Author: Richard Thompson

Country music singer and songwriter Mel Tillis passed away on November 19, 2017, at the age of 85. Following major surgery in 2016 the Country Music Hall of Famer never quite regained his full strength.  More associated as a country music crooner

Just turned 12 years of age, Fiddlin’ John Maupin began playing fiddle at the age of four. Since then he has been like a sponge, absorbing so much that by the time he was eight he knew over 200 fiddle

Author Barbara Martin Stephens was the common-law wife of Jimmy Martin, much troubled bluegrass star of the 1950s onwards.   Her personal story, Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler: My Life with Jimmy Martin, the King of Bluegrass, relates the

In advance of the release of his debut album, Raising the Bar, Chad Darou has released not one, but two singles today, the title track, an instrumental, and Heaven, a re-working of the Bryan Adams’ ballad, with Cia Cherryholmes stealing

How much progress are you making in jam sessions? Have you got all the development aids that you need? Well, will a songbook - the words to the tunes that you are trying to conquer – be helpful?  Published songbooks aren’t as

Retirement became hiatus as Gary Henderson, who recently vacated his positions with the Bluegrass Country Foundation at the end of May, has been lured back onto radio, this time at the central Tennessee-based Bell Buckle Radio. Henderson soon realised that quitting

Here’s another contribution in this periodical feature, where we ask a bluegrass personality to choose their top five Gospel songs. On this occasion Dan Hays, a former Executive Director at the IBMA, reveals his five favorites. Beulah Land - Marty Raybon:

Home in the Mountains was written by Rick Stanley, a cousin of bluegrass master Ralph Stanley and the husband of Donna Ulisse, a prolific songwriter in her own right. He was just 15 years old at the time it was

Harless Williams, or Tooter / Tootie, as he was known, bass player with north Texas bluegrass group the Stone Mountain Boys, passed away on June 27, 2018, after various illnesses. He was 84 years old and the last living member

Bluegrass mandolin legend Dean Webb, of the Dillards (aka The Darling Family on The Andy Griffith Show) fame from Salem, Missouri, passed away on Saturday, June 30, 2018. He was aged 81.  Roy Dean Webb was born on March 28, 1937,