Articles
IssueM Articles
The Country Gentleman—In The Truest Sense
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine June 1984, Volume 18, Number 12 Good as Gold and fine as diamonds, worth its weight in waiting for …” The sounds that ring through the capacity-filled hall are familiar to the cheering fans. The sounds have been produced, recorded, and enjoyed for over 26 years. There have been several…
Porter Church—“If you can’t use a roll on it, it doesn’t sound right to me.”
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1986, Volume 20, Number 7 He’s rarely played in public over the past two decades, and he’s not on many records, but Porter Church remains among the most eloquent of five-string banjo players. I may as well say it: in my opinion, when it comes to “golden era” bluegrass…
Red and Murphy & Co.
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine January 1980, Volume 14, Number 7 The family band is a noble, long-standing tradition in bluegrass and traditional country music, extending back even further than the Carter Family, quite possibly as far back as the beginning of the string band itself. Today, the family unit is as strong as ever…
Banjo Whisperer
The phrase suggests a mystical or wizardly sort, surrounded by banjos and the tools used to bring them closer to the ideal. Marc Horowitz is THE Banjo Whisperer. While researching this story about Marc, everyone I approached (banjo players, designers, builders, and musical contemporaries) quickly responded with effusive praise. Marc’s daughter Leah Horowitz (an accomplished…
Pam Rice Talks About the New Tony Rice Festival, and Letting Billy Strings Play Tony’s D-28
It has been a rough two-and-a-half years for Pam Rice. On Christmas Day of 2020, her long-time husband passed away at their house in Reidsville, North Carolina. For Pam, it meant witnessing the transition of her beloved spouse. For the rest of the world, however, that was the day that Tony Rice—simply one of the…
Zoe & Cloyd
Vibrant Branches Sprout From Deep Roots Married partners Natalya Zoe Weinstein and John Cloyd Miller are living proof that music brings people from vastly different backgrounds and geographical regions together, and that the result can be an amazingly rich creative collaboration. Natalya grew up in the college town of Amherst, Massachusetts, with a violinist mother and…