by Bert Daniel | May 14, 2025 | Welcome Column
(Editor’s note: I published this article more than a dozen years ago after the death of perhaps the greatest bluegrass fiddler who ever lived) As most of you know already, this month we lost one of the finest bluegrass musicians of all time. Kenny Baker, who fiddled...
by Bert Daniel | May 12, 2025 | Welcome Column
(Editor’s note: My musical feed while driving home today happened to hit on the tune Three Forks of the Cumberland. I love crooked tunes so I figured it was time to rerun this column from fifteen years ago) My astrological sign happens to be Cancer. And as everybody...
by Bert Daniel | May 3, 2025 | Welcome Column
Brazilian rosewood seemed finally to be unavailable outside of Brazil, but a mix of legal exceptions such as lumber supposedly accumulated before the 1992 CITES Appendix I listing (“pre-CITES” wood) and wood salvaged from non-living sources (“stump wood,” purportedly...
by Bert Daniel | Apr 29, 2025 | Welcome Column
This is a factual account of the post-1960 history of Brazilian rosewood in US guitar production. Part 1 covers the effects of Brazilian rosewood availability changes on the CF Martin Company, the largest US importer and user of Brazilian rosewood for stringed...
by Bert Daniel | Mar 28, 2025 | Welcome to California!
I’m cooking string beans tonight. I like to add a little bit of bacon bits, chopped onion and chicken broth for extra flavor but green beans are pretty easy to whip up. The green beans of today are much easier than those of my youth because they are so much less...
