by Bert Daniel | Jun 26, 2025 | Welcome Column
Gibson Mastertone Banjos, the Life, the Lore, the Reality Sean J. Barry June 23, 2025 Foreword: The uninitiated might find parts of the following essay confusing primarily because some of the material is arcane and unfamiliar, but even that group should and will soon...
by Bert Daniel | May 30, 2025 | Welcome Column
I doubt if very many people know what a lint head is. But everybody knows the term “red neck”. It’s usually used in a derogatory fashion to refer to unsophisticated southerners. Hillbilly. Cracker. White trash. Not something you’d want to be it seems, and yet some...
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...
