• 45th Takarazuka Bluegrass festival in Japan

    Saburo and Toshio Watanabe celebrated their 45th anniversary hosting the Takarazuka festival in Sanda City, Japan this past weekend. The pair have run B.O.M. Service (Bluegrass and Old Time Music) in the nearby city of Hyogo since 1972, selling American and European bluegrass

  • International Bluegrass at Tir Na Nog

    Occasionally, International Bluegrass has been a touchy subject with complaints that organizations like the IBMA have not paid sufficient attention to the requirements of those outside the borders of the USA. But to me, the international bluegrass music community has, for the

  • The Fiction Twins – Toshio Watanabe

    The popularity of bluegrass music in Japan is a subject well known and widely discussed among US and European grassers. Since the postwar occupation of the island nation in the late 1940s, the Japanese have warmed to many aspects of