Articles

When the album kicks off with a tune entitled “Case of the Mundes,” you know the music is headed into an exploration and celebration of modern banjo sounds and when the other pickers include Sierra Hull, Bryan Sutton, Mike Bub, Justin Moses, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, you know the music is going to fly.  Just when…

In most of the Bluegrass world, the beginning of festival season generally happens sometime around Memorial Day. In northern Colorado, however, everyone knows that it begins over President’s Day weekend. That’s when the Midwinter Bluegrass Festival takes place. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, once again the Midwinter Bluegrass Festival takes over a hotel in…

At the 2025 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) conference held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the exhibition hall featured a new vendor booth—Token Picks. I love to stroll through the exhibit hall and check out the new instruments and gear that are on display at the various booths; however, every time I passed by the Token Pick…

Songs That Sing Me, Becky Buller’s first covers album, puts a spin on the concept. Rather than simply her take on familiar favorites audiences already know by heart, she has compiled a collection of songs that have meant the most to her, songs that she says “sing me into being.” Some, in fact, have been…

Bandmates John Showman and Chris Coole have been digging deep into the old-time sound of fiddle and banjo for more than twenty years, and their traditional credentials have only increased over time. Anyone who has followed the band in recent years knows that they have never been content to stay in their lane, as it…

Let’s face it—Larry Sparks could cut an album where he sings the ingredient labels for Oreos, peanut butter, and his favorite barbecue rub, and bluegrass fans would set it on repeat and let it ride for an afternoon. And it would be good. And so Sparks, who doesn’t seem to desire to slow down, has…