Opinion / Humor

No recording artist likes bad reviews. In fact, most recording artists are pretty unhappy with reviews that are even mediocre. When was the last time you heard an artist say, "Well, it was a pretty bad review, but it was

Some of our best-known bluegrass standards were most often written by one person or maybe two, like Carter Stanley or Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Almost none were written by a committee of three-to-five writers, meeting for a 2:00 p.m.

I don't want to alarm you about the passage of time, or, if I'm honest, I do want to alarm you about the passage of time, because it's fun: The movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou came out over 20

It's been such an exciting development to see the growth of bluegrass music in higher education. Programs like those at ETSU, Berklee, and Morehead State are not just providing degrees to students who are pursuing their musical passion, they are

The Memorial Day weekend is sort of a milestone in the year. It's the unofficial start of summer. The fashion people also tell us it's now okay to wear white shoes (lime green leisure suit optional).  Canada celebrates a long weekend

After writing 500 or so of these, I find that I occasionally tire of all the truth-telling (with the occasional lie thrown in just for fun, or do I have that ratio reversed?). If you wouldn't mind indulging me, then,

There's a tradition here of publishing at least one bluegrass haiku column per year. I've usually taken presidential election years off because even short-form poetry about leaves and clouds is controversial and divisive in these years ("Is that a reference

WIth Gen Z soaking up a lot of press right now (while not knowing what the antiquated term "press" even refers to), it's easy to forget that millennial jokes still resonate with people, which I think is even a pretty

For your consideration: I might as well warn you that I'll be opening all correspondence this way for the next two weeks. It has a little more zip to it than, "To Whom it May Concern," anyway. I'm also going to

I'm traveling today, so this is actually a rerun from years gone by. Since the subject is taxes for musicians, though, you'll find it has a certain timeless quality, because nothing else gives quite the sense of deja vu as