by Christine | Jan 26, 2009 | Welcome Column
Dear friends, We fans of West Coast bluegrass suffered a loss this weekend. Ken Orrick of Lost Highway passed away. I think one would be hard pressed to find any among our ranks who has not enjoyed Lost Highway’s music over the years. They were special to many, with...
by Christine | Jan 28, 2011 | Welcome Column
We’ve got it so lucky here in northern California this time of year! In other parts of the country, live bluegrass becomes scarcer in the winter months but here in California, bluegrass music is as abundant and alive as the thick, deep green winter grasses on the...
by Christine | Feb 6, 2011 | Welcome Column
February can be bleak in the Central Valley. We’ve seen weeks on end where the sky is flat and gray; the earth, far off in the distance, is the same dull, leaden hue. Land and sky form an ashen wall. The cold that rolls down from the mountains and rests on our...
by Christine | Feb 2, 2010 | Welcome Column
We are well into our 35th year as an organization and what a ride it has been! I spent the evening last night with CBA member #1, Carl Pagter, and he is still going as strong as the organization he co-founded so many years ago. Many of our other members have left us...
by Christine | Feb 18, 2016 | Welcome Column
Lately I’ve been kind of obsessed with change and implementing positive change in my life. Many good things have come out of that obsession – I am regularly churning out new art pieces for my Art Abandonment passion, my writing has improved and I’m constantly...
by Christine | Jun 4, 2014 | Welcome Column
James Brown said “It’s a man’s world”. The same might be said about early bluegrass. Yes, there was Hazel DIckens (famously and importantly), but mostly, it was a male-dominated genre. In my first year of college, one of the male professors said “I am a feminist”, and...
by Christine | Jul 29, 2012 | Welcome Column
Just recently I entered into a debate about a certain behavior, by only a few currently, but growing rapidly, and occurring at festivals all over. That is the dancers who appear at festivals all over the country. These dancers like to get as close as possible to the...
by Christine | Aug 15, 2011 | Welcome Column
It is argued by some that the best way to enjoy a festival is to go with the family. After all, camping in the great outdoors is a favorite American pastime and what better way to spend quality time together than to camp out with the kids. In fact, you can not only...
by Christine | May 23, 2013 | Welcome Column
A lot of you long-time CBA members may remember the Festival checklist article that I used to write for the Breakdown every year. I forgot to remind our editor Mark Varner to rerun that article in the Breakdown, so I thought I would take this opportunity to remind you...
by Christine | Aug 28, 2019 | Welcome Column
For working bands, getting festival gigs means a lot. For a lot of bands, most of their regular performances are multi-hour gigs in pubs or bars, where the clientele may be indifferent, or largely absent, playing a room with often horrible acoustics and a club-quality...
