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Skip Kelley playing one of this mandolins. // Photo courtesy of Skip Kelley

Kelley Mandolins

Banjo Slayers Today, many small-shop mandolin builders produce what have come to be called “boutique mandolins.” The mandolins of one of those craftsmen, Thomas “Skip” Kelley, have been mentioned on the online blog, MandolinCafe.com in conversations with other high-end names. The website, Mando Mutt, is the exclusive dealer for Skip Kelley mandolins.  Mando Mutt’s owner,…

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Heather Berry Mabe

Red Camel Collective

Photos by Angie Reed If one word can describe Red Camel Collective, it’s momentum. It’s no coincidence that Heather Berry Mabe, the lead singer and guitarist for the band, won the 2024 IBMA Momentum Award for Vocalist of the Year. She is also nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year by the Society for the…

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Bill Clifton—Red Rector—Don Stover: The First Generation, A Bluegrass Experiment 

By Dick Spottswood Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August 1978, Volume 13, Number 2 Over thirty years ago an astute jazz promoter named Norman Granz had an idea. Big bands had dominated the jazz and pop scenes before World War II, producing much of the significant talent which emerged during the era. But between the…

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Arpeggios on the Mandolin – Part 2

This is Part 2 of a look at Arpeggios on the mandolin. Part 1 defined a couple of arpeggio patterns. In Part 2, you will learn a couple of practical ways to practice working with those arpeggios to get them under your fingers in the context of a chord progression and in the context of…

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224: Bluegrass Unlimited Podcast with Tim Crouch

This week we feature fiddler Tim Crouch.  Tim has a long history in bluegrass music dating back to the days as a teenager playing with his Uncle Dub Crouch – who was a legend in bluegrass music in Missouri and was a friend and mentor to our cover…

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The Old Mill Stream of Consciousness:  John Hartford in the ‘90s

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1995, Volume 29, Number 2 John Hartford keeps heading into the future by delving way back into the past. It’s not that Hartford stays lost in thoughts of by gone days; his busy career includes the recent release “The Walls We Bounce Off Of” on his Small Dog label,…

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