by Christine | May 21, 2020 | Welcome Column
Friday night is music documentary night on BBC Channel 4 television. I always check the schedule and click to record any programme that promises to show people playing fretted instruments. The BBC has access to a load of old material and I’m rarely disappointed....
by Christine | Feb 19, 2010 | Welcome Column
On any given weekend at almost any time of year, the moving bluegrass community re-creates itself in fields and campgrounds around the country. Like an amoeba, it swells, changes shape, splits and re-creates itself anew somewhere down the road. It has a life and shape...
by Christine | Feb 23, 2019 | Welcome Column
She would show up at our front door one or two times a year; loaded for sale—bags of homemade goods. She knitted and hand stitched anything you could imagine, from beds, to dresses, to men’s underwear, or cozies. She had two gold-front teeth and her hair was always...
by Christine | Sep 17, 2012 | Welcome Column
I see it every time I pick up my vintage instrument. After nearly 100 years, this little mandolin has really been around. And it has this one little problem that I just can’t abide. It bugs me. Here I own one of the best sounding instruments I’ve ever...
by Christine | Sep 3, 2007 | Welcome Column
Have you ever wonder how bands get their names? For me, what they call themselves seldom determines whether or not I choose to listen. If I like the music, I don’t tend to think too hard about the band name, which somehow always seems to fit perfectly. So do bands sit...
by Christine | Dec 3, 2014 | Welcome Column
Well, the rains finally came, and that meant I had to learn all over how to include an umbrella into my life. But there was another, more disturbing development – my little Scottish umbrella is getting beat up, and that makes me sad. This Scottish umbrella was...
by Christine | Jun 8, 2013 | Welcome Column
We all know about the food fast (different than fast food). That, of course, is when we go without food for a certain designated period of time. Some folks do it voluntarily, and some folks do it involuntarily because they don’t have the money, and some do it for all...
by Christine | Dec 8, 2011 | Welcome Column
There’s a fellow named Larry Perkins in Nashville who is a longtime picker and knows pretty much everybody in the Bluegrass world back there. I met him briefly about ten years ago at an IBMA week in Louisville and bought a CD he had for sale called Glad Reunion Day....
by Christine | Mar 12, 2014 | Welcome Column
One of the most ubiquitous accoutrements to bluegrass players is…. the capo. (Sometimes called a “cheater bar”.) A cursory search of the internet shows the capo to be much older that you might think (17th century!). Apparently, the word itself comes from the Italian...
by Christine | Nov 30, 2016 | Welcome Column
Quite recently, I came across yet ANOTHER capo design – this one made by a company called Thalia. It reminded me of this column – please forgive me for subjecting it to you again!One of the most ubiquitous accouterments to bluegrass players is…. the capo....
