Author: Richard Thompson

Mandolin maestro Herschel Sizemore passed away on Friday morning, September 9, 2022 at his home in Roanoke, VA. He was 87 years of age.  Herschel Lee Sizemore was born on August 6, 1935, in Sheffield (near Muscle Shoals), Alabama, and raised

A decade on from his debut solo project, Toshio Watanabe will release a follow-up CD, The Fiction Twins Plus: My Favorite Songs (Red Clay Records RC-128), at the beginning of October (2022).  In the liner notes Watanabe relates …. "When I was

Noted banjo and guitar player, and former Blue Grass Boy, Steve Arkin, passed away on Wednesday, August 24, 2022, in Boston, Massachusetts, following a cerebral aneurysm. 78 years of age when he passed, he was to be considered to be

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