Author: John Lawless

Carrie Hassler and her fine young band have been touring in France this past week, and are blogging about their Gallic adventures online. They have already posted a bunch of photos and several videos with more to come before they

Mandolin legend Herschel Sizemore may be retired from active touring, but he hasn't stopped writing and the recording the sort of clever instrumentals that have so endeared him to the mandolin world. His latest CD, B-Natural, has just been released. It's

With August 1 on the horizon, the airwaves are once again inundated with back to school advertisements. For recently-graduated high schoolers, plans for college are well underway, fraught with that bittersweet mix of anticipation and uncertainty. Next week we'll have stories

Béla Fleck made another of his periodic visits to The Berklee College Of Music in Boston last week, a visit chronicled on the school's web site. He was in Boston as a part of the publicity tour for his documentary film,

Chris Pandolfi has sent along the second video installment in his Infamous Stringdusters travelogue, chronicling the band's ongoing tour of the western US. It's a fun look at the way the guys interact with each other off stage, and shows some

Here's some unfortunate news about one of the giants of folk and traditional American music. Mike Seeger has been in treatment for leukemia this past few years, and has just recently been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare and aggressive form

Ron Spears has gone to work with James King, taking the spot recently vacated by Kevin Prater. Ron will be playing mandolin (and some guitar), and singing tenor with the band. According to James' wife, Julie, he an Kevin jointly decided

Nashville banjo player Charlie Cushman underwent emergency coronary bypass surgery yesterday (7/28). He suffered a mild heart attack on Monday, and was immediately scheduled for a triple bypass. His good friend, and fellow banjo picker, Larry Perkins tells us that everything

Blue Highways TV has released two DVDs containing classic television performances by Reno & Smiley and Mac Wiseman. Bluegrass 1963, the Reno & Smiley DVD has twenty songs from a television pilot they recorded in Roanoke, VA in 1963 at WDBJ,

Mike Marshall has prepared a book of transcriptions from his 2003 CD Into The Cauldron, a set of stunning duets with fellow mando-wizard Chris Thile. It contains transcriptions from 9 of 11 tracks on the CD, including the main melody,