Author: John Curtis Goad

  • Doyle Lawson at ETSU

    | by

    There are not many music genres in which fans are able to consistently interact with their heroes face-to-face, and even less where stars and legends will willingly sit down and talk or play music with fans. Thankfully, bluegrass is one

  • Glenn Valley – Smith Family Band

    | by

    This past September, a new documentary filmed by and featuring some of today’s hottest young pickers premiered at IBMA. Conceived and directed by Corey Smith, a 17-year-old guitarist from North Carolina (with the help of Zeb Snyder, another young North

  • Back to Jubilee Road – Pete Goble

    | by

    One of bluegrass music’s most respected and prolific songwriters is Pete Goble. Along with his longtime writing partner, the late Leroy Drumm, Goble penned such modern classics as Tennessee 1949, Big Spike Hammer, and Colleen Malone. Although numerous artists have

  • Lonely Tonight – Grassville

    | by

    Many bluegrass bands today strive to find a sound somewhere between traditional and contemporary, looking toward the past while still managing to provide fresh material for modern audiences. A new band with that mix of contemporary and traditional sound is

  • The Story of the Day That I Died

    | by

    With all the genre blurring present in modern bluegrass music, which finds artists mixing hints of country, pop, folk, and numerous other genres into the standard 1-4-5 drive, fans of the old sound have wondered if there’s any place for

  • Open Wings – Wendy Burch Steel

    | by

    Bay Area singer-songwriter Wendy Burch Steel has been writing and performing for almost her entire life. While she taught herself to play guitar at age 11 and played in bands throughout the 1970s and 1980s, she has only recently released

  • In the Waiting – Kelley Nelson

    | by

    Since its beginnings, bluegrass has been closely connected to Gospel music, with many performers choosing to always include one or two Gospel songs on their records. Entirely Gospel albums have also been quite popular with bluegrass fans. Vocalist Kelley Nelson,