Articles

Like Tony Rice and David Grisman before him, guitarist Ross Martin fords across genres, treading the borders of jazz and bluegrass. A longtime member of the Matt Flinner trio, and regular duet partner of Grant Gordy, Martin is equally at home picking on a fiddle tune, navigating the tight corners of a Bud Powell composition…

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…

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…

“I open every set with it, just about,” said Irene Kelley of “You Don’t Run Across My Mind,” her song released in 2014 (Pennsylvania Coal) and cowritten by the late Peter Cooper. “It sets everything up well for me, ‘Here’s what I write, here’s how I sing.’ I do a lot of reminiscing, and this…