Articles
IssueM Articles
Dan Levenson’s Master Collection of Old-Time Tunes
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…
Jerry Garcia
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…
On The Fringe
Bands Blurring the Lines of Bluegrass “The cool thing about Broke Mountain Bluegrass Band is we thought we were something special,” says Anders Beck with a laugh, “but we were just five dumb kids. Only time can tell if we were right or not. I guess we were something pretty special though, because the bands…
The High Lonesome Song of Jerry Garcia
Demigods don’t play the banjo. Scholars can point to a few lyre-playing immortals here and there in the pantheon, but that’s not picking the five-string, is it? And Earl Scruggs himself? Far too humble to make it in Valhalla. Yet some say there was a Buddha-like figure from the West, an ageless spirit with an…
Jeremy Fritts
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…
Shelby Means
The Heartbeat of Golden Highway There is no doubt that Molly Tuttle is extremely talented. This Grammy-winning artist has continually displayed the ability to write songs, sing and play lead and rhythm guitar with the best that bluegrass music has ever produced. But, typically, those who reach the mountain’s peak are blessed with others who…