Articles

Bluegrass Unlimited first conducted a Reader’s Poll in 1967, the year after the magazine was established.  A second poll was conducted in 1971.  I asked Dick Spottswood, who was working for the magazine in those days, if he knew why the Reader’s Poll was not continued.  He replied, “In 1967 we were still trying to…

Photo by Craig Etchison For many musicians, releasing an album at twenty would be considered quite an achievement. At twenty, Liam Purcell of Cane Mill Road is preparing to release his fifth full-length album later this year. Now a senior at Berklee College of Music, where he studies music business and performance, Purcell continues a…

Although the title of this album suggests departure, when you start listening it feels like you’re arriving at a family cookout. The musicians are the well-seasoned burgers, brats and brisket and the notes of their instruments are flowing like cousin Joe’s famous apple wine. The songs are all the comfort food fixin’s you love, speaking…

Kristin Scott Benson, long-time banjo player for The Grascals and five-time winner of the IBMA’s “Banjo Player of the Year” award, and Wayne Benson, long-time mandolin player for Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out, have been married 22 years. Yet this is their very first album-length collaboration. To the Bensons’ credit, this is not a…

This here’s a mighty fine tribute to the legendary John Hartford. It is arranged and played by Chris Coole on banjo and John Showman on fiddle. The Canadian duo have picked twelve of their favorite Hartford tunes spanning over thirty years of his career, including cuts from Hartford’s Mark Twang, Aereo-Plain and Good Old Boys…

Tim Stafford and Thomm Jutz have delivered us a real gem here. Lost Voices is an album over a hundred years in the making, spun of tales that are distant, yet closely connected. It is a record that has traveled the land through mountains and heart worn highways of America. With the exception of the…