Author: Richard Thompson

Former Blue Grass Boy, Les Sandy, passed away at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst, North Carolina, on July 28, 2022, after a short battle with cancer. He was 93 years old.  Leslie Matheson Sandy was born, one of the eight

Dick Smith at the 2003 IBMA convention in Louisville, KY - photo © Jeromie Stephens Dick Smith, Washington, DC area musician, passed away unexpectedly in his sleep on Thursday morning July 28, 2022. He was 77 years old. Born October 4, 1943,

Arnold Terry, and with The Flint Hill Playboys on guitar (circa 1953) Arnold Terry, who played with Jim Eanes over the years and with Bill Monroe in the mid-1950s, passed away at his home in Collinsville, Virginia, on Sunday, July 17,

Rudy Lyle: The Unsung Hero of the Five-String Banjo by Max Wareham paints a vivid picture of the life and musical significance of the early bluegrass banjo giant. The book features exhaustive and largely never-before-published transcriptions and analyses of every

Influential bluegrass mandolinist Dewey Farmer passed away peacefully at a hospice care facility in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday morning, July 12, 2022. He was 79 years old. Dewey Lee Farmer was born on August 6, 1942, in Oconee County, South

The Walnut Valley Festival was launched in 1972 when a guitar maker , a farmer , and a businessman built their own music festival from the ground up. It has made the small town of Winfield into an annual destination

Bluegrass singer Brayden Williamson has long appreciated the legacy that Bill Monroe left, and has done much to build on that in his short musical career. Others are now recognizing his desire to keep traditional bluegrass alive, and encouraging the

As for many events around the globe, 2022 marks a return for the bluegrass music festival in La Roche-sur-Foron, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.  After two years of COVID restrictions the festival organizing committee met in early October 2021

Lockdown – remember that? - had many distressing effects. However, for some people it presented an opportunity to take on tasks that normal routine might not have permitted otherwise.  For producer, teacher/performer, and researcher Bob Carlin, the pandemic allowed him to

Dubbed "The oldest Bluegrass Festival in Europe," the Czech bluegrass community will celebrate the 50th annual Banjo Jamboree festival later this this month - June 17-18, 2022 – in the town of Čáslav, about 70 km east of Prague. Headlining this