• Flatt Lonesome Brings Beauty to the Darkness

    Flatt Lonesome’s outstanding new Mountain Home Music release, Silence in These Walls, should come with a warning label: “Proceed with caution if you’ve just had a fight with your significant other, are lonely or feeling lost in the world. You

  • IBMA Set to Stay In Raleigh

    When IBMA’s World of Bluegrass business conference kicked off Tuesday in Raleigh, attendees were welcomed to “the bluegrass capital of the world.” But one question was left hanging? For how much longer, since the agreement making Raleigh the host city is

  • Sonny and Bobby, Together Again

    No matter how smoothly tonight’s awards show goes at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass, the finale is pretty much guaranteed to be rocky. On a night that organizers promise will have a number of noteworthy moments, the biggest

  • Rhiannon Giddens: Bluegrass in Black and White

    Rhiannon Giddens remembers being shocked when an aunt from what she calls “the black side of the family” called herself a hillbilly. Hillbillies, in the stereotyped definitions of the media and television entertainment, were white. And as the daughter of a

  • IBMA, Foundation for Bluegrass Music Announce Merger

    Two premier bluegrass organizations, the International Bluegrass Music Association and the Foundation for Bluegrass Music will merge. The announcement, made Tuesday at the start of IBMA’s annual business conference, is aimed at strengthening the educational and fundraising efforts of the two

  • Before Breakfast – The Grascals

    The cover of the new CD from The Grascals shows the six bandmates around a table holding seven coffee mugs. It’s almost as if they’re waiting for you to join them. You can call it truth in advertising. Before Breakfast is

  • Hammertowne’s Homage To Hillbilly Heroes

    If there was an IBMA award for blue-collar bluegrass band, Hammertowne would easily win my vote. No fancy outfits, no frills, just straight ahead traditional bluegrass delivered with a high degree of consistency. The latest evidence of Hammertowne’s craftsmanship is found