IBMA Week

After four years of missing this crazy, whacked-out, more or less unbelievable event, I’m headed back to Raleigh this evening. Prior to that I hadn’t missed in ten years. The past several evenings my wife, Lynn, and I have been watching the new Ken Burns documentary...

Identity Crisis

How many times has this happened? You nestle into your seat at a concert or festival, to see one of your favorite bands, and they announce from the stage their regular fiddler couldn’t make it, but they have so-and-so filling in at this show? It’s pretty common,...

If Instruments Could Talk

Perhaps some of you have been to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Though I have not visited this hallowed building, it is near the top of my “bucket list.” I didn’t know that it was originally called the Union Gospel Tabernacle. Thomas G. Ryman had it designed and...

If Nobody’s Listening, is the Grass Still Blue?

There’s a raging debate going on in the world of bluegrass between traditionalists and futurists. But bluegrass isn’t going to make a sound if nobody’s listening a generation from now. In 2009, a study by Simmons Research for IBMA revealed that 79% of the bluegrass...

If people did not love one another

 “If people did not love one another,I really don’t see what use there would be in having spring.” Victor Hugo“I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now.One does, I think , as one gets older.” Virginia WoolfMarch 1st… Spring..    Mornings...