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Nothin’ Fancy—(left to right): Chris Sexton, Curt Gausman, Mike Andes, Jenkins, and Jacob Flick. // Photo by Susie Neal

Nothin’ Fancy

Celebrates 30 Years In the Bluegrass World Hailing from the fertile musical grounds of Virginia, the bluegrass band Nothin’ Fancy has kept a steady roll in a hard and volatile business by putting the music and the fans first. Now, in 2024, the band is celebrating its 30th anniversary as a group, which is an…

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Tomie Thompson featured with Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys in DeRidder, Louisiana, ca. 1946. Front row, left to right: Tomie Thompson, Earl Scruggs and Howard Watts (Cedric Rainwater); back row, left to right: Jimmy Kish, Bill Monroe, Chubby Wise and Lester Flatt

Remembering Earl Scruggs at 100

Photos Courtesy of the Earl Scruggs Center Collection [Editor’s Note:  In our January, 2024 issue we ran an article about the new Earl Scruggs exhibit at the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, North Carolina.  Part of that exhibit includes information from a 17,000 word document that Earl had written about his life.  In our previous…

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Todd Phillips — A Musician’s Musician

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine October 1997, Volume 32, Number 4 “What is amazing is that Todd Phillips never ceases to amaze me! — Tom Rozum (Laurie Lewis and Grant Street) It seems, for the average audience member and for many trade magazines, that all of the attention is focused on the lead singers, or…

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Laurie Lewis—Shining Star of Bluegrass Music’s New Golden Era

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine March 1997, Volume 31, Number 9 Bluegrass music is enjoying a new golden era. The artists riding the crest of today’s wave are creating and inventing their own music just as the original giants of the music did. One of the shining stars of modern bluegrass and acoustic music is…

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The Weary Hearts

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August, 1988, Volume 23, Number 2 If someone were to say “weary hearts” to you, you’d probably think that they were referring to a new romance novel or day-time soap opera. However, anyone familiar with bluegrass music knows of the song, “The Weary Heart You Stole Away,” recorded by the…

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Jim Mills

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 1990, Volume 24, Number 10 It was a weekday night in late September of 1988, that Doyle Lawson called. Jim Mills remembers it well. “He said, ‘Would you be interested in playing banjo for me?’ I said, ‘I sure would.’ Jim thought to himself: This is it!” Ten days…

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