Articles

[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…

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…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine November 1976, Volume 11, Number 5 I first heard of Larry McNeely, as did many others, via the Glen Campbell television show. Every Sunday evening at eight o’clock, I would rush to our set, with recorder in hand, just to hear the ten minute concert section with Glen, Larry and…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1995, Volume 29, Number 8 Its late; sometime after 2 a.m., and a charismatic guitarist with a gap-toothed grin and a full shock of reddish-brown hair and beard still performs for the cheering crowd clustered around the crude stage wedged among the campsites at the Walnut Valley Festival. Of…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine October 1996, Volume 21, Number 4 Tim O’Brien was just learning the fiddle in 1974 when he got the itch to go to California. He grabbed the instrument, slung a backpack over his shoulder, stuck out his thumb in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and hitchhiked to Berkeley. While checking out the…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August 2018, Volume 53, Number 2 The new $15 million Bluegrass Music Hall Of Fame & Museum is set to open October 18 this year. After a $100 million riverfront rebuild, Owensboro, Ky., is a new city and destination. To borrow an oft-used phrase, in the minds of bluegrass lovers,…