• Songwriter Q&A with Sara Watkins

    American Songwriter recently interviewed former Nickel Creek fiddler, Sara Watkins. Watkins just released her first, self-titled, solo project. The interview takes the form of a question and answer session. Some attention is given to songwriting, but much of the discussion concerned

  • Banjo the dino

    Is the banjo a ferocious predator? It seems so. Three new species of dinosaurs have been discovered in Australia. The three were named after the Australian poet Banjo Paterson and characters in his poetry (Waltzing Matilda). The dino named Banjo is said

  • WSJ: Martin Guitars deals with the economy

    Wall Street Journal recently ran an article, in their business management section (July 6 edition, page B1), with the story of how Martin Guitar Company has dealt with the recently slow economy. The company was determined not to lay off any

  • Win a WichiDrive

    Our good friend Wichita Rutherford is giving away a box load of those handy little USB flash drives that everyone loves. What's more, the ones he's handing out are full of all kinds of fun, Wichita-related, bluegrass stuff. He's loaded these

  • Randy Kohrs: Devil of the Trail

    Randy Kohrs is in the process of finishing up a new acoustic CD. We don't have a title yet for the CD, but we're told an early fall release on Rural Rhythm Records is the plan. A single has just been

  • Stolen Fiddles

    Unfortunately we have another Stolen Instrument Alert to bring to your attention. Kayla Ray, plays fiddle and mandolin with the bluegrass band "Exception To The Rule". The day after her 17th birthday, our car was broken into while playing two

  • Mike Marshall on Fretboard Journal Talk Radio

    The folks at Fretboard Journal welcome a special guest to this week's edition of Fretboard Journal Talk Radio. Mandolin virtuoso Mike Marshall will be the guest today at 1pm PST. You can stream the show live here, or download it

  • Flatpicking Bluegrass

    Flatpicking Bluegrass is the latest CD from FGM Records, the label branch of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine. The CD features 12 flatpicking masters on 12 traditional bluegrass numbers. These are all vocal tunes, no instrumentals here. According to Dan Miller, publisher

  • Banjos in Bath

    No, not like that. We're talking about the city of Bath, two hours west of London, England. June 26-28, 2009, the streets of Bath will be overflowing with banjos. Those are the dates for this year's Bath International Banjo Festival. The festival is