Author: Chris Jones

I think we may have a small problem in our world with bluegrass fundamentalism. I’m not referring to the desire on the part of some to define bluegrass music in some sort of legalistic terms with a set of rules

Greetings from New Haven, Connecticut, or at least that’s what the sign said on the exit. I’m here for the Podunk Bluegrass Festival just up the road in Hebron, having just wrapped up a wonderful week at the Augusta Heritage

There are at least a few different categories of bluegrass band leader personalities. All have their good and bad points. There can be a wide range too, from the Benito Mussolini school of management, to the style of the touchy-feely

I have tended to shy away from themes in my radio work. With the classic bluegrass show I do for SiriusXM called Truegrass, I’ll occasionally do tributes to some of the bluegrass greats in honor of a special occasion like

What with the heart of the road season upon us and some extra radio work this week, I’m taking this Wednesday (and 15 minutes on Thursday) off. Here then is a column I wrote a couple of years ago about

If you’re a songwriter, you may still have the original pad of paper you wrote the rough drafts of your songs on. Remember that even some of the songs we consider masterpieces probably had some temporary filler lines or lines

There’s been an exciting new development at Bluegrass Today. I think it’s even bigger than the recent breaking of the personnel change story that rocked the industry: “Brian Hampton to Kryspy Rydge.” It may even be bigger than the installation

The four stomachs of a cow are the rumen, the reticulum, the omasum, and the abomasum. What does this have to do with bluegrass, you may be asking, aside from a cow ingesting actual blue grass and sending it straight into

I thought it might be time to revisit the subject of naming instrumentals because I’ve discovered that musicians are still struggling with this task. The most recent example is on our own CD getting set for release this summer (here’s where

Do you need a publicist? A publicist will tell you yes, and issue a press release to that effect. Personally, I love publicists, especially the ones I have now (trying hard to score points here). For me, they’re absolutely necessary.