Articles
IssueM Articles
An Interview with Special Consensus Mandolinist
Michael Prewitt Special Consensus mandolin player Michael Prewitt grew up on an old tobacco farm in Whitley County, a 45-minute drive east of Somerset. It wasn’t until he left Eastern Kentucky for an English degree at grad school in North Dakota that he began to reexamine his bluegrass roots. “As far as making a conscious choice…
Bluegrass from a Coffee Can
The 60th Anniversary of Suwanee, Georgia’s Everett’s Music Barn “We had a lot of company” Rena (Everett) McDaniel reflected. “It seemed normal to stay up until four, five, or six o’clock on Sunday morning because there were still people here playing…right outside my bedroom door.” She was relating childhood memories of her life in the…
On The Fringe
Bands Blurring the Lines of Bluegrass “I tell people we are the tradition of bluegrass, the attitude of punk rock and the culture of hip hop,” explains Kenny Feinstein (singer, multi-instrumentalist) of Water Tower. That declaration perfectly sums up the unconventional musical personality of Water Tower, a Los Angeles-based string-band that is keeping old-timey, traditional…
Larry McNeely
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine November 1976, Volume 11, Number 5 I first heard of Larry McNeely, as did many others, via the Glen Campbell television show. Every Sunday evening at eight o’clock, I would rush to our set, with recorder in hand, just to hear the ten minute concert section with Glen, Larry and…
The Road of Columbus: Beppe Gambetta Conquers A New World
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1995, Volume 29, Number 8 Its late; sometime after 2 a.m., and a charismatic guitarist with a gap-toothed grin and a full shock of reddish-brown hair and beard still performs for the cheering crowd clustered around the crude stage wedged among the campsites at the Walnut Valley Festival. Of…
The Freight and Salvage Gives Bluegrass A Microphone On The West Coast
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine October 1996, Volume 21, Number 4 Tim O’Brien was just learning the fiddle in 1974 when he got the itch to go to California. He grabbed the instrument, slung a backpack over his shoulder, stuck out his thumb in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and hitchhiked to Berkeley. While checking out the…