Author: Wayne Erbsen

I guess you can say I've had a love affair with words almost since before I learned to talk. Since moving to North Carolina from California in 1972, I've learned that a “minner dipper” is a mandolin, a “scratch box”

Shindig. To people in western North Carolina where I live, Shindig is short for Shindig on the Green, which is an outdoor bluegrass music festival held on the courthouse steps in Asheville. Now in its forty-fifth year, the Shindig is

A while back I was invited to bring my fiddle to a potluck party some friends of mine hosted in the mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. I brought along my instrument in the hopes of finding some bluegrass musicians to

In 1992, Bill Clinton grabbed headlines with the phrase “It's the economy, stupid," and used it to unseat George Bush as President. I’m not trying to stir up old political feuds or throw a hissy fit, but my point here should

One of the classic Bill Monroe songs of all time is Footprints in the Snow. Despite the fact that Bill claimed authorship under the pseudonym Rupert Jones, the song was much older. According to Neil Rosenberg, Bill learned it in the