by Bert Daniel | Sep 10, 2025 | Welcome Column
In my endless quest to try and discover the true breadth of traditional music I have decided to learn yet another instrument. I should probably just concentrate on the instruments I know fairly well and get better at them but the temptation is just too compelling. The...
by Bert Daniel | Oct 4, 2025 | Welcome Column
Life is what we make of it. Nothing could be more emblematic of that maxim than the special people who have made the best of things despite being dealt a poor hand. I really love seeing Danny DeVito in movies, on TV shows and even on commercial ads. Like Robert Reich...
by Bert Daniel | Nov 24, 2025 | Welcome Column
Until the early 1970s, people the world over freely obtained, exported, shipped internationally, imported, and used, in unlimited quantities, any product that was derived from wild animals (including the living or dead animals themselves). Musical instrument makers,...
by Bert Daniel | Nov 26, 2025 | Welcome Column
About sixty years ago on July 25th,1965 Bob Dylan created a firestorm at the Newport Folk Festival. He introduced electric guitars to the music set and many people didn’t like it at all. Well Dylan survived the criticism about the changes in his musical direction over...
by Bert Daniel | Nov 27, 2025 | Welcome Column
I lost my pick tonight while practicing. The pick fell into my instrument because it is a sin to grip the pick too tightly and I don’t like to sin. You get the best tone when your grip is loose and if you haven’t ever dropped a pick you have too much of a death grip...
by Bert Daniel | Oct 3, 2024 | Welcome Column
Hurricane Helene dealt a devastating blow to the heartland of bluegrass and Appalachian mountain music last week. I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and I remember well the devastation Hurricane Camille caused in 1969 when it pounded the mountains...
