Articles

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…

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…

The Long Strange Trip of Spud, Dawg, Red, Mule and Vassar Jerry Garcia’s burning ambition as a young musician was to play banjo in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. He never made it, and had to satisfy himself with being the leader of one of the most successful and beloved bands in rock music, the…

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…

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…