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On January 6, 2024, Earl Eugene Scruggs, the most influential and imitated banjo picker on the planet, would have turned 100 years old. To celebrate the occasion, Jerry Douglas served as musical director and assembled some of the best and brightest pickers in bluegrass for a magical three-and-a-half hour show in the historic Ryman Auditorium…

Q: What ever happened to the person who wrote all of the songs on Reno & Smiley’s Civil War album? – Jerry Steinberg, Salem, Virginia A: The songwriter in question was Dr. Albert J. Russo, a doctor who practiced medicine in the Salem/Roanoke, Virginia, area for 39 years. His proximity to Reno & Smiley’s headquarters…

(May 22, 1939 – December 25, 2023) “Dave (Freeman) single-handedly built a company that encompasses record labels, wholesale distribution and mail order to the public. He has made a fair amount of money doing it, but every dollar has been made absolutely fairly and squarely. He brought to this music the thoroughgoing integrity, dedication and love…

We all have days when we could use a good-humored song with a classic feel. If that’s you today, I recommend “End of the End of the World,” written by Adam Wright, which fits that bill with playful perfection. As the title suggests, it takes a run-of-the-mill phrase, end of the world, and gives it…

And the Culture of Roots Music Throughout their career the Grateful Dead loaded their song repertoire with American roots music traditions from top to bottom. The Dead were interested in roots music largely because of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s (the Dead’s lyricist) early exposure to Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. This anthology…

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…