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IssueM Articles
2025 Festival Guide
United States Arizona Desert Bluegrass FestivalMarch 7-9, 2025 Gladden Farms Community Park12205 N Tangerine Farms RdMarana, Arizona 85653 520-245-6126desertbluegrass.org/marana-festival-2019 Pickin’ in the Pines Bluegrass Music Festival September 12-14, 2025 250 Garrison RdFlagstaff, Arizona 86005pickininthepines.org Arkansas Mountain View Fall Bluegrass FestivalNovember 6-8, 2025 1032 Park AveMountain View, Arkansas 72211501-350-9676mountainviewbluegrass.com California Parkfield Bluegrass FestivalMay 8-11, 2024 70410 Parkfield-Coalinga…
A Direct Report From Ground Zero in the Thousand Year Storm
After Hurricane Helene Hit The Mountains, The IBMA Trust Fund and The Bluegrass Community Took Action It is not every day that Chinook helicopters land in the mountains of Western North Carolina delivering much-needed supplies to a disaster zone, but that is what happened when Hurricane Helene struck the Nature Coast of Florida and then…
Country Girl’s Blue Moon
‘Me’ is Don Depoy and ‘Martha’ is Martha Hills and they are based in the town of Swoope, Virginia. Originally Martha Hills is from the coastal town of Belfast, Maine where she learned to love the area’s music. Around 1990, she heard live bluegrass and was strongly attracted to it. In 2000, Don Depoy met…
The Persistence of Brick and Mortar
Photos by Elizabeth Harris Photography For the last 45 years Fret Mill Music (www.fretmill.com) has been a continual and stable presence in the Roanoke bluegrass music community. While the internet age now enables us to order anything from anywhere with the click of a button, finding a music shop that still encourages a hands-on approach…
That Old Mountain
Songwriter Byron Hill is originally from the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina but settled in Nashville in 1978 where he had been pitching his songs since 1976. Since then, his songs have been picked up and recorded by a long list of both bluegrass and country artists to include Special Consensus, Lonesome River Band, Seldom…
Around The Clock
Daniel Patrick, host of a popular podcast called Mandolins and Beer, traveled far and wide, to five different recording studios in nearly as many states, to put this project together. The outcome is a series of vocal and mandolin duets with 11 of his favorite players on distinctly non-bluegrass songs—“because,” Patrick explains in the media…