Articles

IssueM Articles

Capital B

When it comes to the nearly all-original material on this Milwaukee-based band’s second album, the term youthful exuberance comes to mind. The MilBillies’ (that’s with a CAPITAL “B,” mind you!) music is shot through with humor, rowdiness, wild times and angst. There’s an almost punkish, hard-partying edge to some of the ragged vocals, frenetic playing…

Read More »

Blue & Gray

New Mexico’s Higher Ground Bluegrass is celebrating 25 years of music with this ninth project. The band was established in 1998 by Duke Weddington, banjo player and primary songwriter, and in the past the band has opened for such artists as Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Tim O’Brien, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Peter Rowan, and…

Read More »

Still Run

Originally from Michigan, Jeremy Rilko relocated to Asheville, North Carolina, after serving in the Air Force and graduating from Western Michigan University. It was while in the service and at college that he became enamored with bluegrass music. He has been a banjo player since he was 24, and was influenced by the likes of…

Read More »

2024 Festival Guide

United States Arizona  Bluegrass on the Beach March 1-4, 2024 699 London Bridge Rd,  Lake Havasu City, Arizona 86403-4655 570-721-2760 www.bluegrassonthebeach.com Desert Bluegrass Festival  March 8-10, 2024 Gladden Farms Community Park 12205 N Tangerine Farms Rd. Marana, Arizona  www.desertbluegrass.org Dave Polston 520-245-6126 [email protected] Pickin’ in the Pines Bluegrass & Acoustic Music Festival September 13-15 Ft…

Read More »

The Life and Work of Lloyd Allayre Loar

Lloyd Loar stands, like Mario Maccaferri and Gibson’s Ted McCarty and Leo Fender, as one of the foundational stringed instrument designers in recent history. His acoustic engineering advancements in Gibson’s mandolin family instruments in the 1920s created (inadvertently) the ultimate bluegrass mandolin design—the legendary F-5 played by everyone from Bill Monroe to Wyatt Ellis.   …

Read More »

Images of Bean Blossom 

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine March 1985, Volume 19, Number 9 If it weren’t for a small road sign announcing the eye-blink of a town named Bean Blossom, we might have driven the length of Indiana’s Route 135 and never noticed Bill Monroe’s place. The memories come from 1978 but Bean Blossom seems timeless to…

Read More »