Author: Chris Jones

Last week we discussed ways for bluegrass bands to cut costs, which ranged from laying off non-essential staff (like managers, bass players, or yourself), to sleeping in a ditch instead of a hotel. This week, I'd like to look at

I know we’re all tired of bad news about the music business, and bad news in general, but the reality we're facing is that when in-person concerts and smaller music clubs are back up and running, things will still not

Do you ever watch Jeopardy? Do you ever give answers in the form of questions? This is  confusing to people, don't you think? Do you ever just get sick of questions? Are you hoping there's prize money somewhere at the end

In keeping with tradition - and we wouldn't want to break with tradition now, would we - Chris has delivered his weekly column during World of Bluegrass 2020 on video. Virtually, so to speak.

In the radio work I do I get to hear a lot of current bluegrass releases, and I have to say that bluegrass songwriters may be in a bit of a subject rut. Our genre now seems dominated by songs

Mr. Bluegrass Manners has been off for a little while. He chose to self-isolate after having had to spend some time in the Nashville Greyhound station (it's a long story). While in quarantine he continued to answer emails, even the

People love to make predictions. It's not important that almost all of them are hit-and-miss. That even goes for Nostradamus, and that was what he was known for; that, and apparently he grew some very impressive spaghetti squash. Usually people like to

It's time once again for bluegrass mad libs. Note that this isn’t "Mad Libs" with capital letters. That would be a trademark, and that game is available only in those lovely pads of paper or now on the Mad Libs

We all get songs stuck in our heads from time-to-time. They're often really annoying ones like that Liberty Insurance jingle with the highly creative lyrics: "Liberty liberty liberty . . . liberty." Or it can be a long and melodically

I know it's a little strange to be too busy during the pandemic, but I've ended up being swamped with work I’m doing this week for the Walnut Valley Festival's NewSong Showcase, and I have a Facebook live concert tomorrow,