by Christine | Dec 11, 2019 | Welcome Column
The joke about California is, we don’t have real weather. But California is a big state with widely varying topology, so that’s not exactly true. The mild weather areas for which we’re famous (Bay Area, the Southland) make us seem spoiled, compared to other parts of...
by Christine | Dec 27, 2014 | Welcome Column
Well, it seems that Bluegrass Music is not the only entity suffering from the clash of the modernists and the traditionalists. Just take a look around and you’ll see it elsewhere as well. The most obvious confrontation presenting it’s discordant and ugly...
by Christine | Dec 9, 2017 | Welcome Column
The smaller town of Cloverdale, California makes its presence known about a half hour’s drive north of the way bigger city of Santa Rosa. Cloverdale reminds me of a small mid-western town in say, Iowa, South Dakota, or Missouri. The main street is a joy to drive...
by Christine | Jan 4, 2015 | Welcome Column
Some columns are simply difficult to conjure. As I write, it’s January 1 and and my wife and I have just finished a 24 hour celebration of the New Year and my her birthday with some close friends and family. By the time you read this, my we will have spent three days...
by Christine | Nov 27, 2016 | Welcome Column
(EDITORS NOTE–I don’t know about you, but I miss Marcos Alvira’s monthly welcome columns. There was never, ever any doubt that he put considerable thought into his pieces. I always assumed…and am pretty sure I was right in my...
by Christine | Mar 27, 2017 | Welcome Column
Some columns are simply difficult to conjure. As I write, it’s January 1 and and my wife and I have just finished a 24 hour celebration of the New Year and my her birthday with some close friends and family. By the time you read this, my we will have spent three days...
by Christine | Dec 16, 2014 | Welcome Column
(Editor’s Note—Bruce Campbell gets all Christmasy on us in 2009.) ‘Twas the night after Christmas, and all through our home, It looked like a place where a cyclone had blown There was wrapping and ribbons and tissue and bows Where my wife’s new earrings went, nobody...
by Christine | Dec 23, 2009 | Welcome Column
It’s Christmas Eve eve, so I thought I’d trot out something from a late December column several years ago! ‘Twas the night after Christmas, and all through our home, It looked like a place where a cyclone had blown There was wrapping and ribbons and tissue...
by Christine | Oct 10, 2017 | Welcome Column
GRAND OLD OPRYAt the Civic Centerwatching George Jones singHe Stopped Loving Her Today,I thought, Hell he’s drunkas a skunk! As drunkas daddy in 1958when the two of us out huntingheard Roy Acuff singGreat Speckled Birdon the pickup radio – WSM.That night I learned...
by Christine | Feb 11, 2019 | Welcome Column
What are the hallmarks of traditional bluegrass? In contrast to “modern”, the assumptions are that it is less flashy instrumentally, more concise and conventional in terms of form, and that the lyrics will be more “heartfelt” and sympathetic with the bluegrass...
