Articles
IssueM Articles
Blue & Gray
New Mexico’s Higher Ground Bluegrass is celebrating 25 years of music with this ninth project. The band was established in 1998 by Duke Weddington, banjo player and primary songwriter, and in the past the band has opened for such artists as Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Tim O’Brien, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Peter Rowan, and…
The Life and Work of Lloyd Allayre Loar
Lloyd Loar stands, like Mario Maccaferri and Gibson’s Ted McCarty and Leo Fender, as one of the foundational stringed instrument designers in recent history. His acoustic engineering advancements in Gibson’s mandolin family instruments in the 1920s created (inadvertently) the ultimate bluegrass mandolin design—the legendary F-5 played by everyone from Bill Monroe to Wyatt Ellis. …
Talking Chicago Bluegrass
with Greg Cahill and Ben Wright To understand how bluegrass in Chicago has changed over the years, I had the pleasure of chatting with two of the best banjo players based in the city. I spoke with Ben Wright of the Henhouse Prowlers, a progressive-leaning bluegrass band with an international and educational focus entering its third…
Crying Uncle Bluegrass Band
If you haven’t already heard about the Crying Uncle Bluegrass Band, you soon will! Based in Northern California, the band consists of four members: Teo Quale on mandolin, Miles Quale on fiddle, Andrew Osborn on bass and Ian Ly on guitar. The band embarked on a ten-day tour of Japan in March/April of 2023,…
Stories Of Valor
Maryland’s Roger Cline has put together a nice collection of mostly original material on this new project of stories about bravery, courage, tenacity and about those who have it. He is joined here by a host of musicians including: Scott Freeman (mandolin), Debbie Durant & Tom Hensler (bass), Gary Hultman (resonator guitar), John Scott Walker…
Mile 77
Jody Stecher has been around forever—or at least since the 1960s when he emerged from the remnants of the folk music revival. On his latest album, a collaboration with the distinguished Boston-based string band Mile Twelve, he sounds better than ever. His warm, lived-in voice and his intriguing original songs bring to mind a West…