Articles

Photo by Jamie Plain Determination and a Dream Icons are created by following their own paths.  Jimmy Martin’s legacy in bluegrass music is the result of determination, blind dedication to the music, and the courage to do things his way.  Inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 1995, Martin’s influence within the genre…

The Faces Behind The Pinecone Bluegrass Show In 1984, Raleigh, North Carolina’s WQDR radio (94.7 FM) changed its format from rock to country.  That same year several Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) area musicians and dancers got together to form the Piedmont Council for Traditional Music (known as PineCone), a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, presenting, and…

Rebel Records Now based in Danville, Virginia, Starlett Boswell Austin and “Big” John Talley have become quite an impressive new pair of faces on the bluegrass scene. Having met in 2019, they soon found common ground and formed a band. On this new project for Rebel, Starlett (bass, vocals) and Big John (guitar, vocals) are…

I’m going to have to start this review on a personal note.  The author of this book was a good friend of mine, who I worked with for twenty years in my job as the editor and publisher of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine.  I received this book in the mail from Mel Bay Publications and, about…

If you can’t have a good time listening to Sam Bush play and sing nearly every note of music on his new tribute CD to friend and mentor John Hartford, well there just may be no hope for you, friend. Filled with memories both happy and sad, this isn’t an album to obsess over how…

The Path I Choose to Walk, the debut album from Humbletown, a duo from South Dakota featuring Morgan Carnes on banjo and Dylan Lewis on guitar and mandolin, is the sound of warm spring air, with its gentle melodies and vocals that bend, sway, and twirl, dancing in perfect harmony.  The contrast between the two…