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The Winning Hand
Established over forty years ago, The Lonesome River Band is known for its consistent sound and song presentation. The band has gone through many member changes over the years, but both Sammy Shelor (banjo) and Mike Hargrove (fiddle) have been there for most of those years. Current member Jesse Smathers (vocal, guitar, mandolin) joined when…
A New Era for Gallagher Guitars
Photos Courtesy of Gallagher Guitar Company Gallagher is a name that for nearly sixty years has been associated with finely crafted acoustic guitars. For nearly that same length of time, Gallagher Guitars has also been tied to one of the finest flatpicking guitar players to ever put a pick to strings—the legendary Doc Watson. The…
From China To Appalachia
This intriguing, East-meets-West collaboration started at the Strathmore Music Center, near Washington, D.C., where Chao Tian, a visual artist and master of the Chinese hammered dulcimer, was artist in residence. Tian’s music caught the attention of Maryland-based folk veterans Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, and the result is this imaginative collaboration, which they’ve since taken…
Carl Sauceman: The Odessey Of A Bluegrass Pioneer
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August 1976, Volume 11, Number 2 Carl Sauceman is a pioneer of whom all too little is known. As a youth, he and his younger brother J.P. Sauceman both witnessed and participated in the changes which transformed the mountain style music of the 1930s into modern bluegrass. Up to now,…
Ome Banjo Company
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine December 1973, Volume 8, Number 6 In the summer of 1971, four young men rented a mountain cabin fifteen miles northwest of Boulder, Colorado, high on Gold Hill, a snow-swept ridge overlooking the Rocky Mountain National Park. They had a panoramic view from their front door, but they had something…
Kristen Scott Benson with The Grascals — Cutting The Grass Ceiling
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine October 2010, Volume 45, Number 4 It’s hard to imagine, when today bluegrass boasts headliners such as Alison Krauss and Rhonda Vincent and a host of superpickers including Alison Brown, Sierra Hull, Missy Raines, and the SteelDrivers’ Tammy Rogers, but it wasn’t long ago that women weren’t welcome in the…