a stint in the Navy, he came to Danville, Virginia, and decided to take up music in his spare time.  “Old friends that I went to school with were plunkers. I wanted to be a…