Author: David Morris

  • Random thoughts on a new bluegrass season

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    Our roving correspondent David Morris shares a few loosely-related thoughts as we move forward into the 2011 festival season. THE GIBSONS SOAR. Could this be the year of the Gibson Brothers? A year after Ring the Bell won song of the

  • Hazel Dickens Tribute

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    More than a decade ago, bassist Todd Phillips walked into his first rehearsal for a reunion tour by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, and was caught by surprise. “I realized things I thought of as traditional or Carter Family were actually

  • Another Award For Hazel Dickens

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    Hazel Dickens, a pioneer who helped clear the bluegrass trail for Claire Lynch, Alison Krauss, Rhonda Vincent and others, will soon collect another award for her mantel. Dickens, 75, is the second winner of the D.C. Bluegrass Union’s Washington Monument Award

  • Remembering a Songwriter’s Songwriter

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    You could stock a jukebox or your mp3 player with Harley Allen songs and never grow tired of listening. Harley wrote songs about the common themes in all our lives – love, longing and desire – without sounding trite or tired.

  • Missy Raines – Ides of March

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    As a songwriter, I’ve been curious about the origins of a somber tune Missy Raines wrote called Ides of March since I first heard it in 2008. So with March 15 approaching, I decided to ask. Missy was a few weeks

  • A Bluegrass Call To Action

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    Early in a blistering set at the Birchmere Music Hall Friday night in Alexandria, Va., Tony Rice made it clear that music wasn’t the only thing on his mind. Referring to the horrible news from Japan that was just starting

  • Frank Solivan’s birthday bash

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    Monday was Frank Solivan’s 34th birthday, but the crowd who spent it with him in a Rockville, MD, church hall got the present – two and a half hours of pickin’ and singin’ by an all-star lineup usually only seen

  • The Travelers return

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    He’s been a Bluegrass Cardinal, a Gentleman and a Legend. Now Norman Wright is ready to be a Traveler again. The Travelers, which Wright and best friend Kevin Church put together in the late mid-1990s, are back together, booking shows and

  • Dave Giegerich memorial

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    David Morris sent along this report on yesterday's memorial service for the recently deceased resonator guitar master, Dave Giegerich. A who’s who of the Maryland/Washington D.C./Northern Virginia music scene turned out Saturday in Baltimore for a memorial service for Dave Giegerich,

  • Bass Strummit 2011 report

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    David Morris attended Bass Strummit III as the winner of Barry Bales’ Have Bass, Will Travel video contest on Bluegrass Today. Here, he shares his thoughts from the workshop. If you need to reach him, he’s probably practicing. Sorry, honey, but