Articles

When three politically and socially active college students founded an “anti-profit” record company because no one else would record and release the American folk, bluegrass and old-time music they loved, they had no idea their brainchild would become a dominant force introducing millions to artists like Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, Hazel Dickens, J.D. Crowe, Norman…

Q: I was just listening to Bill Monroe’s recording of “Christmas Time’s a-Comin’” and I would swear I could hear the unmistakable voice of Del McCoury in the harmony. The song was recorded in 1951, can you shed some light on this? Dallas Hudson, Charlotte NC A: You are correct that Bill Monroe recorded the…

In June, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum unveiled a new exhibition highlighting the history of the bluegrass festival. The culmination of a collaborative effort with the Appalachian Fiddle & Bluegrass Association (AFBA), the exhibition explores the roots and evolution of bluegrass festivals. The idea for this project stems from an offer to…

Online Lessons for Guitar and Banjo While researching an article that I wrote about Allen Shelton in the December 2023 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited, I ran across a YouTube lesson on Allen Shelton “ideas” by Jody Hughes. I was not familiar with Jody, but he mentioned in the video that Allen Shelton was his “largest…

Photo courtesy of Crossroads Label Group During the latter part of 2023, four-time Grammy-winning fiddler Andy Leftwich spent several of his nights at churches alongside his wife, Rachel, a talented vocalist and niece of his former boss, Ricky Skaggs. The couple and Leftwich’s award-winning band conveyed the spirit of Christmas with their annual show, “’Tis…

Photos by Bud Osborne Eastman Music Company, over the last decade or so, has quietly but unmistakably risen to the challenge of building guitars that can satisfy discerning bluegrass players, while retaining the affordability that is the hallmark of APAC (Asia-Pacific) instrument manufacturing.        Case in point is the well-crafted and luxuriously appointed…